To be so intrigued by America?

[hollyblueivy]

AIBU to be so intrigued by America and just how vastly different it is to the UK despite both being rich modern nations?

Trump features a lot in the UK news and it has made me look into why the US seem so uncaring. Their systems to help the vulnerable are so different to ours. They have no right to housing so many can easily risk facing homelessness. With no national health service, access to healthcare is much more difficult and expensive, pushing people into deprivation even if they are working.

They don’t seem to have the same socialist heart as the UK and it gives a very much dog eat dog and every man for themselves culture.

I don’t think I fully appreciated this before. Anyone else?

“They would be out one can of baby formula” - this is how scammers test people. “Oh, please, she’s so hungry. I just need one can of formula.” They get the formula, which establishes that these people will give them something free without any vetting. Then they start their slow-boil escalation. Next week - “I’m so sorry, I really hate that I have to ask you, but we just had to pay for new car tabs so my husband and I can drive to work, and we’re short on money now. I just need one or two cans - one is fine if that’s all you can do…”

A canister of powdered formula sells in stores for about twenty dollars. Now every time a scammer wants some money for herself, she gets the free formula and sells it to someone with an actual baby for a few dollars less than in the store. Let’s say seventeen dollars. Get three churches to give you a free canister, and bam, you just made fifty bucks. (Fifty-one, actually…)

Baby formula is a frequently stolen item for people who plan to resell it. Like this guy:

https://www.wpbf.com/article/florida-officials-crack-down-on-organized-retail-theft-in-major-baby-formula-case/68022534

Most churches in the US organize at least a couple food drives a year. Mine has an ongoing food drive, with a push for donations around holidays and in the summer when kids aren’t getting any free food at school. If churches only do specific help-on-demand for church members, it’s probably because they actually know those people and their situations.

As PP's have said it's impossible to overstate the size and diversity of the place. I lived in Oklahoma for 3 years and having "been to America" before was bowled over by the culture shock at first. A holiday in Florida or NYC is as similar to living somewhere like OK as a holiday in Portugal would be to moving to Latvia.

Much I loved about the place and much I would never be able to fathom in million years!

That doesn’t help the genuine cases those does it? They could’ve asked for the mum to come down with her baby and they will see what they can do.

The UK is very socialist. I didn't have this impression at all coming in when I moved here, having spent my life in several different former British colonies so influenced by an older form of British culture. But today it is undeniably so.

I assumed maybe it was like Australia in that there was a social safety net but mostly capitalist society.

I don't think this is based on "centuries of collectivism and community spirit" but something that changed concretely post-WWII.

There is just a desire for the state to control everything, everything is the state's problem to solve and not only that, it should ideally be illegal for anyone else to try to solve those problems privately. It's suspicious if you try to do things outside the state way, e.g. private healthcare, education, even housing.

Places like America are heavily influenced by being frontier colonies that valued a certain type of spirit, but most of the founders of America were of British stock to start with... They say American spellings trace back to an older form of British spellings and sometimes I wonder if the same is true for other cultural aspects as well.

Yes I should have said the UK is socialist in part in respect of NHS, education, benefits and welfare, state pension, right to housing, progressive taxes which in part redistributes wealth. It’s more social democracy than socialism, but I am learning and getting my head around this myself.

It is more of a cultural attitude I'm referring to, which is somewhat less present in Australia and definitely much less present in (most of) America. The idea that the state should not just step in for emergencies but is the default provider of all services. It should not just provide funds but actually supply the services too.

I have met a few people from California and NY who are all in on social democracy or democratic socialism or whatever term they are using now. Some of them are really radical - like "let's abolish property rights" level of radical. (I really disagree with people who say the American left is further right than our right-wing.) But I don't know, the difference to me is something like, they know what they are proposing is radical. It's not their default way of thinking.

There isn't an entrenched idea across the entire country that of course the state is your landlord, teacher and employer, and why would it be any different. This to me is actually quite "odd", and is more than just a safety net.

I know this is pedantic, but please don’t confuse the continent of North America with the country of America.

Not according to this data, in fact: "More than one in five children aged 0-17 were living in poverty in the United States, according to this data, placing it as one of the countries to stand well above the 38-country average of 12.6 percent."

https://www.statista.com/chart/4191/global-child-poverty-rates-in-perspective/

A couple of things I cannot get my head around with regard to the US are the gun culture and their lack of decent maternity leave. Workers’ rights seem quite poor, and their annual leave allocations seem to be horrendous.

in the US, travel insurance is different to the UK and is just is just for covering things like missing bags or having to cancel. Medical insurance overseas is covered by our usual domestic policy. The only time I get travel insurance is when I am going on a cruise (in case we need airlifting off or something)

@Goldenbear Thanks for the information. I always appreciate being given facts and statistics, rather than personal anecdotes and opinions. Too many people are too willing to believe one thing they read about or base their opinion on just one person's experience.

