How Does America Fare to You?

[Rems]

It's very much a mixed case but leans to the negative.

In terms of technology and military strength you guys are at the top, no doubt about it.

However in virtually every other field your kind of fucked up. 1 in 8 Americans live below the poverty line, your a first world country for God's sakes. You have no socialized health system, your public education system is going down the toilet. There is a huge level of debt and high unemployment. The poor are getting poorer and the rich getting richer- the top 1 percent of your nation controls 45 percent of the wealth, and the super rich are barely taxed, its something like 15 percent. Your levels of gun crime is scary and there just seems to be this level of mistrust and even fear of the government which to me is unfathomable.

You seem to have this obsession with a liberalizing crusade of spreading democracy, and making sure things are done the 'right way'. You seem supremely arrogant.

The popular perceptions of the average American in my country (australia) is of a fat, stupid tourist with an unhealthy fascination with guns.

Please no flaming, this is all just opinion.

 

[Lt.Snuffles]

I give America a 5. I like thier Government, obama etc, but the -5 comes from the fact that Sarah Palin is likely to be elected president next. Which will obviously spell death for the entire world.

 

[Teddy Roosevelt]

not even Rome or Great Britain enjoyed such economic or military superiority/domination

Nyeh, not quite so.

Y'see, you have a big military, but that doesn't mean you're powerful, because you also need to be able to effectively use it. That's something the USA can't do, unlike the UK at the time of Empire, which really didn't care. For example the UK full-on invaded China so we could keep selling them Opium and they'd keep selling us tea. The USA simply can't do shit like that.

False. The US enjoys conventional military superiority beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and against unconventional foes, we still kick ass. Yes, we are suffering prolonged warfare against guerrilla forces. Are we actually having trouble? Not really, no. See, they aren't actually that effective against us.

As for proving conventional military superiority: We crushed the Iraqi military forces, being more than 400,000 active personnel in 2003, including 44,000 Fedayeen Saddam paramilitaries, plus upwards of an addition 650,000 available reservists, in a period of less than 40 days. That was with a coalition of 214,000 Americans, 45,000 British, and approximately 1,000 troops of other coalition nations.

In the end of that 40 day period, the Americans had suffered a staggering 130 dead and the British 33 dead.

All sarcasm aside, that is simply a textbook crushing victory. Yes, there is an insurgency as a result of poor post-operation planning, but that does not make any lesser the fact that a predominantly American force, outnumbered approximately 1.5:1, and more than 4:1 if you count reservists, performed exceptionally.

Now, let me point out that ours is not a particularly large military. Yes, ours is the second largest in the world, but that is only a result of our population. Per every 1,000 citizens, our number of active personnel is not that impressive, at about 5.1 active troops per 1,000 citizens. Now, China's is actually 1.7 active personnel per 1,000 citizens, but, again, theirs is a massive population. North Korea boasts an economy-crushing 48.8 active personnel per 1,000 citizens.

Anyway, the United States maintains its firepower not through numbers, though, as mentioned, we don't lack manpower, but rather through firepower in technology, and the US possesses military technology that the rest of NATO and, indeed, the Russians (who are not happy with the US for the whole Cold War cordoning off the Soviet economy thing) would dream about.

Stealth aircraft is the main piece of technology that is in essence ours to call our own. Yes, the Russians have the PAK FA, which is not unlike our own F-22A Raptor, but you can be sure the much larger US economy will pump out better weapons faster than Ivan can, and I doubt that the Russians could ever afford as many of their stealth fighter as we could of our own F-22, and also F-35 JSF.

My point: American military effective?/ God-damn right it is.

Now, I will admit that America's one weakness is a crippling inability to handle casualties. Now, I do not mean that front line forces are demoralized rapidly by taking losses, though they may be slightly more than other countries' forces, but rather the home front citizenry cannot handle casualties. If the news says that US forces have lost 5,000 men in a conflict, the people at home will at the very least get very anxious. If Russia gets involved in a war and suffers 5,000 casualties, you can be sure the political backlash will be minimal, as Russia has never fought a war in which 5,000 would not have been a dreamy, low number.

