To think the USA and UK should become 1 country

[FortyDoorsToNowhere]

As the title says.

I think it should happen, not sure why exactly other than to pool out resources.

Whoever up thread said aussie chocolate is nice is a big fat fibber. Its horrible. As are the crisps. I have to pay $3 for one measly bag of monster munch from the 'pommie" shop.

Could we not just do a weather swap instead - so we get proper snow and proper sun. They can have our drizzle

Pl

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Sorry all. Stupid phone. Anyway, please no if just so I don't have to deal with the enforced gregariousness I fled from. Or the enforced positivity. Some people like that, I know and nothing against them. It just wasn't right for me.

This rainy island has been my home for nearly ten years now and I won't deny it has its problems, but I personally would rather live here than anywhere else. And if someone else feels this way about the US, brilliant, that's fine.

Yes, because your ordinary American just loves invading countries.

Hi Math! Not quite 2014 in your neck of the woods either?

2 words.

gun. laws.

I've got a gun. In the garage. And am religious. But not the crazy sort.

I support universal healthcare though. Obamacare is going to drive our personal payments up, but it's worth it for those who can be covered now.

Lived there for several years. No, no and no again.

On the plus side - great steak, left-turn-on-red, great gyms with great childcare, White House Black Market, fantastic Mexican food.

On the minus - healthcare, guns, crazy evangelicals - and that's just for starters.

Again no.

Mr Jackson is indeed fab - I'm good friends with one of his cousins, sadly never got to meet him though.

What is this impression that the US is chock-full of evangelical gun-nuts running wild through the streets? Do they just get a ton of air time internationally, and so no one realizes that the vast majority of Americans are quiet people with a sane outlook on public safety and a firm understanding of the difference between church and state?

White House Black Market is great, as are Born shoes and Express skinny jeans.

Cheerful Yank, hi!

Oops happy just reread my post; didn't intend my questions to be aimed at you specifically, sorry.

I don't mean to imply that most Americans are especially soft-spoken, or liberal. Obviously lots of Americans are not liberal. I just mean, they're ... normal. The conservative politics of the ordinary conservative American are not outlandish, they're just like, ordinarily conservative.

Although I am American so who am I to say.

Hi Keatsie! :)

I know! That's what I said in my previous post...if we were all raving conservative loons, no way in the blue hell would Obama have been elected twice. We're no more a country composed of Duck Dynasty types than the UK is a country of Daily Mail readers and people like .

There was a thread on here where I was trying to explain that I didn't know any Americans who didn't believe in evolution (though that has since changed) and someone actually replied "well Americans don't travel much, you probably haven't met many." :o I was cheated of my SGM "I AM CANADIAN" moment (do y'all remember that :o) because I was ready to swoop in and bellow "I AM AMERICAN" but someone got there first and explained that, in fact, I had never been out of America so it was highly likely that I did know a Yank or two.

And I think, as far as the ACA, people on both sides of the pond are misinformed. A lot of people in the UK don't seem to realize it is not just like the NHS. Not everyone qualifies for it, and it is going to raise healthcare prices for some. Like me. I don't mind, we can afford it and I think it's worth it. But for those who are barely holding on as it is...

Hey Keats

I have some lovely "normal" American friends, unfortunately my experience has been and continues to e that the crazy evangelicals shout the loudest and get what they want. The state of women's health services (especially for women who are at the bottom of the healthcare pile) is appalling and often because of policies driven by religious nuts (seriously a mandatory transvaginal ultrasound for women wanting an abortion in some states now? And it was pushed for by crazy evangelicals) I have a daughter now - there is no way in hell I'd want her brought up in the USA as it was when I lived there and from what I hear it's no better.

I have evangelical friends who vehemently believe all Muslims are evil and will take over the world soon, I have evangelical friends who pretend to love but despise anyone who isn't like them and make sure they use their vote to try to bring in politicians who will push appalling policies. I have many evangelical friends who think the likes of the Alaskan Woman are sane and sage politicians.

OTOH I have a very small handful of friends who are like the American you describe and they are fabulous, wonderful, funny, non-sheeple. I lived in 2 states and frequently visited another, the majority of people I met unfortunately fell into the crazy evangelical category - and separation of church and state is just an illusion when these people are using their vote to impose their beliefs on a population.

It was a 6 year experience - maybe I was just unlucky - I hope there are actually far more thinking, compassionate Americans than the majority that I met.

Pantos would never take off across the US really, would they?

Ok, now to turn the OPs question around...Would the UK accept states who decided to be British by proxy, by becoming Provinces of Canada (and following Canadian/UK laws et cetera)?

CheerfulYank hahahaha! So unfair that you were cheated of your swoop and bellow

Re: the ACA: I checked out that health sherpa site (www.thehealthsherpa.com/) to see what it would cost us, if we didn't have coverage through work, to buy in -- totally unaffordable. I know it varies greatly by state and there are subsidies based on income, but still, it doesn't look great. I was sorry to see this. And I was sorry to learn that it's also going to raise costs for people like you (business owner? not to pry) ... I mean, the ACA is such a triumph and yet it has been so hampered and compromised and that just makes me sad.

