European Who Loves America

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
My sentiments exactly.

I love America. Seriously I do. But all the flag-waving and big “we’re number one” foam finger bullshit was a real downer for me.
[/quote]

Fuck you commie! Love it or leave it! Toby motherfucking Keith! Murica! FREEDUMB!

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]sufiandy wrote:
Nobody here really has a problem with immigrants. The problem is its turned to a highly political issue to get more votes. Ironically half of Americans look to Europe as the ideal for the same reasons you’re thinking about leaving.[/quote]

ugg, I hope it isn’t half…[/quote]

I’ll make that trade in a heart beat. Everyone that thinks Europe is some utopia can GTFO and I’ll take any and every European that loves America.

We’ll all be happy as shit, and I’ll get to taste some new foods too. As long as those Brits don’t try and swipe our guns again, it would work out wonderfully, for the States at least. [/quote]

This.

But no one leaves. Americans in 2004- If we re-elect Bush I’m outta here. 2008- If we elect McCain (halfish) Obama (halfish) I’m moving to Canada! 2012- If we re-elect Obama this country is over and I’m moving!

I’m waiting on facebook for 2016 to help all the people who say they are going to move if Democrat or Republican candidate wins. I will show up on their door to get their luggage for them.

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
My sentiments exactly.

I love America. Seriously I do. But all the flag-waving and big “we’re number one” foam finger bullshit was a real downer for me.
[/quote]

Fuck you commie! Love it or leave it! Toby motherfucking Keith! Murica! FREEDUMB! [/quote]

FREEEEEDUUUUUMB!!!

I DID leave it. TWICE. Pay attention.

:wink:


Of course if you do decide to follow in the footsteps of Christopher Hitchens, you should of course, as a speaker of English, be cognizant of the significant language barrier you will face in your prospective adoptive land.

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:
I am a European who loves America and has feeling of patriotism or support for it, especially the foundation it is built upon, a constitutional republic, true free speech, a free market (I know some people don’t think it is I am hardly qualified to take that point up)

My country has a monarchy and like most of Europe is a nanny state with restrictions and general limitations on freedom comparative to the U.S. Nothing oppressive or dictatorial, we have elections etc and freedoms.
I have for the last few years identified with the U.S, ideologically, economically and hate the elitist nonsense Europeans generally spout about America.

I was wondering how Americans feel about European immigration to the U.S and how they feel someone should earn the right to become a citizen. Me and my girlfriend both have similar desires to live in the states despite being financially lacking at this current moment, when we have decent income and skills we hope to move and I was wondering what Americans feel like about this.

[/quote]

If you accept our ideals and are looking forward to joining/assimilating to our culture, please come. We need more like you. I want immigrants to come legally to our country that believe in our founding ideals and culture.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

…I might suggest you try Canada first…

[/quote]

I would tend to agree. I believe many and I mean many folks should try Canada first.

Not necessarily saying the OP should, however. He sounds like the kind of immigrant we should welcome. He would probably eventually learn that the US did not stay out of both world wars; the Marshall Plan cost 103 billion in today’s dollars which deserves more than “Yeah, that is good but…;” what an “insane interest rate” really is.

Wouldn’t you agree?
[/quote]

Push, you’ve spent some time in Canada. Don’t know which part, but from what I hear, there’s really not much difference between, say, Ontario and Ohio, Alberta and Idaho, or Vancouver, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia. What were the major differences you encountered, beside the obvious lack of an unambiguous, unalienable second-amendment guaranteed right to keep and bear arms?

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Sifu wrote:

America is great because the founders understood that none of the rights guaranteed in the first amendment would mean anything without the second amendment.

[/quote]

Excellent point that I think many people (not progressives, of course, and probably not most Europeans) “get.”

I don’t really understand that claim, you can look at the national budget and see where our healthcare costs come from, it is from taxes, VAT etc. If you mean to say America funds western military ability that is true, but to be fair that is in the United states geo-political favour. It isn’t charity.
I don’t think America should be responsible for militarisation and equipping other nations. I do think Universal Healthcare via Thomas Paine’s plan to fund it through income tax etc would be a far better way to spend U.s citizens money than empire building and hegemony maintenance.

