Been seeing a lot about how the government passes shitty laws, lot of mass shootings and expensive asf health care. I come from a developing nation and we were always told how America is great and whatnot. Are all states is America bad ?
Been seeing a lot about how the government passes shitty laws, lot of mass shootings and expensive asf health care. I come from a developing nation and we were always told how America is great and whatnot. Are all states is America bad ?
No, despite what always online Europeans who have never visited will like to tell you. We’re just very big and very vocal, so you hear about us all the time. Bad news spread faster then good news. Are you going to be reading news about how good our tap water is, our public restrooms always available, boring stuff like that? Probably not! But that’s stuff you’ll notice if you do actually visit. We also are much more friendly and welcoming then other countries. We’re also tend to be less racist because we vocally talk about our racial problems rather then sweep it under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted by some people who don’t like to hear that, but they won’t be able to refute.
Edit: Why is everything America related online swarmed with Europeans trying to shit on it. It’s so exhausting and extremely pretentious. No wonder people have a distorted view of it online.
The highlights you chose struck me as strange. America is a pretty big place, in different cities/states I’ve seen those things be true. I’ve also seen many examples of quite the opposite.
Tap water quality varies widely, with many places effectively falsely reporting on water quality.
Bathroom availability varies widely also. You mentioned Starbucks. About half the Starbucks I’ve been to have rules about purchases being required, with most of those it.
Racism and I’ll expand to bigotry, is an interesting choice… We don’t have a caste society officially in place, but I don’t see how you could make that claim. Racism and bigotry are alive and well in America. There are wide political differences which people rarely engage across the gap on. It’s not a secret our more right leaning party has a racism problem and actively is attempting to dismantle rights for those individuals. Many places are friendly and welcoming, but there are plenty of heavily populated cities in which black or “asian” as example will greatly increase your chances of being abused by police and individuals.
There are many great places in America and many things we can take pride in, but your response seems specific to areas of America, very much not the whole.
How many other countries have you been to?
Our tap water is in crisis. What hasn’t been privatized is either being operated with outdated technology, or being polluted, and EPA protections are being weakened by the Supreme Court.
And, in most of America there aren’t freely available public restrooms. They are all located in businesses that will outright deny you access, or force you to make a purchase. Their policies allow them to discriminate against the unhoused, and the disabled.
I am an American, but I’m not going into I get into the broader discussion here, just had to respond to your two points, as they don’t seem grounded in reality.
You just walk into a starbucks or a gas station. They’re all in businesses, but saying you have to make a purchase is straight up false.
Even when you CAN do this, it’s usually because the employees are either kind enough or inattentive enough to let you do this. And if you are clearly unhoused or poor, your chances of being able to do this are much, much lower than if you can fit in in a middle class white area. (Restaurants with predominantly poor clientele or many homeless people nearby tend to be much stricter about this.)
There are reasons for that. If some middle class looking person goes to use the bathroom, they are probably just going to use the bathroom and be out in a couple minutes. If a homeless person is going in there, they might be setting up shop, be in there for quite a while, and may require more clean up.
I was at a train station in Chicago and had to use the bathroom, but when I went in every stall was taken up by homeless guys. They had blankets up around the doors and stuff, it was very obvious it wasn’t just some dude taking a dump. All the stalls were like that. I waited and waited, but they weren’t going anywhere soon… I had to hold it, leave and find somewhere else. I had to no go a nicer place that wouldn’t let people in that situation in.
Businesses don’t want their staff of customers to not have a bathroom because some guy is in their doing his whole morning routine, or sleeping.
Starbucks is iffy but I’ve traveled nearly every state and never once have I been to a gas station that required a purchase to use the restroom.
Here’s what everyone isn’t getting.
Public bathrooms are accessible to those that contribute to society.
Not saying this is right, it’s just how it is. Even places that have a “purchase policy” don’t care, the policy only exists to keep problems to a minimum and is usually only enforced against those that look like they might cause problems.