 

[Nyaliva]

The moment the extremist Americans stop thinking they have the most awesome country in the world, that their right to freedom means they must express it every chance they get, that anything even remotely non-capitalist is communist and that communism is the cause of ALL the worlds problems, that FOX News is a true beacon of light and truth and that's not just what they advertise to get them to believe the contradictory tripe FOX comes up with, that politics should be about helping the country and not helping themselves to the government's piggy-bank and destroy a country in the process, then I think America could be a 10.

I won't give it's score for now, it'd be a little embarrassing...

 

[Athlonis]

I think the number is exponentially decreasing as we speak...

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Put it this way, you rank just slightly below Afghanistan.

 

[RicoADF]

America has had the reputation for being a beacon of hope for almost the entire world for more than 100 years. We also have the reputation of being rednecks, idiots, war-mongering fools, and being stubborn.

So then, on a scale of 1-10, how does good ol' 'Mericuh do for ya?
-----------------
After a bit of thought, and influence from your comments. I think I'll score us at the respectable score of 6.5.

Pros:

Great technology, a melting pot of cultures, large cities, large territories, huge economy, and a hefty military to kick any oppposition square in the keister.

Cons:

Massive debt, a surplus of idiots in the Government, a currently clogged up system of Party Politics, the WBC, the KKK, McCarthyism, and money hungry corporations.

I'd vote it 4 or 5, the only thing America has going for it (not that NASA has ended the shuttle program with no replacement) is being allowed to own firearms, and even that has its downsides obviously. I'd never move to the states.
Also your military isn't that good, quite a few embarrassments there, your technology is standard (heck behind in some areas) and large cities (in general) suck lol. Plus isn't your economy ruined?
tbh this topic is just asking for flamewars.

Having said that, I am yet to visit the country (will be in 10 days tho), so my views may change. However the biggest issue on your bad health system isnt going to change, and thus keep it below 7 on my ratings.

 

[rutger5000]

Oh and by the way I add I hate the fact some (maybe most) Americans think it's thanks to them we won the WWII (the allied countries, technically my country was neutral). It's unfair to distinguish one country, but if i had to choose one, would be Russia, they were the country most affected by the war and the country that turned the tables against Germany and gave them most trouble. (Yeah I know UK and US helped)

Honestly I would say it's thanks to Poland the allied forces won the war. I agree with you that it's unfair to distinguish between countries that fought, but still Poland played a key role in the whole war. (But I'm a big fanboy of Poland during WWII). History is written by the those who win, and Poland lost WWII. Therefor it's role is downplayed by allied forces. But if it had not by Polands constant resistance (and not the lame french kind) Germany would have made it to moscow long before winter. I'm not going to teach you a history lesson you're not interested in, but look it up if you do want to know.

I agree Poland was really important and it's a shame it's not much mentioned, specially considering that for a "loser" did hundreds times better than the French, France did really poor in the WWII. But I can't agree that it's thanks to Poland the allied won the war, I think Germany even without Poland would lose against URSS sooner or later due to it's enormous space, population and cold wheather.

Also as you must know maybe better than me, URSS invaded Poland together with Germany, but it's point was to later defend against Germany with borders more at the west, making it harder for Germans to reach the rest of Russia. (Yes altrough Stalin signen NAP with Germany, he knew war was iminent.

That is true, but Poland was hostile territory for both Russia and Germany. Russia might have been part of the allies, but they didn't join the war for humantarian reasons. Of course it's always impossible to say what would have happened if. And it's never a good plan to attack Russia. When the first snowflack falls you get your ass out of their. But if it wasn't for Poland Germany could have deployed different tactics.
Also besides actually putting up armed resistance in their own country, they also were basically the entire intelligence service for anything more east then germanies western borther. It's not that far of a strech to say that germanies heavy water plant couldn't have been destroyed/found without polish intelligence. Can you immagine what Germany could have and would have done with atomic bombs?? Besides this they were also more present then any other nation in Foreing legions.
But I have to stress that I'm not being objective here. I don't have any strong feelings for Poland, but I do think that their nation was by far the most courage during WWII. And it was also by far the one most ill treated.

