The Generation Gap

[brendanrizzo]

Her3tik, I'm not doubting you, but it's possible that Europeans in general dislike Americans just because. You can't rule that out.

As for Vene, they aren't outliers when they're common. Here's the list:

POLITICIANS

Jean-Marine Le Pen (and his daughter, Marine), leaders of the Front National (of France)
Geert Wilders, and the Dutch "Party for Freedom"
Timo Soini, of the "True" Finns (supported by a plurality, mind you, of Finnish people)
Umberto Bossi, of Italy's Northern League
Christoph Blocher, of the Swiss People's Party
Pia Kjaersgaard, head of the Denmark People's Party
Heinz-Christian Strache, Josef Bucher, and (formerly) Jörg Haider, all of the Freedom Party of Austria or the Alliance for the Future of Austria
Siv Jensen, of Norway's "Progress" Party
Jimmie Åkesson (what kind of name is that?!), Björn Söder of the "Sweden Democrats"

Absolutely none of these are outliers. I only listed the leaders or most prominent members of these political parties. All of them have a not-insignificant number of seats in whichever parliamentary body is appropriate for said country. You can look that up for yourself if you wish. Don't pull this crap with me that Europe is free of right-wing politics. I didn't even mention the UK at all! If I did include the UK, I'd have to practically double the size of this (admittedly abridged) list.

Here is the source:
www.businessinsider.com/rise-of-far-right-populist-parties-can-derail-the-eu-2011-6

More general sources:
www.vanguardngr.com/2011/07/norway-terrorist-europe-growing-right-wing-hate/
www.thenation.com/article/162698/europes-turn-right
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43859395/ns/world_news-europe/t/norway-attack-right-wing-extremism-emerging/


I should also point out the Europeans who, while not being politicians, can give the Tea Party a run for its money in the conservative department. Anders Breivik and the (Swedish) founders of the racist website Metapedia come to mind instantly. Another Scandinavia-based racist blog is called (I believe) "The Gates of Vienna". I'm not including British people on purpose, but if I did, I needn't remind you what the Albion of "Sarah, Maid of Albion" refers to. (Not to mention the BNP and the Anglo-Saxon Foundation)... You can't dismiss them all as fringe. If you do, then so are the Tea Party. I could live with the Tea Party being fringe but they clearly aren't. If I broadened this to include right-wingers who are neither European nor American, then I could mention a whole list of people from Canada and Australia. If you ignore the Bible Belt, then America is almost as secular as Europe, so if anything, we're the ones with the outliers, thankyouverymuch.

[Vene]

That was an impressive number of words to relay anecdotes in an attempt to make it look like data.

[brendanrizzo]

Anecdotes? Anecdotes?! You're calling these anecdotes?! I gave you the data and cited my fucking sources; what more do you want?! Do I have to list every single person in these far-right parties? I'm sure this is gonna be like arguing with a creationist...

[/rage mode]

[worlder]

Nov 7, 2011 21:08:01 GMT -5 brendanrizzo said:

Anecdotes? Anecdotes?! You're calling these anecdotes?! I gave you the data and cited my fucking sources; what more do you want?! Do I have to list every single person in these far-right parties? I'm sure this is gonna be like arguing with a creationist...

[/rage mode]

Dear Nationalist,

It is impossible for the case of "Europeans in general dislike Americans just because" to occur. If they have contempt for the US there must be some reason no matter how ridiculous the reason may be.

We understand they exist that's what you are going for.

[sylvana]

as someone who does not live in either America or Europe, even I can see that in general Europe is the better place to live. The labor laws in particular in America are pretty criminal and getting worse all the time, with a noticeable constant reduction in social welfare it is making America look like a very unattractive country to live in. On the other hand, the social welfare and general rights of the people as well as standard of living in European nations looks absolutely wonderful.

I wont deny that there are plenty of extremely screwed up conservative crazies in Europe, but from a complete outsiders perspective, they seem relatively unimportant in the bigger picture. While the American crazies seem to get more done to harm their nation. I see more crazy conservative news reports out of America than I do from Europe. Hell, the only places I can think of that seem to have any kind of problem is Greece, Italy and the UK, which still all seem like better places to live in general regardless.

