Big jolly friendly neighbour downstairs who is like us, but has some weird beliefs and uses a strange measurement system and doesn't drink milk out of bags. We see what he does to people he doesn't like and it scares us a little, but laugh (sometimes we laugh so hard the milk shoots out of our noses) and get along with him pretty well for the most part.

We just hope that one day, he doesn't decide he doesn't like milk bags.

Only problem I see with America is the political parties. People will vote with their party without knowing the issue. Other than that, it's nice.

Where? :O

It's because America is a candidate driven country during elections whereas the political elections in Britain for example is much more issue driven. It behaves that way because of Britain's short election cycles which lasts only a month so you don't have candidates campaigning for 10 months nor do you have enough time to attack the other candidates/parties since they even limit the ad time for each party/candidate.

There are also more parties in the U.K. because they operate under a proportional representation system where parties get seats in the lower chamber of the Parliament based on the percentage of votes they receive. Whereas the U.S. operates under a single member district system where the winner takes all.

every american i have ever met in person has been fantastically nice.

Therefore, all americans are great.

murica

We might have our slip ups here and there but we still run the world. Why do other countries get unreasonably upset at this every couple of years?

Our economy is the central point, our defense keeps the world safe and our policies define a standard that most of the developing world look up to.

What is it you don't like about us again?

from what?

When's the last time there's been a major multi-country war?

We limit other countries' influence over the rest of the globe, keeping skirmishes to small intra-state affairs.

Smaller missions here and there deal with troublemakers without plunging half the planet into another world war. You're welcome.

i think that could all be accomplished if people cared about UN but alright

Most of the people I know over here (here being Argentina) have a really negative vision on the USA. Mainly because of the issues our country has had with the IMF. They also think "everyone is dumb and too proud of their country thinking they are superior than anything and everyone in the world. We must follow them as their puppets because they like to rule it." (between quotes because that's what someone said to me, so you get the idea).

I do not agree with that though. It's all cool.

Also...

Dude, you play against Nicaragua. I think both you and Mexico have it quite easy nowadays to qualify to the world cups considering you have 3 spots for it.

I don't think anyone takes the FIFA ranking seriously. Argentina 2nd?! I think there are teams out there that are still better than us (Germany for example), but we are probably there because Messi.

Yeah that's kind of the point of the UN but unfortunately nobody likes to contribute to it

Who funds something like 60% of the UN? Oh wait its the United States

this

http://youtu.be/VFwXmz1KGoQ

http://i.imgur.com/ZdMx0tT.jpg

im not an LA fan and I realize donovan isnt the best, but shit, the mls has been growing rapidly

i dont get if your argument is "i agree" or "too bad". im trying to say it isnt good globally what the us does and there's clear fixes to the problems if we were to change strategy

It isn't as simple as whether if people cared about the U.N. or not. There has never been a period in time where one governing force controlled what everyone else does on the planet and based on what's happening now, it will probably never happen in our life time. Currently international relations is almost based entirely on the concept of anarchy where there is central governing force enforcing laws and punishing those who breaks it. Even if the U.S. funds 60% of the U.N. we will never remove our army and rely on the U.N. peacekeeping troops for security because in reality who is going to help us if China doesn't get rid of their army and invades us? In order to have a truly peace free, every country has to sacrifice their current security, but that is obviously never going to happen.

im never posting in a political thread ever again

I'm genuinely sorry, :( I was a bit cranky yesterday night and my last posts were dumb, please don't take these posts as a representation of comp.tf in any way

Other than this thread where I was really dumb I don't get your point but ok, thanks for the consideration.

I should know better than to post on political threads, I am very passionate about my beliefs and that can make me go a bit overboard, but I was just trying to show america the light, you can see it, I believe in you america! I'm out of here now.