[/quote]

Of course, health care costs come from taxes. But now go figure what taxes Europeans would be paying if they were funding a defense budget that did not include direct and indirect American subsidies.

While you’re at it go figure where you and your European neighbors would be now without the Marshall Plan.[/quote]

What does the U.S currently give to Britain that it does not pay for?
As for the marshall plan yeah that is good, but lets not forget America stayed out of both world wars and loaned to the allies at insane interest which basically built modern American economic might and left the U.S ten steps ahead of everyone else.

I love America but I don’t love American chauvinists just like I don’t like British people being rude or grossly nationalistic.

[/quote]

Oh, good grief. The question now is do I take valuable minutes out of my day to respond to this drivel?[/quote]

Ooooh! Ooooh!

I know the answer!

It’s “Yes”![/quote]

Well, since you asked, the ~116,000 American deaths in WWI and the 225,000 in the European theater of WWII (neither figure includes the wounded) would tend to contradict the absurd notion that “America stayed out of both world wars.”

Want more?

Do you want what “the U.S currently give to Britain that it does not pay for”?

Do you also want to know why the Marshall Plan is worth more than, “Yeah, that is good but…”?

Pray tell.[/quote]

I didn’t ask, actually. I answered your rhetorical question of whether you should take valuable minutes out of your day to respond. I knew what the answer was, so I said it.

I suspect YD92 meant “stayed out” in the sense of “stayed out until the opportune moment, when we could no longer get away with supplying both sides with munitions and funds”, when in the first war, the Germans were already on the ropes and threatening mutiny, and in the second, when the unfortunate (for Germany) attack on Pearl Harbor forced us to get involved.

Incidentally, Yamato-Damashii, one would think that a guy who selects for himself a username meaning “the spirit of Japan” would have at least a passing interest in, you know, living in Japan.

How about it? Not such a bad place, once you get used to it.

It’s not AMERICA, of course, but very few places are.

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Sifu wrote:

America is great because the founders understood that none of the rights guaranteed in the first amendment would mean anything without the second amendment.

[/quote]

Excellent point that I think many people (not progressives, of course, and probably not most Europeans) “get.”

I don’t really understand that claim, you can look at the national budget and see where our healthcare costs come from, it is from taxes, VAT etc. If you mean to say America funds western military ability that is true, but to be fair that is in the United states geo-political favour. It isn’t charity.
I don’t think America should be responsible for militarisation and equipping other nations. I do think Universal Healthcare via Thomas Paine’s plan to fund it through income tax etc would be a far better way to spend U.s citizens money than empire building and hegemony maintenance.

[/quote]

Of course, health care costs come from taxes. But now go figure what taxes Europeans would be paying if they were funding a defense budget that did not include direct and indirect American subsidies.

While you’re at it go figure where you and your European neighbors would be now without the Marshall Plan.[/quote]

What does the U.S currently give to Britain that it does not pay for?
As for the marshall plan yeah that is good, but lets not forget America stayed out of both world wars and loaned to the allies at insane interest which basically built modern American economic might and left the U.S ten steps ahead of everyone else.

I love America but I don’t love American chauvinists just like I don’t like British people being rude or grossly nationalistic.

[/quote]

Britain currently has plans to reduce it’s army to fifty thousand personnel. That number is so small that the British Army is either going to have to reduce standards for the SAS or disband the unit entirely.

The Royal navy is a joke. They built two CATOBAR capable aircraft carriers that would have roughly been comparable to the US Forrestal class, the downgraded them to helicopter carriers with limited capabilities.

The country is no longer capable of projection of force and is wide open to attack. With the exception of Poland which is upgrading it’s military in response to Russian belligerence the rest of the European countries have given up on maintaining their military’s. They all figure they can let the “fucking Yanks” foot the bill.

I’ve had to deal with anti American, British chauvinism my whole life, including from my own family. So you aren’t telling me anything new. The British as a people have lost their way.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

Well, a very good argument could’ve been made that we NEVER should’ve entered WWI. Remember Wilson PROMISED that would be the case. But alas, Wilson, taking his cues from Teddy Roosevelt that the US should start flexing its muscle worldwide reneged on his campaign promise and set the stage for…WWII.
[/quote]

I agree.