 

[k-ossuburb]

It's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there what with the way that atheism is still culturally frowned upon, the complete lack of free health care, the active gun culture in most places, the rampant materialism, the complete lack of environmental responsibility, bad education and the strange tendency to butt into other people's business (speaking from about 10 cases of personal experience from various visits).

Atheism may be frowned on in some places, but only if it's the militant variety. If you don't go out of your way to piss off religious people, no one should bother you. In more countries than not, being of a particular religion (including atheism) can get you killed.

As for free health care, it isn't free anywhere. It always has to be paid for by someone, and that generally comes in the form of taxes. In the US, our current system is a confusing hybrid of two conflicting systems, which often results in chaos. Obviously, that isn't ideal. However, if you look at the theories of a free market economic system (which is NOT currently in place) health care should fit perfectly well into it, making it just as successful as any other part of the economy. Free care simply is not the American way, but neither is allowing people to suffer and die needlessly, so that responsibility would (and to our way of thinking, should) fall under the auspices of individual communities, not a huge federal entity.

Regarding guns, that's an even longer lecture than the last one and I'm not going there. It's an integral part of our culture and makes plenty of sense when you understand all the facts behind it.

You're not wrong about the other stuff, although environmental responsibility is a much trickier subject that has no solid consensus to back up anyone's position.

Whoops. Sorry about the healthcare one, I mean free as in "freely available" not as in "it costs nothing". The NHS is far from perfect, but if you fall off of a ladder, get into a fight or fail a suicide attempt then they won't turn you away. I'm just happy we have that kind of security.

As for the gun culture, I probably wasn't clear on that either. See, I don't mind that guns are legal there in most places, what I do mind is that people seem to get a little crazy about them and those same people aren't normally all that responsible with the ones they have. Its perfectly fine for a large country like the U.S. to have people capable of defending themselves, but do you really NEED an assault rifle for that?

Like I said. It's a nice place to visit, but I'd hate to live there. The people are nice (well, the ones I hang out with anyway); the culture is fascinating (I'm a fan of architecture and studying how people interact); the stores are cheap as hell, when you take conversion rates into consideration (cigarettes are damn cheap there, must be because they're not taxed the crap out like they are here) and the bars are always a great laugh with fantastic service and cheap drinks, most of my favourite comedians are from the U.S.; and I'm yet to meet a taxi driver in the U.S. that wasn't awesome. One guy had an awesome beard and a revolver in the glove box, I think he was from a Jamaican family because I could still hear a little of it in his accent.

I should make it clear that I like America, but in small doses. I prefer to keep things quiet and steady and America seems to be a little too hectic for me sometimes.

Oh, another thing that isn't really bad but scary as hell for me was the roads. They're huge! Most of them are four lanes across, how the hell do you cross them without getting run over? In the U.K. most roads range in size from 1-4 lanes (8 on motorways) depending on where you are and where that road links to, but they're usually pretty easy to cross.

 

[Danny Ocean]

*snip*

False. The US enjoys conventional military superiority beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and against unconventional foes, we still kick ass. Yes, we are suffering prolonged warfare against guerrilla forces. Are we actually having trouble? Not really, no. See, they aren't actually that effective against us.

You're looking at this the wrong way.

Yes the USA has the best military, but that doesn't make it the most powerful because it is constrained. It's like a pacifist wielding the world's biggest sword- the sword is useless. Except, of course, the US isn't a pacifist, but you get the point.

Let me analogize with political systems. The Prime Minister of the UK has more power than the President of the USA. This doesn't make sense on the face of it, but when you analyse how the two executive positions are checked and balanced (our PM has significantly fewer checks on his power, and lots of them are simply convention rather than law), you'll see that the PM has far greater powers over his people than the president does.

In the same way, the US military is indeed ridiculously good at what it does, but it is also incredibly heavily constrained by politics and economics and such, unlike some other armies.

Put it this way: Europe has nothing to fear from the US army, because I highly doubt that the individual soldiers would even follow orders along the lines of 'invade Europe' because we're just such good pals it wouldn't happen. It doesn't matter that it could probably beat us, because the political constraints are so large it's effectively useless. Could you have won Vietnam? Probably, were you not so constrained by the people at home.

Y'see what I mean?

