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I can tell you that your experience will be vastly different depending on where you live and work. That's why it's hard to make meaningful statements about Amer

I can tell you that your experience will be vastly different depending on where you live and work. That's why it's hard to make meaningful statements about America as a whole, such as "Americans think they are number 1" or "You're more likely to get murdered if you move to America". Nobody throws a dart on a map and moves to America the country, they move to California or Virgina or Wisconsin. Your supporting evidence cited a Fox News poll, which is probably the most biased and self-selecting demographic I can think of. That's one of our well-publicized failings, actually--the inherent biases of corporate media and the echo chamber of politics.

pessimizer 14y ago
>I can tell you that your experience will be vastly different depending on where you live and work. I'm not sure how this makes the US different from the countries it's being compared to. They all have more and less dangerous regions. There are more and less dangerous regions within a block's walk from me, but the average over that area gives me a general basis of comparison with other areas. I always feel that there's a racial subtext to this kind of defense of US statistics (which I often hear in terms of education, crime, and health outcomes.) It is, basically, that the parts of the US that the average Scandinavian or Japanese citizen would ever be in have comparable rates of terribleness to their own countries - just ignore the massive portion of the US behind the curtain. e.g. I am more likely to be killed when moving to an average Chicago from an average Finland. Since Chicago is segregated, however, very few white people would ever see an average Chicago - so an average Chicago can't be a meaningful comparison.
- tadfisher 14y ago
  > I always feel that there's a racial subtext to this kind of defense of US statistics (which I often hear in terms of education, crime, and health outcomes.) There is, and that is a characteristic of the United States in general of which most who live there are keenly aware. This is why they speak quickly against comparisons of the United States as a whole against Scandinavian countries or Japan. Those countries do not have the ethnic heterogeneity or deep-seated institutional racism that the United States has experienced and still experiences. For example, my state sterilized violent criminals and the mentally disabled until the 1980s, most of them being ethnic minorities. This would be unthinkable in Sweden, for example. We also have easy access to guns and a destabilized internal culture in ethnically-heterogeneous areas, where community respect is a factor of how much crime you have committed or how many people you have killed. You are exactly right, however, in that living in an upper-class neighborhood in Chicago would skew your perspective of crime in America.
  - gnud 14y ago
    Both Sweden and Norway had sterilization programs for "unwanted elements" (in Norway, mostly Romani, in practice) until the mid-70s.
  - smsm42 14y ago
    Japan has plenty of racism. They just don't have a lot of who to apply it to - not in the scales that it happened in the US.
  - grecy 14y ago
    >This is why they speak quickly against comparisons of the United States as a whole against Scandinavian countries or Japan. Those countries do not have the ethnic heterogeneity or deep-seated institutional racism that the United States has experienced and still experiences. America is not unique in that it faces challenges and obstacles to being successful. Japan had two nuclear weapons used on it's citizens, half of Western Europe has been invaded and occupied in the last 70 years, and Australia has had the worst drought ever recorded. Those examples barely scratch the surface. Your line of reasoning that America is "unique" or somehow "different" because of the challenges it continues to face is a perfect example of American exceptionalism. Facing challenges and obstacles is all part of the challenge of building a successful country where the average person on the street has a high quality of life. When compared against other first world countries, which have also faced very large challenges to their success, America does not rank well. Stop making excuses and finding reasons to excuse yourself from greater comparisons.
    - tadfisher 14y ago
      I am not making excuses for my country, and I am not here to prove that America is unique in that it has to face challenges. I am trying to say that America is not one place or one people, or even one government, and that comparing the entirety of a loose coalition of independent states to single independent nations is disingenuous and ignores specific factors that other developed nations simply don't have to deal with. Yes, all countries have challenges, but all challenges are not the same. I listed a few in my previous posts. I don't appreciate your belligerent discourse, putting words in my mouth, or typecasting me as a brainwashed patriot. I am well aware of America's problems and I recognize that the United States as a whole is falling well behind in many important metrics. You are not buying my argument that these metrics are skewed greatly by historical and regional concerns that are outside the control of the federal government, and that is your prerogative. But please do not belittle me and accuse me of being ignorant of the world's problems.

pessimizer 14y ago

>I can tell you that your experience will be vastly different depending on where you live and work. I'm not sure how this makes the US different from the countries it's being compared to. They all have more and less dangerous regions. There are more and less dangerous regions within a block's walk from me, but the average over that area gives me a general basis of comparison with other areas. I always feel that there's a racial subtext to this kind of defense of US statistics (which I often hear in terms of education, crime, and health outcomes.) It is, basically, that the parts of the US that the average Scandinavian or Japanese citizen would ever be in have comparable rates of terribleness to their own countries - just ignore the massive portion of the US behind the curtain. e.g. I am more likely to be killed when moving to an average Chicago from an average Finland. Since Chicago is segregated, however, very few white people would ever see an average Chicago - so an average Chicago can't be a meaningful comparison.

tadfisher 14y ago
> I always feel that there's a racial subtext to this kind of defense of US statistics (which I often hear in terms of education, crime, and health outcomes.) There is, and that is a characteristic of the United States in general of which most who live there are keenly aware. This is why they speak quickly against comparisons of the United States as a whole against Scandinavian countries or Japan. Those countries do not have the ethnic heterogeneity or deep-seated institutional racism that the United States has experienced and still experiences. For example, my state sterilized violent criminals and the mentally disabled until the 1980s, most of them being ethnic minorities. This would be unthinkable in Sweden, for example. We also have easy access to guns and a destabilized internal culture in ethnically-heterogeneous areas, where community respect is a factor of how much crime you have committed or how many people you have killed. You are exactly right, however, in that living in an upper-class neighborhood in Chicago would skew your perspective of crime in America.
- gnud 14y ago
  Both Sweden and Norway had sterilization programs for "unwanted elements" (in Norway, mostly Romani, in practice) until the mid-70s.
- smsm42 14y ago
  Japan has plenty of racism. They just don't have a lot of who to apply it to - not in the scales that it happened in the US.
- grecy 14y ago
  >This is why they speak quickly against comparisons of the United States as a whole against Scandinavian countries or Japan. Those countries do not have the ethnic heterogeneity or deep-seated institutional racism that the United States has experienced and still experiences. America is not unique in that it faces challenges and obstacles to being successful. Japan had two nuclear weapons used on it's citizens, half of Western Europe has been invaded and occupied in the last 70 years, and Australia has had the worst drought ever recorded. Those examples barely scratch the surface. Your line of reasoning that America is "unique" or somehow "different" because of the challenges it continues to face is a perfect example of American exceptionalism. Facing challenges and obstacles is all part of the challenge of building a successful country where the average person on the street has a high quality of life. When compared against other first world countries, which have also faced very large challenges to their success, America does not rank well. Stop making excuses and finding reasons to excuse yourself from greater comparisons.
  - tadfisher 14y ago
    I am not making excuses for my country, and I am not here to prove that America is unique in that it has to face challenges. I am trying to say that America is not one place or one people, or even one government, and that comparing the entirety of a loose coalition of independent states to single independent nations is disingenuous and ignores specific factors that other developed nations simply don't have to deal with. Yes, all countries have challenges, but all challenges are not the same. I listed a few in my previous posts. I don't appreciate your belligerent discourse, putting words in my mouth, or typecasting me as a brainwashed patriot. I am well aware of America's problems and I recognize that the United States as a whole is falling well behind in many important metrics. You are not buying my argument that these metrics are skewed greatly by historical and regional concerns that are outside the control of the federal government, and that is your prerogative. But please do not belittle me and accuse me of being ignorant of the world's problems.