That video is so CUTE. I get your point re: the idea that we might assume that these kids = London/the UK, but I also just really want to introduce them to some giant badass American rappers

I have had the enormous good fortune to live in the metropolitan area of an old-fashioned American city formerly a byword for Irish/machine politics/gangsterism and corruption. Actually two such cities, come to think of it.

They are great places to live with great schools and safe neighbourhoods, and communities with wonderful facilities that were paid for and maintained by local taxes, which were fantastic for the DCs. They boast a great spirit of civic responsibility and volunteerism, and a culture where families don't consist of two camps - parents vs children/teens no groups of teens wandering the streets at night, hardly any graffiti...

I remember being stunned on a cross country trip west in 2000 to see the bumper stickers and billboards for Dubya -- it was all-Gore-all-the-time where I had driven from.

My points being:
You can't always judge a place by its reputation.
There are large areas of America where liberal Europeans would feel very at home and in fact might learn a lot about civic values, as well as places where they might like to just put their foot on the accelerator and move on.

Yes, Math - my enforced move from quaint New England to the Mid-West only served to push my experience further into dislike. Though I have to say, the evangelicals and their extreme views seem to be heavily present even in the north east - or that was my experience.

I wish it had been a better experience - it probably would have been but for some personal circumstances. There are things I certainly miss and some people I wish were still my neighbours (I very much miss my first neighbourhood in many ways) but I'd never want the UK to become part of the USA based on my experience.

happy I think you are quite right re: who shouts the loudest. I was also thinking as I read your post that one problem I do think many nice normal conservative Americans have is that they are far too credulous wrt. the media; there is a really worrying tendency among many Americans to accept what they see on the news without considering the source. This might be generational to some extent though; I think kids these days (kids these days! I'm old ) are very used to questioning the motive of what they read/hear, whereas older people come from a time when I think the media held itself to a standard of fair and accurate reporting that is not in play anymore. I also have a fairly low opinion of our education system pre-college and suspect people just are not being taught to think critically.

This "I have a daughter now - there is no way in hell I'd want her brought up in the USA as it was when I lived there and from what I hear it's no better" is really interesting to me to read b/c of course if we have kids (unlikely due to a number of factors) we would be raising them here, and there are aspects to raising kids in the US now that really give me pause. But I don't know how different it would be elsewhere. On one hand, there are countries where reproductive rights are far less threatened; the ultrasound thing is just profoundly appalling. On the other hand, I do think opportunity for a young woman to excel here is very great. Whether it is greater than some other places, though, I genuinely don't know.

Heh, happy and math I've lived all over the US and when I moved to the Midwest I was surprised that it is far less politically conservative here than I would have thought.

That's another thing though, along the lines of what you were saying about travelling through this country, math -- the US is just so big, has so many people living in it, that most interest groups are pretty large. It's to say "this view is representative and that one is not" when 1) they are not all getting equal air time and 2) they are not all getting accurate representation in the media and 3) there are just so many people. Experiences of American culture just vary so much. I think that's one reason why there are so many different impressions of the same place.

In all fairness, Keats, you could say that about many Uk-ers too - my GIL's quote the Fail as Gospel (and look right idiots to boot)

WRT girls and opportunity - I personally didn't see it being any better than the UK - and maternity rights etc aren't exactly fabulous in the USA, but having said that I was a SE SAHP while living there - but so were most of the women I knew - SAHP seemed to be the norm whereas here in the UK it doesn't, whether that's out of choice or necessity I'm not sure. It's the tenuous reproductive rights that bothers me the most though - I've discussed this at length with several friends over their who are mothers to girls and they find it downright frightening too - the wilful ignorance of the evangelicals over this issue is astounding to me.

It would never work - our version of a right wing leader (Cameron) is significantly more left wing than an American left wing leader (Obama).

Lol I know Keats! Drop him off in a bad part of Oakland and see if he's "top boy" then :o

Again, happy, it really does depend on the area, as I have lived in the Midwest my entire life. I lived in Ohio until I was 8 and Minnesota since; I love Minnesota and consider myself "from" there through and through.

Minnesota is usually a bit more liberal than other states, mostly I think because it was largely settled by Scandinavians and that culture is very much still present, with a good dose of the practicality and efficiency brought in by the German Catholics who also settled here. But we're definitely solidly Midwestern too, there's very much a "shake it off and get on with it, work hard and you'll be fine" mentality.

Sorry if I'm babbling, I've been at the bubbly :o Happy New Year!

And I'm sorry you had a bad experience, Happy. Also tbh I'm frightened to raise a daughter in the Western culture at all really!

Oh, I'm not a business owner :) But premiums are going up for a lot of people who get healthcare through work.