Last edited Thu Jan 19, 2023, 11:37 AM - Edit history (1)

Where I was repeatedly called an N-word by random strangers walking down the street! Poland- the only country I went to where I saw an ARMY of ANTI-LGBTQ+ protesters crash a Pride Parade! This wasn’t decades ago it was 2019! Nope! Poland is the last place from where I want to hear someone’s opinion about anything.

European countries have their own set of problems.

Like, severely for a European country.

But yes, do go on how America's right-wing is such a surprising and foreign thing. Lawd.

Doesn't take self-awareness to write an article these days.

Wow. If the author hadn’t said “I’m from Poland..”, what would you have thought about the essay otherwise?

👀

sounds like it to me.

Dismissing true information because you don't like the source doesn't take away the truthfulness of the information.

Wonder how the writer would respond?

Sorry that happened to you!

politically to the point that the Poles I know are as concerned about that as we here in the US are as concerned about what is happening in our own nation.

Most of the Polish people that I knew that were younger now live in Germany or England. They can't stand what Poland has become.

The hyper religious Catholics have taken over.

I did have to explain to a couple of people that certain terms they used are not acceptable in English. Generally they got the point.

Now though I can see it getting much worse.

Montezuma’s Revenge stays away

People tend to become desensitized to what goes in their midst. Hopefully, that doesn't extend to blatant displays of racism and anti-Semitism in Poland and elsewhere (including the U.S.).

Jesus taught, “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men … but when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen.”
(Matthew 6:5-8)

Whenever I see people praying in public, I remind them of this verse.

Long time ago in Catholic school. Came upon it myself. It certainly wasn’t the subject of discussion in class. It really left a mark. Still think about it a lot.

so it's not like Catholics don't know about this.
Yet I see Catholics hanging out at Planned Parenthood's, praying for those using their services.
As a Catholic, I get very annoyed on multiple levels.

I’m too old to need any of its services. But no way am I gonna stand for it coming under attack by the Troglodytes, bedroom busybodies, and other assorted Great 13th Century Minds of Our Time.

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GO figure that one.

thing about America is it's freedom. I believe America is the greatest country in the history of the world. But. A person that lacks discipline, America will chew them up and spit them out.

Yeah, America is one of the least free Western Countries going if you're talking about actual rights. But giant corporations are very free here to rape the public.

The kind of things that Americans just accept like police overreach and harassment are absolutely shocking to Europeans. Europeans do not tolerate the police treating citizens like criminals. They do not tolerate searches without probable cause. The Germans I roomed with in college were simply stunned that the police in the US can stop people on the street and ask them to produce their driver's license. They were stunned to see police just walk onto private property without being invited. They were stunned that the police in the US were arresting college students for things like being a little drunk in public, peeing in the bushes, or smoking a joint.

I wouldn’t call America worse or better than any European country. It depends on which issues you’re talking about.

But on the issue of freedom, actual freedom to do what you want with your life, your body, and your time, (Something called personal freedom)the US lags behind most European democracies. Now Cons conflate actual freedom with economic freedom, which is basically the freedom of businesses to rape consumers, workers, and the planet. The US is 24th in the world for personal freedom. It's 7th in business freedom (economic). Combined it give a human freedom score of 15th overall.

Here's one view, this is actually pretty generous to the US compared to other sites.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country

If you're anyone other than a business owner or corporatist, personal freedom matters to you about 20 times as much as economic freedom.

with America compared to Europe is our lack of universal healthcare and the fact that one of our major political parties is basically fascist. If we can fix those two things, I’d say we’re on the right track.

Universal healthcare is absolutely an issue of personal freedom and freedom from sickness, death, and debt.

And I think in the US you have competing freedom of businesses and individuals battling it out in varying degrees and ways depending on who controls the states. More liberal states are expanding personal freedom with things like legalized recreational marijuana, criminal justice reform, bail reform, protecting women's rights, expanding the rights of minorities and LGTBQ folk. While Rightwing states are doing things like banning books, eliminating women's rights to control their own bodies, rolling back the rights of minorities and LGTBQ folk, while pursuing harsher lock them up and throw away the key sentences for criminals. It's no coincidence the highest crime sates are Right Wing states too.

At the same time, the freedoms of businesses are curtailed in more liberal states and expanded in Right Wing states.

It's pretty dramatic right now, the difference in personal freedom from one state to the next. There's even an effort by non free red states to start policing their borders if they are adjacent to more free blue states. Here in Michigan, if you head to the Indiana border you could be subject to extra scrutiny from Indiana police departments because weed is legal here and against the law still there. It's really two different Americas now and the gap is growing.