People like quick soundbites that are easy to understand.

Such as "Trump banned abortions" and "there is no medical care for the poor in the US".

In reality the actual situation is a lot more complex than this but unfortunately it requires some significant time and effort to dig into it and actually understand whats going on.

Because UK people don't really have a "state system" (we have counties but the power devolved to them is relatively limited and invariant compared to what happens in the US states) there is also a real lack of understanding in the UK of how US governance/law works and why it works in the way it does. For example you really have to look at things like why the US states historically have so much devolved power from the Federal government to understand why some laws might vary on a State by State basis and not on a Federal one.

I would say about 90% of the posts re the US on here are incorrect and show a lack of understanding of US governance and politics and how it works. More jumping on the "we want to hate so and so" and "we want to do down the US" bandwagons than actually understanding the greater issues involved.

It is quite a complicated political system to understand and I doubt many UK citizens are that interested to look into it as I doubt many Americans care that much about our constitution.

And not "as".

America is very different to a centralised UK or EU country. Counties and cities make their own laws, then there is State laws and then federal law. Its a much more local culture in a huge range of ways. "Fly over" states are so different culturally to the big East and West coast too. Its so interesting and different.

Well the short answer is that anything that is deemed medically necessary is covered by medicaid. So regular doctor visits, hospitalization, emergency services, vaccinations, surgeries, etc., are covered. You actually don't have to have any type of medical coverage at all to get vaccinations for free, though, if they are ones that are required in order for a child to attend school. You can get those for no cost.

Procedures that are purely cosmetic are not covered by medicaid. For instance breast augmentation for cosmetic purposes would not be covered. But breast reconstruction because someone has had a mastectomy is covered. I would assume that the NHS is similar in that regard, but I don't know for sure.

Anytime any service or piece of durable medical equipment is denied by Medicaid the individual has appeal rights. If you appeal, you get to come and talk to somebody like me who will read the regulations and decide whether it's covered or not.

Good points here. I would point out that in the US Constitution, the powers that states have generally are not devolved from the federal government (in the sense of delegated powers), but rather reserved to the states. This is important because there are many state matters that the federal government has no authority over.

Well quite.

Perhaps a greater mystery is why people feel the need to comment or judge a country when they clearly (by demonstration) know very little about how governance and law actually works there and have made little effort to do so.

Maybe again its the commonality of language, that lures people into believing that the US and the UK are similar and there is in fact nothing to learn, when in fact they are quite different.

Nope. I am Canadian and I am North American, but not American. I once had an argument with a man from El Salvador who called us both American. Drove me nuts.

Speaking anecdotally, I think it stems from British ideas our parents had of not being Americanised, particularly if you were a teen in the 90s even 00s. I know my Dad hated MTV, American burger takeaways, wasn't very keen on Disney, he would always hire British made children's DVDs from the video shop for me when I was young so films like, The Railway Children. I know amongst my parents friends, he wasn't the only one. My Mum didn't feel the same namely as she was a huge Bob Dylan fan so we went on a tour of the U.S. for 7 weeks when I was 5 years old and she planned it all. The influence on British culture was quite considerable so perhaps they were right to be weary but it's right to not lazily default into that mindset as for a start it's a huge country!

I agree that we are very different countries. However, there is also quite a bit of commonality that is often overlooked on these threads. For one thing, every state (except Louisiana*) has a legal system that is based, to varying degrees, on English common law. In fact, lawyers can and do cite English cases as authority, especially when there is no applicable precedent from the States.

*Louisiana's legal system is based in large part on Roman law, similar in some ways to Scots law.

The better place to do that would be a food bank.

If you read the Laura Ingalls Wilder “little house” books, you’ll get a great insight into the American psyche. It was settled by people who were hard working and self reliant, who built log cabins either their bare hands and crossed the country in covered wagons in the dead of winter. They expect to work hard and provide for themselves and their families, and success is seen as a good thing. Also that guns were essential.

Good point. I just googled "food banks near me" and came up with 16, many of them run by religious charities.

What if the food bank ran out? This was the scenario that lady was trying to represent. No food any where she looks. She is desperate so reaches out to churches. Even the mega churches that rake in millions a year said no.

Don’t churches have discretionary funds for a one off donation? Didn’t the people on the other end of the phone line feel anything?

I would’ve offered to pay out of my own pocket if I asked her to come down with her baby and I could verify.

A lot of these churches are pro choice. They should be supporting the children that need help.

The only churches that do help were black Christian churches or progressive left wing ones, and a mosque.