I really do love the country i live in i know a lot of other American people who would say otherwise. So many people have come out of my city alone that inspired me to work hard an achieve greater things and i feel america is a great place to do that. In my city alone i have met an African child soldier who started his own workout business and became really successful and also i have met the generic douche who believes hes entitled to everything. A lot of people have said it all countries have their idiots and assholes, what really sucks is that's all people remember.

i dont know how to say this without sounding condescending but the arguements in this thread are a fucking joke and i hope a lot of you do some research before posting on either side of this issue

also kaneco can you do something besides posting mindless eu>na bullshit

every single post could be some shit id read on a reddit trade server

To whoever said Sweden is racist: That's not true at all. We're probably one of the least racist countries in northern Europe at the moment. Racism is not non-existant, but it's in general very black and white; the vast majority of us (who aren't racist) are extremely accepting. And to my understanding it's harder being black in the US than it is in Sweden.

From more than a few swede friends, that's just not true. While it isn't transparent, sweden is racist.

Believe it or not, living in Sweden has resulted in having quite a lot of swede friends, of basically every ethnicity. So I guess I win the argument? But really, while our integration is shit, we're not racist. We're seeing an upswing in anti-immigration politics yes, but historically that tends to happen with a not steady economy. Being muslim in Sweden is harder than being a christian or an atheist yes, but again, in comparison to the positives (positives that are very much accessible to muslims and africans) the racism is nothing.

it's hard to find poutine in the states

LOL
your alcohol prices are a joke

Dear visitor, I have trouble thinking your post is not a troll because well....

Just a short lesson on I guess geo-politics and geography.

1. China is what we call very far away. It would take any invasion force literally weeks to arrive from China in the US and well, all you'd have to do is pile up a bunch of junk cars on the coast or something and they'd be fucked. I wanted to draw it on a map, but maps are big and I think that'd be too insulting :/

2. China and the US are both nuclear armed, thus they can't go to war with each other ever under any circumstances without destroying likely the entire planet. It's called mutually assured destruction and is the entire reason why no major power will go to war with each other ever again. The US may have blustered and cried a lot with the USSR but neither side really intended to utilize their nuclear arsenal at any point except in the very early days (before nukes were fully understood). The US will never fully disarm its nuclear arsenal without a tremendous change in the world - we still have a whole range of chemical and biological weapons laying around in secret locations just in case.

3. The UN is the US's tool for adding legitimacy to its imperial actions. Particularly since the fall of the USSR. The UN is supposed to function according to the precepts of "Collective Security" - however collective security tends to never work out - so a system of independent alliances are worked out and maintained instead. For example, The US wanted to invade Iraq, it tried to get the UN on board, however, the UN security council (UK, France, USA, Russia, China) didn't go in favor of military action in Iraq. So we just used our own system of alliances to invade and the UN was powerless to stop us DESPITE THE FACT that according to collective security and basically every definition possible we were the aggressor and ought to have been attacked by every country on the planet (because that's how collective security is supposed to work - the aggressor state is to be attacked by every other nation on the planet for its aggression thus making aggressive action impossible). Because at the end of the day, it was only Iraq, and such a war would have destroyed the planet.

The richest people have somehow convinced the poorest people that poor people don't matter.

I got to know lots of Americans online which is why I now know that you guys aren't as stupid as often portrayed here in Europe. That said, I still can't see me living in the US, mostly because I care about our (I'm German) welfare state and wouldn't give up universal health care. Most European countries have problems too: our governments are corrupt, multi national corporations are exploiting tax loopholes and most of our media is bought - but the US is just on a whole other level on all of that, sorry.

Still love you guys individually though!

The government of Argentina has repeatedly pulled the rug out from under US businesses with large investments there. Basically, instead of raising taxes on its citizens, it's decided "Hey, that oil refinery / paraffin factory / etc. looks really profitable, so it belongs to us now, get out." I know the US government has meddled a lot with South American countries, often with very bad consequences, but with Argentina it runs two ways.

Well Sal, the argument of the Argentinian state would be that those particular contracts and land grants which initially allowed the company to be there at all were awarded by illegal states and thus void. Generally I wasn't aware that Argentina was forcibly expropriating companies though - I was only aware of Bolivia doing so - even Chavez paid bonds/"market value" for properties that the state took over - with the exception of lands which were "owned" but laying idle.

Please don't attack me before saying anything else. I'm speaking from a pure theoretical perspective so it doesn't have to be like China and the US. it could be Israel and Palestine or something else, but the point being is that at the end of the day, no country is going to risk its own security in favor of global peace.