What is up with America?

Its a third world country, masquerading as a first, and has been for a long time now.

Work your whole life and pay your tax and be a model citizen, get cancer, go bankrupt

I don’t agree with many US policies but I do respect their move away from political correctness.

They don't see it like that and the majority don't live like that either.

and yet they will happily pay for their oversized military

I can only comment on my personal experience of the USA. This is not a political commentary, more a social commentary.

i can here with little in the early 1980s first. The place was mad, you worked hard and earned decent money. It was non-stop work. I left and worked in many other countries including Ireland. I worked hard everywhere I went.

i came back here in the early 2000s, then decided to move here when an opportunity arose.

America is a different way of living to Europe and Ireland especially. Do I understand this country? Absolutely not!

The main difference is self reliance here compared to Ireland. People (the older generation) do NOT expect the government to look after them. They look after themselves. Is there a safety net? Yes! Is that safety net being abused? Yes! There is absolutely a generational divide in America. (Amongst many other divides)

America is supposedly the worlds richest country, yet food banks abound and the queues are getting longer. The levels of poverty here I have seen in other countries Africa for example. The level of wealth is also on the side of ostentatious.

America is a divided country in outlook. Not only politically, but racially, educationally, socially and as I have said generationally.

currently, there is a major split in the things that people want. This is causing a huge rift in the electorate and between generations. That rift is the self reliant ideology v’s more government in peoples lives (supports).

The amount of BS I see being spouted by different candidates up for elections is honestly annoying. Weathermen claiming to be scientists, farmers claiming to be morally superior, hoodlums claiming to be righteous, it makes me not want to be involved in anything political here (not that I was anywhere else).

Education seems to be the main cause of many of Americas ills, in my humble opinion. Education standards are abysmal. School standards are crap compared to the education I received in Ireland. Civics, geography, world view, history, have all been politicised. College education is FAR too liberal leaning and not based on educating yourself. The horror I see when graduates finally get a pay check and see that tax is taken out, never fail to amaze me. Herself lectures part-time. She is frustrated by the level of English, the inability of many to write properly and even structure a sentence (won’t even mention spelling) Hey don’t knock me, I know my own sentence structure is awful.

As an outsider, I am constantly amazed that the level of education is so bad amongst many here. General education, general knowledge, things that most people in the rest of the world know, here they do not. My own opinion: this has been orchestrated over decades. Dumbing down is a national “thing”. Thinking for yourself, is frowned on, group think abounds. My own opinion is that CNN and FOX exemplify this, based on political affiliation.

Corruption is everywhere. Don’t kid yourself, it is endemic.

The ability to make things happen, that is the main difference I find in America toEurope. The open mindedness and can-do attitude where a profit is evident, still exists. The “new think” way of making things happen is very evident here. Business is open to new ideas and people will listen even to someone like me without the old boys club ties that abound in Europe.

America feels to me like it is going through a cultural revolution currently. Socially, it has never been more divided. Culturally it has never been as divided since the civil war. That puts many worries on me for its future.

The problem with the “self reliance” mantra in the US is that, in the absence of government support, the vacuum is exploited financially when it comes to things like utterly exorbitant university and healthcare costs. It’s not really a pure form of “self reliance” when things swing from reliance on government support to reliance on debt finance. The other problem is that the American appreciation of self-reliance often seems to overcook into paranoia about Communism, where even light socialist policies can be decried as the demon spawn of the Soviet Union.

The results of that culture haven’t been bad in certain aspects. Healthcare / education can be truly excellent for those who can access it, while there is a competitiveness driving people to aspire to success, innovation and entrepreneurship. The downside however, as their growing population has made it ever harder to mask, is that those born into the poverty cycle have lesser support in breaking free from it. It’s most apparent in my view in how poor black communities have fared over the 20th and 21st centuries. The country’s “self-reliance” culture almost seems to deem it sufficient that people in those communities have freedom now and therefore the freedom to do well if they just apply themselves — rather than it probably being the case that further state intervention might help to balance things out.

the US today is no different from nazi germany at this stage, killed for being black, killed for being a woman, killed for being trans couldnt imagine having to live there must be a living nightmare

Thank god we have support here, I was over there for some time and it was the norm to work 2 to 3 jobs in a go and be a slave to work, be 100s of thousands in college debt and be screwed if you had a health issue, the more money you had the better person you were. Land of the free... absolute joke.

USA - Yeah its a weird one alright. I mean look at all they have achieved, influence on industry, economic development, art, culture through branding, Hollywood, music, International presence, military and logistical capabilities, its incredibly impressive.

Yet, they have this clusterfcuk of numpties (right and left of the spectrum) who are never happy and seem to try wreck everything. You'd wonder if those United States would not be better breaking off into other states as this forced union and chasm of ideological differences in some regards seems to creep closer towards a domestic conflict or increased terrorism.

It's a bizzare nation, but people forget how absolutely massive it is with a huge variety of cultural and ethic groups and traditions.

I've honestly no idea how the fcuking place works at all.

Most of the people trying to get in come from countries which are ran by gangsters. Narco states where you can be taken out and beheaded or hung from a bridge on a whim. Its not hard to be better than these places yet fall far short of the standards you'd expect from true 1st World countries.

I've lived in UK, Canada and now usa(Maine). I have to say my quality of life has never been better and I pay less tax, plus the access to wilderness is unparalleled in the western world. So I'm pretty happy. I bury my head in the sand when it comes to politics and I avoid the TV channels. Obviously my case is specific but there's nowhere else I'd rather be right now.