To think that America wasn't that great in the first place?

[malificent7]

I do have lack of historical knowledge but as far as I can tell modern America was formed by white settlers commiting mass genocide of nstive Americans then importing black slaves to do their dirty work and then moaning about there being black people in their country. In a nutshell. Am I wong?

And the UK is different how?

Isn't it precisely because the 'Puritans' were exciled to the U.S. that Christianity is so, well, puritanical?

Could not agree more. These posts are a bit rich when Brits colonised a lot of the world, committed a lot of these atrocities, had slaves and participated in the slave trade and weren’t always awesome.

I completely agree - I’m Canadian so not the same (hey neighbour to the south) but my rents lived in the US so have a bit more knowledge and we share a lot of the same history..

It’s this lovely British arrogance that tends to poke through everyone once in a while ….

Not just awful to nature Americans but awful to other immigrants. Chinese and Mexicans were treated appallingly. And slavery.

Along with the Spanish French and durtch settlers. New York was originally New Amsterdam

Yes, good points but I suppose the difference is there is no political party who makes making the country 'great' again their whole identity. The Brits done really do over enthusiasm.

Don't not "done".

I take it you've seen the South Park style version of American history, @malificent7 ?

Completely depends what you mean by “great”.

Given they went from a few tiny colonies to the richest and most powerful country in the world within around 300 years, that’s pretty impressive.

Whether the way they went about it was “great” is, of course, another matter.

I personally love the United States, despite its very obvious flaws.

to be fair, without American finances and manpower, the Nazis would have won WW2

Absolutely brilliant.

Fear is the basis of it all.

Unfortunately the 'slavedriving' and exploiting the 'little people' mentality has never left America . They won't even let cashiers in supermarkets sit down FFS.
This is what happens when a übercapitalist society that doesn't care about social safety nets gets out of control.
Part of my company's group is based in the US - many of the bosses earn six figures and do essentially no work, while those earning under $60K work 50+ hours a week trying to catch up paperwork the bosses are supposed to be doing. It's a fecking joke and unlikely to change anytime soon.

The insane orange muppet in the Whitehouse has just made things worse 🤦

What do you love about America? We’re north of you in Canada and no longer come over the border for lunch and shopping due to Trump.

To listen to Trump, America won WW2 single handed.

Love Southpark, reminds me of my youth and watching it after the pubs closed!

That's because he's watched too many hollywood movies

And he's a fucking moron

Sorry, should read, South Park not "Southpark".

Who in the Western world, or indeed mostly anywhere, hasn’t benefited from the US? Pax Americana is real, the technology and medicines the US has pioneered and which are largely funded by US citizens spill over to the rest of the world, Europe got a peace dividend, China has become rich in large part selling to US demand, PEPFAR has saved 25 million foreign lives at a cost of $100bn to US taxpayers, African Americans are the richest Africans in the world, elite Indians now rank amongst the most powerful and influential people in the world because of Silicon Valley’s openness, pretty much every ethnic group scores better in school tests in the US than in their origin countries, and millions of people when given a choice each year still vote with their feet and move to the US, with 22 million people having applied for the US visa lottery and millions more enduring risk and hardship to travel across the world to the US because being amongst the poorest in America is still, in their view, preferable to what they have now.

Plenty of bad, too, but this is all very “what have the Romans ever done for us”.

Untrue . The British Empire and Soviet Union would've eventually beaten Nazi Germany by themselves. It would've just taken two plus years longer. Hitler planned on a short war and Germany was already running out of strategic materials by early 1941 if not before. Couple of great documentaries on YouTube and elsewhere debunking the 'America won WWII' myth.
Of course it doesn't help when 'Mericans believe Hollywood and that they won every battle single handed. Look at the fiasco around that film U-571 where a story about the Royal Navy capturing Enigma codebooks was changed to a US Navy crew ... before the USA even joined the war 🙄

I think the French and Spanish and Portuguese did a fair bit of that in the US A well before the brits arrived. Ffs.

The Russians relied heavily on American money and kit.

We borrowed so much from them that it was only paid off a few years ago. Possibly about 2010 iirc.

It's so hard to predict what could have happened in alternative timelines. Where did you get that 2 year figure from? I'd like to read more about it

Hmmm. So the Russians did fuck all then?

Absolutely not. Huge numbers died. The Eastern front was horrific

Without the Russians then WW2 would have been very different. Not the same different without the Americans

It was an allied victory

Even in the uk we pay all our lives National insurance out of salary which runs into a 40 year working life a lot of money it's not free , it depends on each country , we pay pensions , unemployment money. We pay for people to be off work sick , but each country is differant ,in the uk you have private health care , private old age pension each of us is differant

We’ll never know, but Stalin disagreed with you: “without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war.” (1943, Tehran Conference).

With no US supplies the outcome is extremely uncertain, possibly a Nazi victory. Both Britain and the USSR were highly reliant. And without US military, most of Europe would probably be Soviet occupied and most of Asia Japanese Fascist. Not a great outcome.

The 20th century went much better for two continents because the US joined the war.