 

[Treblaine]

Much better with Obama, even in retrospect to before he was elected.

9/10

 

[Mr Fatherland]

I'm English, and I've got to say I'm not a massive fan of America. I know we have a "special relationship" but I do believe we'd be better off embracing Germany or France. We'd be at least 400 soldiers up. 5/10.

 

[Jacob Haggarty]

As a gentleman from good ol' england, im going to have to go a ahead and give you 1 5-6 out of ten, mainly based on your medical care.

Yes, you may have excellently trained doctors, and some impressive tech, but all that counts for shit if you can't afford the deluxe package. It just seems very unfair, making it so that only the richest can afford the best care.

Not saying ours is any better, or worse, but i'd much rather have at least an average health-care available to all, than some fantastic healthcare available to some. Hell, even if you are rich in england, you can still splash out on some better care, such as Bupa, which i think is a private service, unlike NHS.

So yeah, that and red-necks. Also, this is pretty petty, but im sick to the back teeth of playing as/watching americans in damn-near EVERYTHING.

 

[Teddy Roosevelt]

*snip*

False. The US enjoys conventional military superiority beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and against unconventional foes, we still kick ass. Yes, we are suffering prolonged warfare against guerrilla forces. Are we actually having trouble? Not really, no. See, they aren't actually that effective against us.

You're looking at this the wrong way.

Yes the USA has the best military, but that doesn't make it the most powerful because it is constrained. It's like a pacifist wielding the world's biggest sword- the sword is useless. Except, of course, the US isn't a pacifist, but you get the point.

Let me analogize with political systems. The Prime Minister of the UK has more power than the President of the USA. This doesn't make sense on the face of it, but when you analyse how the two executive positions are checked and balanced (our PM has significantly fewer checks on his power, and lots of them are simply convention rather than law), you'll see that the PM has far greater powers over his people than the president does.

In the same way, the US military is indeed ridiculously good at what it does, but it is also incredibly heavily constrained by politics and economics and such, unlike some other armies.

Put it this way: Europe has nothing to fear from the US army, because I highly doubt that the individual soldiers would even follow orders along the lines of 'invade Europe' because we're just such good pals it wouldn't happen. It doesn't matter that it could probably beat us, because the political constraints are so large it's effectively useless. Could you have won Vietnam? Probably, were you not so constrained by the people at home.

Y'see what I mean?

Wel, Europe is part of the US Military (NATO). All joking aside, I see what you mean, though that doesn't mean the US military isn't superior. Where it needs to go, you can bet it kicks major ass, even against Europe if need be (if being the key).

We certainly could have won Vietnam, as you said, but it was the political backlash, yes, mainly from the American inability to handle casualties, as I said. I won't get into such a discussion now unless you want to, but I would say the United States did not lose in Vietnam. It certainly didn't win, but it never suffered a defeat.

 

[devotedsniper]

Being British i shall give you a 5, 2 for giving me some half decent tv to watch when nothing else is on, 2 more for helping us win WW2, and 1 more for Obama seeming to be somewhat decent when you compare him to Bush, theres some other things but there just off the top of my head.

I'm sorry i can't give you any higher but from my experience alot of america is full of idiots (from my experience of talking to them), some of you aren't (some of you are my friends too) but you lot can annoy me (quite a few who i've talked to/played with seem to think their better than anyone else). I also don't like the fact that whenever America decide there going to invade somewhere (e.g. Iraq) our government feel the need to follow you as though we owe you.

I also don't like the fact if someone doesn't have money your hospitals and such wont treat them unless it's a real emergency (from what i understand) and even then you bill them thousand of dollars worth of medical bills knowing full well they'll never be able to pay it, i don't know that just feels wrong denying someone help due to their financial status.

Gun laws too, no one but the military really has a need for guns, i'm sorry but thats just how i feel, police 50/50 there are better ways to deal with people than just pointing a gun at them (yes Swat should still have them but thats about it, for times when someone does manage to get ahold of one), you should use a taser and pepper spray at most (a taser can bring down the strongest man if you taser him enough). As for civilians no just no, the only civilian which needs a gun would be farmers and i believe you call them park rangers? The ones which go into the woods where bears and other dangerous animals might be.

