Well, sorta. More like “extreme opposite of liberal.” Not so much as a conservative, (no one would confuse him with Barry Goldwater or William F. Buckley Jr.), as extreme Right Wing, without invoking invidious comparisons to Hitler, Mussolini, or Franco, etc.
The best movie ever crafted by man.
Now here’s a stereotype I can get offended by.
I am confident you would find yourself perfectly well treated in 99% of the USA. It’s actually a pretty tolerant place. Plenty of my friends are pussies and they get on just fine.
There is a macho aspect to US culture, but for the most part it’s for show, if you follow my meaning.
This is blowing my mind. American conservatives typically prefer privatization because it supports the capitalist idea of competition. American liberals are usually more in favor of regulation, to keep the greedy from being in power.
You actually consider the US extreme right/right? I’ve always wondered why Canadians and Europeans tend to consider the US government oppressive. I can’t think of any freedoms or privileges I’ve been denied because of government mandate. We’re seen as overly religious, but I can’t think of anything I’ve been denied because of prevailing religion. If anything, I’ve been denied benefits because someone more needy got them, not because of any draconian right-wing decree.
We gripe about taxes, which are supposedly much lower in the US than Europe. Many European corporations outsource to escape high taxation, from what I understand. One of the reasons the UK hasn’t joined the European Union is because they benefit from the numerous continental corporations that operate inside their boundaries. Greece serves as a prime example of the consequences of distributing too much from the money coffers, so the fact that we don’t want to go down that path shouldn’t be considered a purely right-wing issue.
Um…what? I’m pretty sure the UK joined the European Union in 1973.
Sorry, should have said “UK didn’t adopt the euro as currency.”
If they had, how would that make the UK a less attractive location for continental corporations?
I have never encountered a European who considered the U.S. “oppressive” and I have no idea where that idea came from.
Rather, a frequent criticism is that the U.S. with its fascination with “rugged individualism” and related themes is considered to be lacking in compassion and dismissive of the plight of the poor. One can provide arguments taking either side, but it helps to begin with the actual positions of and attitudes toward each other.
Again, I have never heard the religious attitudes described as oppressive by Europeans. (There are folks in the U.S. who consider them oppressive, but that is not the same thing.) Europeans tend to be more puzzled by American attitudes toward religion, simply not understanding why so much American rhetoric is driven by religious beliefs, whether it is pressing for Creationism instead of science in the classroom, condemnation of people such as Mitt Romney by members of his own party for having the “wrong” religious beliefs, or opposition to nude beaches, American attitudes are just strange, (not oppressive), from the European perspective.
Greece is a good example. When all the currency of a country is tied to an equivalent value of multiple other countries, particularly those with which one trades, extensively, the currency ties the hands of the country in the way that an independent domestic currency, (which can float in value), does not.
Paul Krugman provides an explanation of howtrading in the Euro has actually forced Greece closer to default.
I think geography has a lot to do with it actually, as well as the relative youth of the US compared to Europe. The US pretty much fought its way to the west coast, whether it was by displacing the natives, making deals, or beating other nations to the punch. We still have that mentality that competing forces are lurking in wait for our soft underbellies to show.
Plus, the extremists make the news, so the rest of the world thinks nutcases like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump represent typical Americans. Surely Europe remembers its own examples of extreme religious belief, like the Inquisition? The Crusades? We’re softening the edges little by little. I personally thought in my lifetime I would never see a black president or legalization of gay marriage. Give us a few centuries. We’ll mellow out like they did.
If the OP considers the US extreme right/right, how does he consider Israel? Russia? China? The Middle East in general?
You know absolutely nothing about scandinavian, or european for that matter, immigration.
To a certain extent Greece is a terrible example as their problems are largely self-inflicted. I wouldn’t like to say that Greece blatantly made up its economic figures in applying to join the eurozone so let’s just say the Greeks were “extremely optimistic in their projections” and the EU had little legal recourse to challenge Greece’s numbers. They were a mess when things were going well; no surprise that they’re a mess now.
The other three PIGS countries (or four if you count Iceland) are probably better examples.
Oooo an ad hominem to kick things off.
Well played, sir. You win the internetz.
You don’t know what an ad hominem is, either, apparently.
“You know nothing” treads heavily into personal attack territory and less into the golden land of substantive rebuttal.
Though, perhaps the latter feels foreign to you.
(Substance and style, boyee)
Sometimes it’s a term of affection, but this is apparently only when a wildling falls in love with a young and handsome Night’s Watchman.
Regardless of how Greece got into their situation, (and they certainly played the greatest role in causing their own grief), their rigid tie to the Euro is definitely keeping them locked in it. Without the ability to let their national currency float, they will never have the funds, (from outside banks), to restore infrastructure and their balance of trade with foreign countries will always prevent them from paying off the loans.
Actually, the first ad hominem was yours with “*Not that any of you wish to have an honest discussion. . . *”
Indeed he evoked the ad hominem upon his detractors, before he raised his hand to split the sea in half, allowing the dimwits and PC ideologues to pass despite their deflections derived of intellectual insecurity.
Or it’s, yanno, factual. “Don’t listen to this man, he rapes kittens” is ad hominem - your potential for kitten buggery being irrelevant to (most) debates. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about”, unsubstantiated but wholly apparent as it may be, or is, is not in fact ad hominem. If you really don’t know shit about what you’re talking about, people **really **shouldn’t listen to you - it’s perfectly logical. All men are entitled to their opinions, but not all opinions are equally valid.
And seeing as you really, overtly and unquestionably don’t know fucking anything about European immigration or the behaviour of first gen European immigrants (factually speaking), well, maybe read a book, or meet an actual guy you’re talking about, I don’t know how you can unfuck yourself. S’up to you, man. It’s work. Unrewarding, but somewhat satisfying still.