[Her3tiK]

brendanrizzo: If they don't like America, why would they come here for an education? It's not really a secret that other countries have better educational opportunities.

[Yla]

(I'm German)

Nov 7, 2011 13:54:55 GMT -5 Aqualung said:

Nov 7, 2011 13:43:22 GMT -5 Tenfold_Maquette said:

One of the biggest things I loath about humanity is the "Well I suffered, so why the hell should anyone else get help?!" attitude. I mean...if something sucks, what kind of a sadist do you have to be to ensure the guy behind you gets it just as bad? Wouldn't you want to make sure that what you went through never has to happen to anyone else? I would think that's the case, but there are too many spiteful, self-centered assholes that have this weird retribution mindset toward their fellow man.

Indeed, though I think it's mostly an American thing.

It's not quite the same thing, but one thing I heard on quite some occasions from older people is the "we rebuilt this country in the 50's+60's, we deserve gratitude and our pensions" (that was a few years ago when the pensions were not raised, which with inflation amounted to a cut).

Nov 7, 2011 21:01:29 GMT -5 brendanrizzo said:

Her3tik, I'm not doubting you, but it's possible that Europeans in general dislike Americans just because. You can't rule that out.

As for Vene, they aren't outliers when they're common. Here's the list:

POLITICIANS

Jean-Marine Le Pen (and his daughter, Marine), leaders of the Front National (of France)
Geert Wilders, and the Dutch "Party for Freedom"
Timo Soini, of the "True" Finns (supported by a plurality, mind you, of Finnish people)
Umberto Bossi, of Italy's Northern League
Christoph Blocher, of the Swiss People's Party
Pia Kjaersgaard, head of the Denmark People's Party
Heinz-Christian Strache, Josef Bucher, and (formerly) Jörg Haider, all of the Freedom Party of Austria or the Alliance for the Future of Austria
Siv Jensen, of Norway's "Progress" Party
Jimmie Åkesson (what kind of name is that?!), Björn Söder of the "Sweden Democrats"

Absolutely none of these are outliers. I only listed the leaders or most prominent members of these political parties. All of them have a not-insignificant number of seats in whichever parliamentary body is appropriate for said country. You can look that up for yourself if you wish. Don't pull this crap with me that Europe is free of right-wing politics. I didn't even mention the UK at all! If I did include the UK, I'd have to practically double the size of this (admittedly abridged) list.

Here is the source:
www.businessinsider.com/rise-of-far-right-populist-parties-can-derail-the-eu-2011-6

More general sources:
www.vanguardngr.com/2011/07/norway-terrorist-europe-growing-right-wing-hate/
www.thenation.com/article/162698/europes-turn-right
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43859395/ns/world_news-europe/t/norway-attack-right-wing-extremism-emerging/

I should also point out the Europeans who, while not being politicians, can give the Tea Party a run for its money in the conservative department. Anders Breivik and the (Swedish) founders of the racist website Metapedia come to mind instantly. Another Scandinavia-based racist blog is called (I believe) "The Gates of Vienna". I'm not including British people on purpose, but if I did, I needn't remind you what the Albion of "Sarah, Maid of Albion" refers to. (Not to mention the BNP and the Anglo-Saxon Foundation)... You can't dismiss them all as fringe. If you do, then so are the Tea Party. I could live with the Tea Party being fringe but they clearly aren't. If I broadened this to include right-wingers who are neither European nor American, then I could mention a whole list of people from Canada and Australia. If you ignore the Bible Belt, then America is almost as secular as Europe, so if anything, we're the ones with the outliers, thankyouverymuch.

Brendan, you're correct that it's not all sunshine and roses over here, but you can't equalize our neonazis and right-wing parties with the teabaggers. While they are similar in regards to xenophobia and "we-want-our-country-back" sentiment, there are worlds between them about welfare and state philosophy(i.e. "small government"). Welfare and social justice being the topic we're talking about here.

And you're discrediting yourself by making statements like

Her3tik, I'm not doubting you, but it's possible that Europeans in general dislike Americans just because. You can't rule that out.

Go fuck yourself, you exceptionalist.