Americans have the worst quality of life in the developed world

is this not a FREE SPEECH SITE?? And i am not threatening or harming anyone so why you harshin my gig hardcore cruster?

 

Lol... I think we'd probably send them to a village. Dropping them off in the middle of the desert wouldn't really prove a point.

 

Indeed, here's a guy who is speaking my language

 

Like all liberties and freedoms there are limits and responsibilities.

I just said be careful. You're new here so I thought you might want to be aware. Insults, personal attacks will certainly not be tolerated. You shouldn't have any problems if you follow the site's official guidelines: http://www.hipforums.com/forumguidelines.htm

 

rules? are you shitting me? or is the shit word forbidden on this site =)

what kind of hippies have guidelines and rules?

fake hippies!

 

I think as the old hippie sentiment goes

Peace and love

Don't worry about it, people just wanna get along.

 

...

Be nice. Hippies generaly are. The rules arent that ridiculous.

 

Negative, lower middle class at best entire life, food stamps, welfare, ect as a child, good stuff.

I'm fully aware of what the patriot act entails, and it's really no more extreme than other western governments. It's not just law at the most secretive level though, there's also basic law. Despite the vast instances of police misconduct, the need for warrants in the US and police power to search is among the most strictest in the world, and our exclusionary rule is by far the most far reaching. The good faith clause has been making inroads in recent years but the exclusionary rule because it's grounded in the 4th amendment and 5th amendment has let god knows how many cases go right out the window because every piece of evidence was ruled inadmissible after a search was deemed illegal. Heck it just happened this week despite there being 2,000 pounds of marijuana evidence:
http://hailmaryjane.com/2000-pound-marijuana-case-dismissed-after-illegal-search/

China doesn't really have THE economy when looking at statistics, it's per capita GDP is still pretty damn low and below world average.

It is a case of different systems, but my main point was the possibility for citizenry to imitate a referendum, and more importantly a legally binding one seems stronger in most places here, except in Switzerland who just puts everyone to shame in terms of direct democracy. Also though in terms of choosing not only leaders but even senators and congressmen, the primary system plays a large role here.

Isn't the equivalent of American 9th grade(the start of high school in the US) in Germany where students are divided up into 3 different schooling options based on the future career choices of said student? The American education system is flawed, but I don't think it's the system itself per se, we generally have a well rounded high school curriculum, along with state tests that must be passed to graduate, as well as your actual school classes and SATs. I think the main problem lies in a culture that often rejects education, being a common person and rejecting the "educated elite", along with socio-economic conditions that cause a drop out rate as high as 1 in 2 in some places and local school systems that are funded near entirely on local property taxes which results in huge differences in resources available to schools even in the same general area.

Don't get so far ahead of yourself:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2016848.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7265212.stm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5439604.ece
http://www.slate.com/id/2136147/

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9064058/Europe_makes_moves_towards_Internet_censorship
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Finnish_internet_censorship_critic_blacklisted
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/cens3.html

As you were saying.

Time for a short break, thinking about this made me think of an article from the NYT following a case in Italy over google that I always found interesting in terms of variances in American and European culture
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/weekinreview/28liptak.html

well, you COULD ask me and i would say... "wtf are you talking about?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_identity_card_policies_by_country
Countries that have compulsory national ID cards include:
-Belgium
-Germany
-Czech Republic
-Hungary
-Luxembourg
-Poland
-Slovakia
-Spain

lol, no, there's not a huge facist, far-right movement in the US. The tea baggers are stupid but they're not fascist. Some of their issues may be regarded as far right in European context, such as extreme opposition to the abortion, pro death penalty, ect, and can be extremely patriotic, the far right in Europe has overt nationalistic and racist overtones and platforms. The systems too are different but remember a parliamentary system is more party strict, the 2 parties in America are extremely vague when it comes to a coherent, national platform because of the fact it's more individual based due to the primary system and vast differences in political alignment across the country. Each party has whackjobs that the national party would love to kick out but their few and far between and don't form entire blocks in congress.

It also must be taken into context, in terms of what's right and left in Europe, in recent years a large far-right movement has sprung up(if I recall didn't the EU place sanctions on Austria itself after massive electoral victory for a far right party some years ago). America's politics as a whole are generally quite a bit more to the right then Europe's as to where our center is, but the fact remains in comparison there's no significant support for anything that would be considered far right here.