We see it all the time. It’s their bedrock.

Economic freedom as a component in any freedom index should 100% only be related to the economic freedom of individuals in terms of like wealth gaps, affordability of a basic existence, and ability to participate in the economy without interference from the government. The freedom for businesses to pollute absolutely is the opposite of freedom. It has a negative effect on freedom as it takes away the freedom for people to breath clean air, drink clean water, and live their lives free from disease and a toxic environment.

Expanding corporations' freedoms has the effect of making all of the people less free.

"Freedoms" have categories. There are like 25 countries above the U.S in personal freedom. That says a lot.

Freedom, and what real freedom is is something I've thought a great deal about since college in the 90s and traveling right after. Just assumed the US is known for "freedom" until I experienced people from other cultures and then traveled to other countries. The definition of freedom is very important, and I think framing it in odd ways is something the Right are experts at. They've gotten in their heads that things that help the people are anti freedom. Completely ignore the fact that universal health care expands freedom for people, not curtails it. They think a brutal and out of control criminal justice system is for freedom, when it's the exact opposite.

It's a topic Dems should own, Dems are for freedom, Republicans are for a more controlled society.

these things are legal in Germany?

If things are illegal, elected representatives made laws against them. The freedom to be drunk in public and pee in bushes isn't all that valuable.

a "person that lacks discipline?" I honestly don't understand what that means.

I think the poster is implying a person who can refrain from creating themselves as a one-man-critique of any certain group while in the midst of that group will survive the experience but that even the reactionary expression of shock at the outrages of said group might land one in hot water with that group. It's just another way of saying how "good trouble" could get one into big trouble. "Biting one's tongue" comes to mind. Another is, "stay away from the wrong side of town". Even "minding one's P's and Q's" comes to mind.

I also get from the poster that to color outside of some lines might be dangerous in the US. I'm pretty sure that if I were to recommend how grossly unfit for anything except prison was our Donald Trump in the midst of my wife's family, I may sustain profound disagreement, a touch of hostility and possible exile. I would surely have gotten a moron's dose of racism and general bigotry complete with self-righteous self-justification topped, in all probability, with a cut or bruise or two.

It goes that way for intolerance a gaggle of liberals might express for a vocal Trumpist in their midst. Freedom of speech, in America, is expected to require that one fight for its expression from time to time, as we're so often reminded on Memorial Day.

My experience is that society, generally, is not quite so uptight and on edge in contemporary Europe. Though that attitude is being tested with the influx of immigrants escaping climate disaster. Their smug freedom from "discipline" may end sooner than they think.

I believe the secret to "success" in America is a lot of luck.. starting with birth. When it comes to trump, it's 100% luck, born into the lucky sperm club and never left. Don't think he has a whisper of discipline, but managed to become president anyway when he should have been chewed up and spit out a long time ago.

I think life is cheap in America, proven by our lack of universal health care and it's not that people lack discipline. it's that they lack access to health care.

For instance:
> when one squanders their fortune, they lose their advantage
> when one gives in to depression, they have worsened their lot in life
> judgmental people have few friends
> crime doesn't pay

Some facts don't relate to self-discipline.
For instance:
> Trump and others of similar fortune can survive failings which would destroy them if they weren't given abundance at birth
> some afflictions are impossible to escape, and no amount of assistance will remedy their victims

It is not easy to trust generalizations regarding the concept of "discipline" but in the process of this thinking exercise I did determine a hypothesis, "that discipline and self-discipline can be very different things".

hard to accept "giving in to depression" but sadly I've seen that and can't deny it.

completely agree that discipline and self discipline can, and I think, usually are very different things.

Must be quite thoughtful about what is said. Say the wrong thing on either political spectrum can destroy someone. Also when it comes to actions in general. Easy access to guns...no discipline look at the present results. Access to any drug frankly is easy...see present overdose rates. Gambling industry..people lose homes commit suicides...I can go on and on. If not careful, exercising freedoms in America can easily destroy the individual. Yes it's 100 times better than autocracies theoracracies and dictatorships...just saying without discipline in any open democratic society that society can turn on an Indvidual rather quickly. Sorry for the long reply.

Who is more disciplined, a worker who works two jobs for forty-five years never taking vacations, never calling in sick, and who never is able to pull their family out of poverty, or an entrepreneur who graduates from the same Ivy League university that their dad and grandad attended, who gets a "small loan" of a million dollars or so from a family friend who runs a bank, who starts a business with plenty of contacts, and spends twenty years golfing with the right people, attending the right church, and supporting the right politicians.

