To hope that if Britain leaves the Eu so we can become the 51st State.

[GreenTeaMummy]

I love American culture so much and would love to be American, I visit every year and have lots of family who live in America.

I was thinking that since we can't be alone in the world (for various reasons) we would have to join the U.S.

Aibu to think we should have a second referendum to join America.

Is it from watching too much telly and aspiring to the lifestyles fed to us through the gloss?

I mean they've always been brilliant at promotion (propoganda?!) I remember my gran watching dallas and dynasty in awe in her teeny house on her clapped out sofa. I don't imagine people are aspiring to the sort of life enjoyed by a non-white person born into a really shitty neighbourhood.

I'll move to Austin Texas if they promise to introduce a greyer and more drizzly climate.

Nooo really. Horrible chocolate. That is all.

Renniehorta I went to the US for the 1st time in 2013 when my DS married an American girl. I thought that I would like it. I hated it. The food was awful either too sweet or just tasteless. I was horrified by the rural poverty. The difference between the haves and have nots is just horrifying. I felt unsafe due to the prevalence of guns and quite frankly bored. Bored through the lack of culture, the sheer inability to just walk somewhere interesting.

That was exactly my impression! I know its a huge place, but we started off on the east coast, then flew to the west and drove through five different states. Main memories: the vile, unhealthy food, trying to sit outdoors while having dinner in a high quality restaurant located next to a flyover in Seattle which none of the other diners seemed to notice, having to pay for your fuel in a petrol station before you filled your car due to the prevalence of drive-by shootings, never quite feeling safe on certain rural roads or small towns, driving to a nice small town and being unable to walk from the tourist information to the shops 200m away due to no pavements, the tin shacks in rural areas, mile after mile of featureless identikit suburbs, no railways, the dirty carpet in a 5 star hotel, the stupid, inane questions from the admittedly friendly people who didn't have any grasp of basic geography, hated it, would hate to go back.

Lovely, I'd vote for being part of Scandinavia too!!

Yet another reason for voting to stay in the EU.

Their chocolate, cheese and wine is crap. No way would I want to be part of that. (Aside from the whole health care/maternity pay/gun laws shit).

And they've ruined spelling.

And they've ruined spelling

Absolutely. And the stress on words like CIGarette and MAGazine.

I thought Israel was already the 51st state

Their tipping culture, where anyone who provides any kind of service expects to be tipped handsomely for doing so because their employer doesn't actually pay them any wages to speak of.

I'd love OP to tell us what aspects of American culture she's so keen on.

"Their tipping culture, where anyone who provides any kind of service expects to be tipped handsomely for doing so because their employer doesn't actually pay them any wages to speak of."

YY this as well!

Mind you our solution of the govt paying top-ups because the employer doesn't pay enough isn't much better but I guess at least it isn't subject to the same problems around racism / sexism / non-attractive-person ism that some studies have flagged up!

I lived in the US for a couple of years and that's when I started to think of myself as European in addition to British. I do like some parts of the U.S., and some aspects of their culture but that applies to the rest of Europe too. And the U.S has some decidedly negative aspects too.

Greentea
Could you come back and tell us what bits about America you think are so great?

I love the USA. I was born there and most of my family are over there. I go over regularly.
But I cannot envisage living there.

What about America appeals to you so much?

I'm trying to think what aspects of US culture which are worth having aren't readily available here anyway on dvd or online.

G Bay.
Capital punishment.
Wife bonuses
More of the population believe dinosaurs were on the earth when modern man was and that is it only up to 6000 years old.

Pity we lost the war of independence. We might otherwise have been able to own it and enforce on to it our better culture.

There's a book based on this exact premise actually, I read it years ago.

Maybe it's the country clubs, chinos, and men called Blaine Chuckleberry III the OP is after.

No thanks to guns, religious fundamentalists, obesity & even more celebritisation of politics. Unless we can have the weather I'm not sure there's any benefit whatsoever.

Come on now, it's not as bad as all that. I'd give my right arm for a secondment to New York for a couple of years. Would also consider San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago.

The OP's opening gambit is complete bonkers though. Where do I even start? Utterly unreasonable in every way.

Are you serious, OP, or did you cannily realize that your post would set off a spate of US-bashing?

I would like to be part of America even less that I like being part of Europe.

There aren't really any aspects of American life and culture that I like, but each to their own.

I spent a week in Texas quite a few years ago. People asked where I was from and when I said London, they said London, Ontario? They were not being ironic

A country where the Tories would be regarded as an extreme left wing party! No way.

Like Seneca, I wonder did the OP start this thread so people could enjoy themselves having the usual go at america and americans?