kimilseung

I am in the big city in the wet part of Washington. It really is different when you get over the Cascade bump. I keep expecting to run in to these people I hear about about, I see them on Fox, I know they are out there, I can get mad just thinking about them, but I do not often meet them in Seattle.

The closest on a regular basis I get to complain is when they all stand at the Seattle Sounders games for the national anthem, I stay sat, and I am thankful that I am in a place where there is no pressure for me to stand.

I'm not saying Seattle is like back home when I was a lad, I am from Liverpool and from a time when being a Trotskyite was almost the norm. I am more left than most in Seattle but it is forgiving of those not like them, and the crazy right is noticable by its abscence.

This is probably making you feel worse, but, there are more Americas than the one you are experiencing, the whole country is not what you are experiemcing.

robin1234

Wikipedia has a really good graph showing WWII deaths by country; military deaths, civilian deaths, deaths as a percentage of total population.

Puts things in perspective; the UK obviously suffered more than the US in WWII, but neither country is even a blip on the screen compared to the USSR, Germany, China or Eastern European countries.

WARPed

Maybe this would help you decide where to put down roots.

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/re...ident/map.html

robin1234

Not really.

sallysimmons

Also, don't forget the Daily Show and the Colbert Report for a daily dose of sanity

Edited to add: Just found this ... the most liberal places in America

paranoidandroid

I'm suspecting that most of us notice all of the above, after we've been here a while.

paranoidandroid

I can't help thinking that for someone that chose not to dwell on hating things so much....

Anyway, from what you've said I guess we can all feel the same depending on where we come from and where we are right now, that was your point right?

The points you made were relevant (to some places) and apply equally as well to the US from what I see daily around here. I'd suspect that proportionally there's as many people living on benefits in the US as in the UK, and a lot of them like the idea of doing it.
People around here get drunk at weekends and fall over in the street too (well usually in the parking lot actually because nobody really walks anywhere), but then they get in their cars and drive home (or attempt to before they wreck someone else's car on the way) because the law in Florida doesn't seem to punish them for drink driving like we do back in the UK.
(First DUI Conviction Minimum 180 days licence revocation, and maximum 1 year)
You hate that people turn to heroin? Yeah, hard drugs are bad news whatever way you look at it. I guess here they have progressed to something more acceptable, like crystal meth for instance.. yes, there's a massive problem with that here. Apparently easy to make and cheap to buy, and once you're on it...

So although I accept your points and fully understand where you're coming from, please don't think that it's any worse to live in the UK than it is in the US, because there are social problems wherever one is. This isn't the land of milk and honey either.

It all depends on where you live in a country, and whether you're willing to adapt, or if you really want to be there, don't you think?
I'm only guessing here, but because this is the moving back to the UK section, I would think the majority of British people in this particular section of the forum are the ones that are possibly a little fed up or disillusioned with being wherever they are right now, for whatever reason that might be.
That makes them say things that people from their host country could take offence to, but they don't mean any offence.

Maybe you'd be less irritated if you were to read some of the messages in the USA section too? Nobody wants to fight about anything.
Anyway, the venting did you good, right?

paranoidandroid

I live in a bible belt too... or at least it seems like it. You wouldn't think it of Florida would you?
Biting your tongue? That doesn't work. Do what I used to do, just say "oh praise be to allah" when something goes right, I found a long time ago that usually shuts them up from ever mentioning the bible around you again. Even the hardcore ones aren't sure if you're joking and they don't want to ask in case you aren't. Of course I'm dambed to hell for it now, but at least I don't have to have their religion and biggotry ramed down my throat at every turn.

No you can't be a christian if you're a democrat. That's why so many candidates make such a big thing of being "pro life" at the local elections. So much for keeping the seperation between Church and State.

Scout

I have lost count of how many times on this forum I have lauded the great things about living in the UK. I often think I love the UK more than many natives I meet both here in this forum and in every day life. I see the natives that don't open their own eyes and miss the absolutely stunning beauty and ignore the history of this country. I hear the natives wish they could live in the land of milk and honey and Hollywood.......the America they see on tv ....and they berate me for ever being foolish enough to leave it......and those same people never listen when I explain that America is not necessarily what they see on tv.....whether it's FOX News or some Hollywood tv show where everyone lives in beautiful houses, has perpetual tans and drives BMWs.

I never said the points I made couldn't be applied to the US as well.

My point was that every country on earth has it's good points and bad points. It just irritates me sometimes that these threads so often turn into a 'Let's slag off the natives' of whatever various country is in question at the moment. And yes, I realize that some people on this forum are often disillusioned about their adoptive countries. I watched my own DH become disillusioned with America.......and it was compounded by him watching FOX News and other idjuts on tv spew their hate.

I hardly think it's necessary though to rehash WWII, getting into a pissing match with who lost the most in the war or who fought the hardest. It's petty....and it dishonors all those that died, those that fought and those that lived thru it.

sallysimmons

I know how you feel. It's funny, while I complain about Fox News and greed and jingoism while I'm here, as soon as I go home and someone British criticizes the US, I find my hackles go up and I start defending Americans.

In the end, I think every place has its good and bad points. If you're happy, you focus on the good things and let the bad stuff roll off your back. But if you're unhappy, the situation reverses. The bad starts overpowering the good and you just become even more miserable.

I know the far right wing idiocy didn't used to bother me half as much as it does now that I am also homesick.

Cape Blue

I'm not sure this thread "turned into" that - it was the title of the thread itself!

I've seen your posts before, they appear positive, fair and well balanced - you have no place on a thread where all we want to do is bitch and complain, especially when its about your country.

On the whole WW2 thing, I think the hyperbole of "the US saved the day", "you'd be speaking German" etc etc tends to drive some Brits to the far opposite of "the Yanks turned up late and did nothing". Of course neither is correct.

I stand by my comment about the memorial day hockey match, clearly I am not saying that American's are like Nazi's in any of their attitudes, but the fervent flag worship, rousing chorus, salute and general feel did, on that occasion in that stadium, remind me exactly of films I have seen about 1930's Germany. Likely that comes from my UK upbringing where overt patriotism/nationalism was not promoted.

I am also not suggesting that one has to draw any conclusions from my stadium experience that USCs will soon be goose-stepping through foreign countries and focussing their hate on any particular religious group.

Scout

Here's my thought's on the patriotism/nationalism thing......America sometimes goes overboard with it (especially the flag waving religious right (and my mother, but that's a whole other story))........and the UK sometimes is much too cautious about it. The weird part is........I think to some extent both countries are reacting to WWII and that's a part of history that defines nations in different ways.

As to staying out of threads where people want to bitch and complain......oh heck no..........I want to be front and center and put my two cents in too

robin1234

First - having a tongue-in-cheek pissing match about the Second World War does NOT, in any way, dishonor those who fought or died. Why would it?

Then - yes, all countries have their good & their bad points. But the point I made in an earlier post on this thread stands, I believe. The US currently dominates the world more than any other previous Empire has. I think this makes "the ugly American" uglier than "the ugly Dutchman" or "the ugly Englishman."

sallysimmons

And yet given our history, are we really in any position to pass judgment? Most of the world's problems can be traced right back to the feet of the 'ugly colonial Englishman.' Britain only behaves itself now because it's not rich or powerful enough to do anything else.

robin1234

Yes but those Englishmen are all dead. I suppose there are some colonial administrators still alive who worked in India (up till 1947) or Africa (up till approx 1964) but they'd be very old. American imperialists are still alive & running the world.