So How Is America?

Coming from sunny sunny Australia I offering feel left out when ever there is a thread about some US social issue or politician figure. I can't realate to it.

How is modern America?

That's a rather broad question to ask, and perceptions will vary considerably.

Sounds pretty crap to me.

Sounds pretty awesome to me, though obviously with its problems.

But I'm not American, so you may disregard this post.

I concur. It would be nice to live there, if it had better healthcare.

It has good stuff and bad stuff.

You pretty much need an union job or to work at a big corporation to get decent health insurance. Many places bust unions, so it ain't pretty when it comes to that. The US is noteworthy for absurdly high ages of consent, absurdly high drinking ages, and draconian drug laws. The US used to have better privacy protections than EU countries, but Fourth Amendment rights have been pretty much gutted in the last decadem so it sucks in that regard now. In short, there's only one thing wrong with the States: They're chock-full of Moral Guardians. Without them, the US would be the best place on Earth.

Good things about the US? There's higher wages and less taxes than in Europe. Prices for stuff are typically lower. You can own guns. It's a big country, lots of places to see and stuff to do. It's got a decent music scene. You can say pretty much whatever the Hell you want in the US of A, you've got a right to free speech, even to dickish, abrasive and inflammatory speech.

America, for the most part, has great healthcare. The problem is access, not quality.

• cough* 15th place is NHS. *ahem* 9% of GDP compared to 19% *cough*.

Hee. I remember how I planned to migrate to Australia.

But I doubt they're any less fascist.

When it comes to censorship, it's dramatically worse. On anything else, I guess they're comparable.

Again, cost relates to access, not quality. It's important to be specific, as "better healthcare" is a rather ambiguous term, and somebody will surely say "But America has X% results" for something regarding quality, while your problem would be access or affordability instead.

But anyway, America varies, some places have great public transportation and affordable internet, other places still have nothing in the way of public transit and are lucky to still have working telephone lines, let alone something more advanced.

I hear Nevada is about to pass a law authorizing regulations for automatic cars though.

edited 27th Jun '11 3:44:05 PM by blueharp

Don't forget about doctors who over-prescribe tests.

I noticed a few years ago that friends who went to the doctor complained of not being diagnosed. The docs operate in the dark and keep assaulting you with expensive tests, and then if you're lucky, you find out you have lyme disease and they fix you.

My doctors are upfront. They told me everything that was wrong, what the action plan was, and how long it'd take. I've manged to arrange 9 appiontments, and changed my op dates four times. FOR FREES!

We're going off-topic. We'll need to create a separate thread for the awesomeness of our 'socialist' medicine.

Yes, talk about America. I hear they've put the wildfires out in most places, but there's some flooding. too bad the water can't be teleported on top of the wildfires.

Dry wood is dry wood. All it takes is one idiot and half the state is on fire.

^^ That's just how the country rolls. In any given year, part of the country is literally underwater while in another part it's literally on fire.

^ Most wildfires in the Rockies and the Southwest are caused by lightning.

edited 27th Jun '11 3:53:19 PM by MajorTom

Like how most things are.

There are problems but the internet and news always exaggerates them (I'm guilty of it, everyone is.)

But of course it could always be much much worse.

Right now the big thing in the news is the natural disasters happening right now, and the GOP presidential candidate nomination.

@OP: It's pretty good; awesome for me.

I've said the exact same thing about the UK, only with gun rights instead of healthcare.

Just what is the 'gun culture' like anyway?

Mostly harmless. It's usually about collecting, modding, firing (at a range or somewhere else, often related to hunting) and stuff in general. The most serious stuff you get is home defense and hunting large game.

Also 99.99% of gun owners will never commit a crime with their weapons.

Americans engage in recreational/target shooting ''a lot''. From popping a few rounds in the range to keep self-defense skills sharp, to hunting with shotguns or rifles, to target shooting, up to (in rural areas) trying to off that damn coyote that attempts to eat your chickens (that is quite common in rural Texas or California).

Since Americans don't have to go through lots of extensive and may-issue red tape to own firearms, the American Average Joe (tm) tends to do all that fun stuff with guns that EU countries don't allow most people to do.

Also, people in the US generally have more self-defense rights than in Europe.

edited 27th Jun '11 6:02:29 PM by SavageHeathen

Course, the problem is both the anti-gun sorts and the extremely pro-gun sorts are a tad..nuts..and make both sides moderates look extremely bad.

Pretty good, considering the alternatives. It has its own social problems, but the only reason that it's bigger than elsewhere is that we have 300 million people and they don't.