Finding anti-LGBT extremism and religious extremism odd when you’re from Poland?

Also, I’m not sure where she went, but, I’ve never seen a family praying over their dinner in public. Not even once.

I agree with most of the other ones, though.

In the Bible Belt, in public, yes, families sometimes do. Then there’s the prayers before high school football games.

That would be a major culture shock!

The major religion here is mostly pizza and funny accents. Haha

I've also lived in Maryland, Virginia, DC, Arizona and California and never seen it.

And I've eaten at a lot of KFC's Taco Bell's Checkers and McDonald's

It's not awful but it is different.

But I’m from the southwest. It’s probably more common in the South or Midwest.

Maybe in rural areas.

to pray with her in restaurants when we’d take her out for a meal. It’s embarrassing, disrespectful, and fked-up because we’re not believers. She’s a horrible control freak and narcissist and the therapist her shitty behavior drove me to told me to cut off all contact with her for my own mental health.

It’s a cult. Period.

Mumbling at length over her rapidly cooling plate of food while everybody else digs in will get old quickly.

She can be a religious tyrant only with your permission. Letting her know where your personal boundaries are is the only way to get her to respect any of them. Besides. it's hilarious to watch them furiously press buttons you've uninstalled.

My ex FIL was big on holiday grace but his great virtue on such occasions was extreme brevity, so I respected it. Had he been a total gasbag, I would not have.

I have an extremely unsympathetic view of organized religion, but I don't call anyone out no matter how crazy I think their beliefs are unless they're being bullies or nuisances. Otherwise, it's just none of my business.

Although, not as much as it used to be.

A lot of sects have the policy of "churching" anyone they consider an offender, usually a woman and her crime is sex. The sinner is put on display in front of the congregation, the sins are announced, and the congregation directed t pray loudly and at length to cause the sinner to mend his, or more often her, ways. The congregation goes home feeling particularly righteous and the supposed sinner slinks home in deep shame and is often shunned until they find another sinner to pray over loudly and at length.

It's just the kind of thing Jesus would have hated, since truth be told, all those righteous moaners and swayers praying for the reform of some poor sinner who got caught were likely guilty of far worse sins, themselves. That's what the "woman taken in sin" story was all about, listing who was fucking whom in the dirt (which only the men could read) and shaming the lot of them, the town gossip having done a fine job on informing.

Have seen it many many times.

Suburbs of Los Angeles.

Cracks me up every time.

... I've been to so many dinners like that.

Especially at the Red Lobster on a Friday, of course.

I'll have the tilapia... among some family the pork and shellfish are off limits, but you really don't want to mess with the vegans. Yeah, look at me, I'm eating a fish raised in a pond. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, but here we are at the Red Lobster. Accepting family and friendship and community are more important. Passive aggressive.

You may have seen me.

Always makes me shift into my "cultural anthropologist" mode. Doesn't offend me or crack me up.

I grew up in a place where the school cafeteria always served fish sticks or cheese pizza on Fridays, otherwise a third of the school lunch kids would have gone hungry.

I try to laugh about as loud as they’re praying, you know, out of mutual respect.

(Oops. I thought you were asking me if they were Catholic or Evangelical…lol.)

You see the praying and it’s weird as hell.
I thank the gods every day I had the wherewithal and means to move to Europe. I’d never live anywhere outside the Northeast again.

That will upset most Americans. I'm not saying Poland is a democratic wonderland but that a good description is a good description.

I found this nugget to be a good summation, aside from the religious stuff, of American society:

"If you have money, you have access to many things that probably don’t even exist anywhere else, and you can happily consume yourself into oblivion. But the rest of the people are just trying to survive."

Like the war on Christmas a fake line used to gin up victimhood and outrage. I was forced to pretend to pray in the public elementary school cafeteria in New York when I was a kid in the late 60s. It always feels like performative hypocrisy and oppressive behavior to me. And yes, Matthew had it right! We said grace at dinner in my childhood home. Only at home.

And LGBT extremism?! Rich from someone from Poland. And, the USA is not the Terf Capital at all, it's the UK and half of the EU.

There are things about some European countries that I think we should emulate, such as the welfare states in Scandinavia and the rich paying more in taxes but there are plenty of other things that we’re better about. No country is perfect.