And as to that… how different the world would be right now if the Germans had just captured Paris in 1914, instead of chasing after the retreating French army shortly before the battle of the Marne.

Alexander Von Kluck and T. E. Lawrence: the two men responsible for much of the world’s problems in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

…I might suggest you try Canada first…

[/quote]

I would tend to agree. I believe many and I mean many folks should try Canada first.

Not necessarily saying the OP should, however. He sounds like the kind of immigrant we should welcome. He would probably eventually learn that the US did not stay out of both world wars; the Marshall Plan cost 103 billion in today’s dollars which deserves more than “Yeah, that is good but…;” what an “insane interest rate” really is.

Wouldn’t you agree?
[/quote]

Push, you’ve spent some time in Canada. Don’t know which part, but from what I hear, there’s really not much difference between, say, Ontario and Ohio, Alberta and Idaho, or Vancouver, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia. What were the major differences you encountered, beside the obvious lack of an unambiguous, unalienable second-amendment guaranteed right to keep and bear arms?
[/quote]

They have a nanny state in many respects. The US does too but in different ways. They are more repressive in First Amendment rights (as per the America’s First Amendment rights).

Alberta is definitely the exception in terms of the general outlook on life that its people have. They tend to detest much of their federal government as well as their progressive provincial brethren. I get along very well with Albertans.

They are a much smaller country, population wise (about the same or less as California but spread out among the planet’s second largest land area) so they have not had as many social problems as the US. They’ve also greatly benefited, as has Europe, from having the US taxpayer defend it so they do not have to nail their taxpayers in that respect. Their cost of freedom has been borne by their big southern brother. That frees up a lot of dough.

But the Second Amendment deal is a big one. They would behave like sheep if invaded by a foreign power or were taken over internally by a tyrannical government; they’d have no choice.

I do like Canadians. Have done business in BC, Alberta and Ontario. They are good people although I do believe (and many of them do too) they’ve overdone it on the immigration issue. They are losing their national identity in some respects due to a virtual open border to all who want to come. They have not been careful enough in who they’ve admitted. Ask them. They’ll tell you the same thing, I bet.[/quote]

Thanks. That was a good, thoughtful answer.

I wonder, though, if those differences you identified won’t narrow progressively as the years pass, as government surveillance and gun control in the United States continue to rear their ugly heads.

And really, what percentage of the American people do you think would actually fight if they were “invaded by a foreign power, or were taken over internally by a tyrannical government”? America has a lot of guns, that’s for sure, and a lot of highly competent people owning them. However, these competent and athletic gun owners are in the overwhelming minority when compared to the broad swath of fatass dumbasses who would behave like the very sheep you say Canadians would turn into.

As for Immigration, I think the Canadians have been pretty fortunate. While we get all the poor, uneducated peasants from Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico, they get all the smart rich people from Hong Kong. Not bad.

For the record (I know you know this, but for those who don’t) the gun laws in Canada do not result in complete or semi-complete bans as in Britain or Australia. Military assault rifles and battle rifles are legal, provided they are not fully automatic, and the barrel length is over 18.5 inches. Also, handguns with a barrel length over 4 inches are legal, but restricted. In 2012 the requirement to register non-restricted weapons as lifted in all provinces except Quebec, which is understandable inasmuch as it is a hotbed of rebel separatists, French people, and Charles Poliquin.

Oh and another thing. The US stayed out of world war two whinge is bullshit. You have been listening to too much propaganda. If the US had entered the war in 1939 it might have made matters worse. If the US had entered the war then it might have stopped Hitler from attacking the Russians who were supplying Hitler with raw materials and fuel.

In 1939, 1940 and even into 1941 the US was not prepared to go into war. Yes the US made money off of selling weapons to the British early on. That injection of cash is what finally pulled the US out of the depression and got it’s economy growing again which was a good thing. That two year period is when the US armaments industry retooled, retrained and got itself onto a war footing. That is why when the US finally was dragged into the war it was quickly able to mobilize and supply weapons to it’s allies.