And finally in my paranoid mind (i know you used to come from england but still you could at least be abit more creative with some stuff) you always seem to copy us, change/add something then call it your own, a few examples would be your language, you change words such as colour to color, your citys we have birmingham so do you, we have york you have new york (you also have new england, come on you could be abit more creative here), what the rest of the world recognise as football you call soccer, and the closest thing to your football is rugby, see where my paranoid brain is going with this?

Either way i would i say it's 50/50 i don't mind you but i'd rather live either in the UK/Rest of Europe, or somewhere like Australia.

 

[Dirzzit]

Being British i shall give you a 5, 2 for giving me some half decent tv to watch when nothing else is on, 2 more for helping us win WW2, and 1 more for Obama seeming to be somewhat decent when you compare him to Bush, theres some other things but there just off the top of my head.

I'm sorry i can't give you any higher but from my experience alot of america is full of idiots (from my experience of talking to them), some of you aren't (some of you are my friends too) but you lot can annoy me (quite a few who i've talked to/played with seem to think their better than anyone else). I also don't like the fact that whenever America decide there going to invade somewhere (e.g. Iraq) our government feel the need to follow you as though we owe you.

I also don't like the fact if someone doesn't have money your hospitals and such wont treat them unless it's a real emergency (from what i understand) and even then you bill them thousand of dollars worth of medical bills knowing full well they'll never be able to pay it, i don't know that just feels wrong denying someone help due to their financial status.

Gun laws too, no one but the military really has a need for guns, i'm sorry but thats just how i feel, police 50/50 there are better ways to deal with people than just pointing a gun at them (yes Swat should still have them but thats about it, for times when someone does manage to get ahold of one), you should use a taser and pepper spray at most (a taser can bring down the strongest man if you taser him enough). As for civilians no just no, the only civilian which needs a gun would be farmers and i believe you call them park rangers? The ones which go into the woods where bears and other dangerous animals might be.

And finally in my paranoid mind (i know you used to come from england but still you could at least be abit more creative with some stuff) you always seem to copy us, change/add something then call it your own, a few examples would be your language, you change words such as colour to color, your citys we have birmingham so do you, we have york you have new york (you also have new england, come on you could be abit more creative here), what the rest of the world recognise as football you call soccer, and the closest thing to your football is rugby, see where my paranoid brain is going with this?

Either way i would i say it's 50/50 i don't mind you but i'd rather live either in the UK/Rest of Europe, or somewhere like Australia.

I hope those people you talked too weren't on the internet, cause you know how this goes...

I really like New York, go there every summer. It's really nice, everyones friendly and it's cleaner then what I previously thought.

 

[Dys]

America has had the reputation for being a beacon of hope for almost the entire world for more than 100 years.

I see US citizens as delusional about how the world view them and quite arrogant. The fact that the U.S.A inhabitants refer to themselves as 'Americans' but not canadians, mexicans, columbians, brazilians, chileans etc as otherwise comes across as extremely arrogant- America is far bigger than just the US.

America does not really have the reputation of 'beacon of hope' more than any other western country, and they certainly weren't a superpower or the biggest player in international economics until after ww2.

My experience of American people is that they are decent folk, but the insane sense of nationalism and conviction that America is the best country in the world is completely arrogant and painful to listen too.

 

[faceless chick]

On a scale of one to ten, I vote ampersand.

this. thread was won by the first poster.

also less rednecks in my interwebs please.

 

[Ramzal]

How does the country I live in fare with me? Crappy. The government support systems (Foodstamps, cash support and health support) seem to only help those who DON'T need it. (People with jobs.) But for someone who are students in college and need help, they must have excess money from loans, have student housing, and a partime job. Why would you help someone who needs zero help, but for someone who needs aid and is jobless the government building will tell you to bug off?

The police suck 50/50. Some of the laws make no sense (I was once threatened with being fined for wearing flip-flops after 10pm when I lived in NYC.) After serving as a Navy S.E.A.L I was denied my veteran's benefits after being discharged. And the school systems need a lot of rehauling. But it is FAR from the worst place to live. I would not enjoy living in south africa or Sri Lanka in the 1980's-2000.