Which is the main point I wanted to bring up, Europe, being generally substanitally more to the left than America, the question of what is causing this. It's all basically linked back to immigration and culture. The rise of far right parties is near solely because of ridiculous fears of immigrants, while at the same time near every European country is over 90% white. Look at the knee jerk reactions happening, parties proposing a complete moratorium on immigration, Belgium banning the burqa, France about to do the same despite being warned it'd be unconstitutional, Switzerland voting to ban the building of new minarets despite only having 4 in the country. Europe starts getting some muslims in its borders and begins to freak out. This is what irks me, Europe always pulls the holier than thou attitude when it comes to culture, which in some instances is very true given it's much longer and rich history. Yet at the same time Europe seems to be facing a huge moral dilemma now that they're a land of immigration and not emigration. Your center-left politicians, in Britain, Italy, Netherlands, name it proudly try to proclaim how they've lowered immigration and made it stricter. Our center left is trying to stream line the process. Fuck even George Bush tried to make it easier for people here to get citizenship.

You are correct on this, this sums up our military policy:


Worked though, we won the battle of trenton.

Sure I'd love to see Europe, who wouldn't, especially when you're descended solely from Europeans, but there's no where else I'd rather live than America.

Except New Zealand maybe. I've always had a raging metaphorical hard on for New Zealand.

 

in fact it is. in no european country this act could have become a law, since it violates a number of civil rights, human rights and EU rights. the VfGh´s of at least 2 countries (germany and austria - i know damn sure in those cases) would have torn that law to pieces minutes after it was installed.

dude, the same limitations here in europe too. again, for 2 countries i know 100% sure.

doesnt change the fact that china has the worlds most powerful economy - and that the US lend from them. again, as i said, this says nothing about how the people in china fare (which was the whole point of the example).

give me an example. we will talk about it then.

not quite. the pupils can choose what they want to do.... either go into a more general education (like the high schools) or they choose a more praxis-oriented path that takes a bit longer and has additional, specialised "classes" (as you americans would say). however, all those options end with the same degree and allow the choosing of ANY university or FH possible. as example, a friend of mine went into a computer oriented school after the 8th grade, learning programming (c++ and all those things i have no idea about). when he finished, he started studying sports at university.

you may see that you are interpreting wrongly into this.

what they write is essence correct, however they dont tell you much about what is possible and what is done. in europe we have highest courts on national and european levels, who are not connected to the politics at all. when laws that violate basic laws of the EU are made, the high court (EUgH) will eliminate those laws. same on national level. so the political disussion about some things and the actual implentation are 2 different things.

this refers to a treaty signed among the states of the EU concerning the working together of police forces all over the EU. basically, the national crime databanks were wired together. so yes, it is with a "bit" less oversight than in the US (its chaotic).

however, whatever is stored in this databanks has to be gained by legal methods - both by national and european standards.

as it should be. whatever is private is private and is of no buisness to others unless its against the law or does effect others.

in my country an old man attacked a google car gathering this kind of information.

this is so very right. things that happen in the US politics (like the clinton affair) are utterly unthinkable in europe.

and as you can see, thats not whole europe. beside that you have to be able to ID yourself anyhow when asked by the police...

the matter was a bit more complex and a lot less grave then americans could judge. beside that, the sanctions were violations of national souvereignity not seen in almost 80 years in europe and had been taken back soon.

acutally.... no. first of all, never ever make the mistake to see europe as "europe" - every country you subsummise so easily under "europe" has a history dating back more than 2 thousand years, we are speaking of a variety of world fiews and history that is more complex than anything you will ever find in the US.

the reason why the US is generally more right is quite a simple one - your are more right in the US because your forefathers from europe were. if there was one thing european noble houses despised it was "radical things" - especially radical fiews on society and radical fiews on religion. and those were those that were prosecuted - and also those who went to the US.

well, can someone from the US do something with the term "integration"? we are facing on many levels integrational problems, and the left and centrer partys have ignored them for a long time - giving the right partys the opportunity to capitalize on that.

the cultural concepts of europe and the US are so different that i am not entirely sure if someone from the US can really understand the problem the right partys in europe are using to gain power.

 

^what he said

 

Did you read all the links I posted, the same exact things go on in Europe except with no laws even passed to allow it. Censorship and ease dropping is as alive in Europe as it is here.

This up for debate, the same rules are not applied equally. For example, in Britain, a fellow common law country, police can legally search the car, home and any property of someone who's been arrested without a warrant and anything found used said evidence, this would be beyond illegal here. Even when searching here a search must be directly limited to what's stated in the warrant.

Actually America is still by far the world's largest economy, still nearly double that of China's.

In about 30 states citizens have the power to initiate a legally binding referendum by collecting enough votes as in the same manner of Switzerland. California is the prime example of this for both better and worse.

I see now.

