Yeah the grand irony of comments like this is that it is a brand of thinking that is actually very characteristic of a specific group of Americans who blindly v

Yeah the grand irony of comments like this is that it is a brand of thinking that is actually very characteristic of a specific group of Americans who blindly view the rest of the world as some utopia(and they are mostly just equating Europe with the rest of the world here) and America as this embodiment of everything terrible. So you get to seem worldly while in my mind projecting a very limited view of the realities of the broader world. Slate Star Codex (Astral Codex Ten now) has an amazing piece on the sociology and psychology of the phenomenon of "Blue/Left American's" who enjoying trash talking America where he points out that these people who make an identity out of trash talking "America" as well as things like white men who write articles about "how terrible white men are" are not being self critical because those terms in this context are a code word for "Red/Right America" who are stereotypically more openly patriotic. So it creates this great rhetorical tool of getting to seem humble and self critical on the surface while everyone knows you are really just complaining about the other side. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin... Truly one of my favorite things I have ever read. Put words on so many things that I felt but struggled to articulate. Worth pointing out that I don't identify with conservative or right politics. I know because I'm critiquing one side here but it's not an indication of me being on the other side. I just find it to be an interesting point that matches my lived experience. I'm also an American expat.