I would love a Social Democracy with national healthcare/pension/etc., a Parlimentarian system, and discounted Legos. But, I ahve traveled all over Europe and Canada, and they ahve as many wingnuts and bigots as we do, and it is shocking to em in some of the countries parents can basically kick their kid out at 16, and a spouse not on the deed can be kicked out of the marital home. As well as other things.

No one is perfect.

That's the first thing I thought when I read the "you have to pay for everything" comment. I can remember having to pay to pee in Norway, France, Scotland and Belgium. And that's just off the top of my head. The last time I even saw a pay-to-pee in the States was the '60-'s.

I think the flag thing is a little off base, too. When I was in London in 2019, the European Union flag AND the Union Jack were everywhere. Norway and Denmark get the flags out a lot too.

than break even considering I pay $560/month for health insurance with a $9,200 deductable.

I didn't wnat to get bogged down with everything, but exactly.

If you gotta go number 2 in a public park bathroom in the US or something, good luck!

Fucking disgusting, and also dangerous. I helped my 53-year-old grandmother pee in the snow out back, because there was literally three inches of feces on the floor in the women's room, and a guy getting oral sex from someone in the men's. They are notorious.

And, no one should ever pay to use the facilities. In Germany, every time we saw a McDonald's we would stop to pee or change a tampon or whatever.

you had to put a dime in the stall door to get in.

She makes excellent points.
Thank you for posting this.

some of the posts here seem to be chanting usa usa


the article was worthwhile

I read the article and thought it was really good, though I would have listed things like no universal healthcare over things like pay-to-pee public toilets, but each to their own and she was making a much broader point about needing to pay to access just about anything. Anyway, I live in a country where I've never encountered a pay-to-pee loo and where parks and museums are free to enter, but I've never been to the US and have no desire to visit it so maybe I shouldn't be commenting on lists like this...

I think some Americans do view the US very differently than others do. And they possibly do it because of the high level of indoctrination and the fact that a lot of them have never visited other countries and seen how other people live. The religious extremism is scary, the flag worshipping is creepy, and the wealth inequality is ugly. I'm being a total hypocrite because I live in a country where out of necessity, the car is the star, thanks to the massive distances between cities. I do live in a city where some of my friends don't feel the need to own a car, but I've got one coz I love my Golf GTI and would never give it up. I know there can be some vast distances between towns and cities in some parts of the US, but I've heard that even in the cities, the public transport is pretty shit compared to elsewhere.

It's a real shame the US is the way it is. There's such a massive disconnect with the hyped-up vision of it and what the reality actually is.

Oh that's easy, they all are. It's just a matter of degree.

In my part of NM, I never saw anyone get up on a Sunday morning, climb into a car, and go to church, and my habit on nice days was to get home from work early in the morning, change out of my scrubs, and sit on the porch and read the Sunday paper for a couple of hours while I unwound from a weekend of critical care. Nope, everybody slept in and if they went out, they returned within half an hour with clamshell boxes of Sunday breakfast.

You wanted the megachurch crowd, you had to go to the more expensive neighborhoods on the northeast side of town where richer people could buy the prosperity gospel hogwash. However, even they weren't stupid enough to sport red hats or TFG signs.

All in all, this town's been a good fit.

I'd never survive in Dixie. Been there, tried that, left like I was shot out of a cannon.

"It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

in the USA (left coast Portland). None of my good friends attend church. It’s the norm to be a nonbeliever.

my own little office throughout the day. It's fun (for me) getting additional perspectives about this country, other countries, etc. from someone not born into the same biases I was. Taking a group of Germans out for their first BBQ ever was a highlight of mine last year; watching their faces light up after their first ever taste of slow cooked brisket was probably more a gift to me than them.

Giving it some thought, though I can understand why some may think it threatening or subversive; but from my chair, even the harshest criticism is just an opinion that (hopefully, but usually not) compels me to think about my own worldview even more.

the best brisket I have ever had was from a little place in Chandler, AZ - owned by a German guy.

OP is seeing when coming to America is the result of a society that has organized itself around the heinous proposition that every aspect of a citizen being alive is a profit opportunity for someone else. Even before we are born companies use our impending birth to market all sorts of things to our parents. If we feel badly about this horrible system there are people who will counsel us for a price. Unfettered capitalism is now all about finding some way to take an already existing situation and carve away a part of it in order to place an additional price on going through life.

Sees this and shakes my head.
They didn’t go into the parts I’m dreading when I return.

1. The gun culture is revolting.
2. For profit healthcare as I age into retirement
3. Traffic because there’s no public transportation
4. Shoving religion down our throats
5. Trump supporters are in your face ridiculous.
6. Fox spews regarded as news.