YOU have never been TOLD a gas station bathroom required a purchase. Likely because you pulled up in a vehicle and look normal enough. But I’m willing to bet money if you wander up on foot and look homeless you’ll find out they actually do have that policy.
I’ve been on all sides of this. As the strung out homeless kid that just wanted a quiet warm “nice” place to do my drugs. Then the struggling young adult having to wash blood, hair and literal shit off every surface in there. And then the manager having to enforce these policies because if I don’t my employees (or myself) have to go deal with whatever problems are created in the bathroom (and the WILL be a mess to clean up 98% of the time).
In Switzerland, you have to pay $2 to use the restroom in gas station. But I totally prefer using those compared to the sanity standard of your average american gas station. I can be picky.
Fair enough, gas station bathrooms in the states range from really good to don’t fucking touch anything.
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A good way to get an impression about real america as an outsider is to follow smaller hobbyist YouTubers from middle sized towns. One guy from Michigan I follow has a remarkable boring life that’s completely different from every American stereotype.
Michigan poisoned an entire mid sized city. Its the home of mercenary leader Erik Prince. His sister is married to Dick Devos who runs the largest pyramid scheme in the world. There are Dow Chemical dump sites all over the state leaking heavy metals into waterways. Jeffrey Epstein got his start at Interlochen Arts Academy, the highschool had a dormitory named after him for years.
Thank you for the actual sane take. I swear people on Lemmy are actually worse than Redditors when it comes to shitting on America. It is extremely obnoxious.
Well it’s a much larger EU crowd on here so yeah
Probably the Marxist roots of this platform… especially anything coming from a .ml domain.
Blame the tankies
yea, finding out that lemmy is actually more insufferable than reddit in a lot of aspects.
As an American, they are usually right.
self loathing americans are even more annoying
You misspelled “introspective people who aren’t oblivious jackasses”
wow so true
As an European, I was tempted to downvote you. But not because your very valid points but because you started your whole speech by stating defensively that only people who never been to the US tell bad stuff about America, that’s unfair.
I have relatives in the US and I’ve been there for several occasions. Except the midwest and Texas, I’ve been in most of the States and, it’s true, America is like 50 different countries.
But on average, what I can say is that I love interacting with Americans, speaking with them it’s like talking with some old friends, even in NYC (known by other Americans for being very un-american) I found friendlier people than in my home country. Kind of ironic that the only bad chats with Americans happened online.
I’ll skip about the tap water, it’s probably excellent, but to me born and raised in Switzerland, it always tasted like bleach, probably because of the added fluorine, I don’t know. It’s still better than tap water in UK, Turkey and half Europe and by far safer than most of Asia and Africa.
Finally, visiting America as a tourist is great, and I dreamed of living there as a child, but as an adult, I feel safer and more taken care in Europe, both from a healthcare point and from labour safety. But I live in a privileged country, if I lived anywhere else in the world, I would still chase the “American dream”.
What really saddens me about America, while the people are great, the nature is amazing and the spaces are immense, is that is governed by corporations and bribes and make shows like House of Cards a documentary.
Furthermore, what part of the country are you living in that leads you to believe we are less racist than other countries!? Our racism has defined our country ever since it was created.
Seriously, I am curious what part of the country you live in? It is sheltered from most American realities
If you think I’m denying racism, you read that comment incredibly wrong. I’m saying in comparison to other coutnries.
Your point was that we’re better because we talk about it.
All over the country legislatures are banning books, and curriculums that even mention racism. It isn’t an isolated incident either.
I agree with you on the exaggeration of racism.
I don’t think you bring valid points to why the United States are better than portrayed, but nonetheless believe so myself.
The reason people don’t think racism is a problem in other countries is because most other countries have basically 1 race. In the US I can go to the grocery store and see 20+ races of people, and all of them are just shopping and getting along. There aren’t race wars in the bread aisle.
Other countries have racism too, they just don’t seem to care as much as the US, or it’s accepted, because its 99% vs 1%, so that 1% has 0 voice. I’ve seen a lot of racism as I travel to different countries. It’s not a uniquely American thing. The US as more people of different races living together, mostly peacefully, than pretty much anywhere else on earth.