We have the same thing in our supreme court, just like the fact they just struck down warrantless wiretapping as illegal. I mean the same applies to America, the terrible powers put forth in the patriot act have rarely ever been used just like the in theory vast reserve powers created by executive orders.

this refers to a treaty signed among the states of the EU concerning the working together of police forces all over the EU. basically, the national crime databanks were wired together. so yes, it is with a "bit" less oversight than in the US (its chaotic).

And it's quite the same here, though you guys until recently were letting us spy on people's bank accounts in Europe without warrants which ironically would be illegal here without a warrant.

Google has cars? Say what?

That's the difference here, legally you don't need to be carrying around any form of ID with you at all, I mean it pisses off police when you don't and it's probably better to, but meh.
Though really if you come here you should probably carry ID.



the matter was a bit more complex and a lot less grave then americans could judge. beside that, the sanctions were violations of national souvereignity not seen in almost 80 years in europe and had been taken back soon.

I could say the same thing for America, we're a common country with a shared history full of people who hate each other. If you traveled from NYC to L.A., it'd be the same distance as traveling from Madrid to Moscow. On one hand you're in the still in the same country, same language, same news, and because the west coast and north east are really similar same culture and often even accents. On the flip side traveling only a few hours by car south of NYC, once you hit Virginia and the Carolinas culture begins to change rapidly and southern culture takes over. It's not fair to call it a more complex history, it's just longer, American history in the past 240 years is just as complex as European. We have one single country with numerous legally soverign states that have a wide range of different laws and cultures and various parts of the country damn near hate each other. Even our own internal relations are complicated.

Hm, I don't think it'd have to do with our forefathers being more to the right, at it's founding America was politically much more liberal than, well most everywhere. America was often a leading progressive force until recently in the 1970's. We have a severe ingrained concept of individuality though that economically around the 50's/60's stared making us more to the right in that area. In the 70's a conservative resurgence began and unlike the Goldwater conservatives in the 60's, these were religious conservatives, and power both in the Republican and Democrat parties became focuses on the south(note before Obama the only Dems elected since Truman were Carter and Clinton, both southerns) thankfully though I think that's finally starting to change.

I don't think I see what the problem really is that Europe is trying to deal with so much, mainly for the fact American culture(as well as Canadian) as a whole is vague, sure baseball, apple pie, all that stupid shit is universal, but we've also been a smorgasbord of different cultures, especially post 1870's when mass waves of immigration really began along with after having acquired a great deal of former Mexican land. What's dominant culture varies all over various parts of the country too.

 

i read the links and they are strange to be honest. the authors interpret things in ways i wouldnt do.

britain is different. again, never make the fault to generalize "europe".

but until recently without a public health system. its hilarious. and china will surpass the US in the not so far future.

now it gets interesting - on WHAT can they initiate a legally binding referendum?

only that the supreme court is highly politically influenced by the presidents (even after their retirement). which isnt the case in europe.

in truth, it WAS illegal and led to big problems. because something happens doesnt mean its not illegal.

the US have no problems with paralell cultures in their own country, and thats why i think a US american cant really understand the fears in europe.

thats exactly what i said - do you think politically liberal thinking people were liked in monarchies? and "liberal" is a relative term - politically, yes, at that time liberal. economically, yes. morally? hell no.

exactly, the US dont really have an own "culture" - when i was in the US i was really awestruck how rag tag everything is.... there are german areas, chinese areas, italian areas, mexican,.... all happily ignoring the others and living their own lives.

and its not like the US always liked imigrants - as example, there even were immigrant quotes based on eugenics (!).

the problem in europe is that paralell societies dont fit into our mindset - an american maybe wouldnt even notice because thats what america is, but its different here in europe. its difficult to explain to someone who has a wholly different fiew on culture.

 

What Stinkfoot said!

Stink...thanks for always sharing your opinions, and knowledge with us. I feel, as many of my friends do, like a cog in a machine. Paranoid about things like our groceries/food and what the hell we are putting in our bodies. Waiting for our health insurance premiums to go up, and yet still receive less quality care. I work with allot of people from different backgrounds/age brackets and we all share this...sense of dread about the love affair the U.S. goverment is having, at our expense, with corporate America.

 

Calling people dumbasses degenerates the discussion and fosters a hostile environment where people would be hesitant to speak out at all. "Free speech" is not a license to ridicule other members... doing so will certainly imperil your "privileges" here.

 

How do we measure quality of life? Comes down to personal choices. I have been to every state in the union and several countries outside the US. Every place I have been has had it's beauty and it's difficulty. Regardless of the physical circumstances we still have the opportunity to compose ourselves.