That’s just off the top of my head. There is no paradise on earth.

I exercised my option to become a permanent resident in Europe. I travel between Europe and the US fairly often to visit family and friends. At least that was the case pre-pandemic. But travel is easier now that it has been.

I am not all that weathy, but because I have been fortunate and worked hard during my proessional career, I am able to live modestly with an excellent quality of life there. It does mean that I must file tax returns in two countries, but it is worth it, IMO.

My access to health care is excellent; I live among sane people who believe in science and the law, sane gun control that focuses on personal responsibilitiy and accountability, sane people who believe that educated, responsible and healthy people form the basis of society, sane people who believe that public transit should be a foundation of society, etc. In other words, I live among sane people generally.

In the US, I am also fortunate to reside in a very blue area of a very blue state, so I am also able to experience many of the finer things in America. I wish that were true for all of us. But my birth state of Montana has seriously devolved politically from the days of my youth, even from my younger adulthood. Too many others are just as bad, or worse.

As you say, there is no paradise on earth. And there are many issues that Europe still struggles with. But there is generally a determination to do better and many are working to that end.

It is a real shame because the US used to be the country that Europeans generally wanted to emulate. Unless they are among the One Percent, however, that is no longer the case for many.

And this has been due, for the most part, to misadministration generally by Republican Presidents since 1980. This misadministration came to a peak with Bush II, Cheney & Co. who squandered international goodwill after 9-11 by invading Afghanistan and especially Iraq, and, more recently, with the international embarassment and devastation of our most sacred democratic institutions by Trump and his appointees and toadies, most of whom who have yet to pay any meaningful consequences.

Apart from the blue states who are the US's saving grace, we as a nation lag behind most other developed countries in the world by too many indices.

That is a VERY sad truth.

I plan to live in a blue state because I Just Can’t Stand The Red States anymore.
I am too old and tired to learn another language and frankly, I don’t want to learn this one.

I haven’t been back to my home state since my brothers’ memorial in 2019. My mother passed in 2021 and covid kept me away so I have no desire to go back there.

I just want to live among English speakers again but I’m afraid one bad decision and I will end up homeless over there.

On rare occasions I have seen individuals saying silent prayers prior to eating in a public establishment but, never a group or family. And never out loud.

It depends an awful lot on exactly how it's done. A family linking hands and quietly praying before eating isn't a big deal. My family does that before every meal, public or private, but it's a quick, "Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, let these thy gifts to us be blessed, amen" spoken just loudly enough for those at the table to hear. Immediately thereafter, we're chowing down.

Now if we're talking about a family bellowing their prayer for all to hear and speaking in tongues, that's something else altogether since it becomes disruptive to everyone else's dining experience. The two really aren't the same thing at all.

It's not your, my, or anyone else's business unless and until the people praying make it so by being disruptive. If they start in with the handling of venomous snakes and screaming in tongues in the middle of the Olive Garden, then it becomes everyone else's business. If they quietly bow their heads and pray before eating, who cares? Evidently the author of this article does, but I can't imagine why.

Seriously. Like, someone please tell me where this happens. I will attempt reservations.

as long as they aren't creating a disturbance and or forcing others to join, MYOB!

... in support of a group of Muslims petitioning to let kids out early on Fridays to attend services. Part way through the meeting came the call to prayers. So the meeting temporarily was adjourned, and we all went outside where the Abrahamic contingent answered the call with a rather acrobatic ritual. Then we all went inside and reconvened for the rest of the meeting.

This woman would have freaked out and had a shock fit!

Just another day in the good old USA.

yah ok whatever.

"You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country."

I can’t remember the last time I saw that in public. I wonder if they went looking for that.

Poland is an extremely religious country, and also known for bigotry and christian antisemitism etc. historically. I just did search about praying before meals and found a forum that says many older people there do pray at home before a meal. Maybe not in public.

Westminster Abbey - quite expensive too. What is she talking about there? No admission fees to these places would leave them short of funds.

Freedom of religion allows people to pray, who cares? It's someone else doing it.

I agree about cars and consumption but any culture does that where they can afford it.

Ireland, Canada, and Germany. They aren't free.

England doesn’t allow Gay marriage. And I have to say both France and UK are extremely bigoted. And in Germany righties just tried to overthrow the government. Italy elected a fascist government which includes one of Mussolini’s descendants. If Europe thinks they don’t have right wing problem. They are sadly mistaken. We rejected Trump in 20 and insurrection it’s in 22.