I look asian. I experienced more racism traveling through Europe for 6 weeks than I have living 15 years in the US (primarily Atlanta and Jacksonville).
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There’s a lot of Americans who aren’t having a great time here. I don’t think negative commentary about the US is one hundred percent Europeans’ fault. Nor is it just that we’re “vocal” about things, which is really a positive since it’s the only way to create change anyway.
For example. I just saw a local news story that cops in a major SoCal city are arresting/citing/fining people for just…being homeless. They want them to go to shelters, but they admittedly don’t create enough shelter space. So it just becomes illegal for certain people to exist. The city gets pissy and aggressive about homelessness being a problem, when they’re the ones who created it and are the ones who refuse to fix it. Sure, give a homeless person a record so that it’s even harder for them to get jobs and approved for an apartment, and then fine them knowing they can’t pay it, resulting in doubling late fees that put them in debt. Sounds they really care about fixing the issue, great fucking job. But think about that - it’s against the law, it’s a crime, to not have a mortgage or rent payment. I’ve been hassled by cops for sitting in my own car in a grocery store parking lot. There is no public space. You have to buy something to be allowed to exist outside of a park, and in coastal places like SoCal, you have to pay to be in those too. And yes this was in one city, but it’s applicable to almost every major city in the US, even if there’s some variations in local laws. It’s just an example of how disposable human beings are here. The minute we don’t have labor to sell, the minute we stop consuming, we’re thrown the fuck away. And that’s not just an economic issue, it’s a cultural issue as well.
Was there, several times, all corners. Sorry to tell you, but your tap water smells like chlorine.
I’ve lived in several states and visited over 20. LA has the worst tap water, but most places are pretty good. Larger cities tend to taste worse than medium cities and rural places.
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Grew up on rural well water. Tastes great, a bit hard. Now I drink Hetch Hetchy’s finest. Tastes pretty good. (My grandma’s water was another story.)
We have one federal government, yes, but painting all of the US with the same brush is naive at best.
Same, I’m used to Swiss tap water (I know, sounds like cheating) and the water in America always smells like bleach. You have to get used to it, it’s probably because of the added fluorine. It’s still safe to drink. Can’t say the same in other countries around the world. Even in Germany and Italy, that’s Europe, you should avoid drinking from the tap.
It’s quite safe to drink from the tap in Germany.
In houses, yes. But public fountains I’ve found in Germany have often the sign Kein Drinkwasser on them. Meanwhile in Switzerland, almost every public fountain is 100% safe to drink.
Things maybe have changed in the recent years, I see you’re on a German instance and I guess you’re German, so I trust your statement more than mine as a foreigner.
no it doesn’t lol
It does, but you might not notice it since you’re exposed to the smell/taste all the time. But go abroad to Europe or some other place that doesn’t use chlorine for drinkwater treatment and you’d be surprised when you get back how noticeable it is.
I’d say it’s hit or miss on tap water. Depends where you live and how the utilities company handles their water purification. Take Flint, MI for example.
Tell me you’ve never been outside your city without telling me you’ve never been outside your city.
A lot of US cities have really suspect lead pipes (Chicago, for one) and in general the water quality is highly dependent on the age of your building.
A shocking number of US cities also run their pipes through chemical spills (like Pasadena) and dilute the pollutants to below the legal limit.
A large number of “public washrooms” are tucked behind “please purchase to use” signs, even if they are de facto public washrooms.
The US has been shockingly and incredibly open with it’s racism in a way that other countries lack. Being from East or Southeast Asia is just begging to get screamed at in some neighborhoods. My fault for not being one of the “right” minorities, I guess.
This is what happens when you get your US news exclusively online
Are people still using this lol
What state do you live in btw?
Massa-fucking-chusetts.
Bad apples make the whole place suck ass.
Canadian living in America, and I hate it here. It’s not pretentious to say that America fucking sucks, because living in American cities objectively fucking sucks.
I’m sure small-town America is nice, though.