this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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I'll never understand this attitude that Europeans have towards Americans. I thought we were friends.
North Americans and Europeans are only friends when someone from a different continent is in the room.
I'm franco-american, living in france, and I regularly get people telling me they're sorry for insulting me for being american. It's so ingrained in the culture here to shit on americans it's something of a knee-jerk reaction. I get it, america's the hegemon, we're the big baddy, I just wish that didn't spill over into a kind of xenophobia that people are so comfortable with they regularly catch themselves being openly insulting to people they call their friends.
They can't talk to eagles 🦅 so they don't count that as a language
I remember back in high school there was this Danish foreign exchange student one year, and she would not shut up about how this or that was better in Denmark.
The average Dane is firmly convinced that Denmark is the most perfect place on earth, a paradise that the rest of the world can only dream of. It follows that any reasonable person who's not already a Dane must have a desire to become one. If they don't, there must either be something wrong with them or they simply haven't heard enough about how good Denmark is.
When you like paying taxes cos you get something for it, thats saying something!
The upper class in Denmark are just as big piss babies about paying their taxes as they are anywhere else. Ordinary Danes might like to say they're happy to pay taxes but in reality few of them would pass the opportunity to have their car fixed off the books or to buy beer in Germany to avoid the Danish alcohol tax.
Those kind of people exist anywhere, that isn't tied to any nationality. Guess it stemms from insecurities and chasing some weird need to feel superior about something.
Well in fairness if you came to America and saw what a depraved, decaying shithole it is after being raised on a diet of airbrushed American media you'd probably be appalled, too.
I can't count how many stories I've heard of people visiting from civilized parts of the world and breaking down crying in the street when they see how American's treat homeless people.
My theory is they don't like constantly seeing us in their news and entertainment when we rarely see anything at all from their country.
Thing is, there's not much American news outside of the US. I live in Canada and have far less news about America than I'd thought there should be given how we are neighbors and partners. Most of the news I used to hear about the USA is from Reddit. And when I visit France (which I do regularly, bring born there), there's almost nothing about the US there.
Recently though, Trump was also over and it wasn't pretty. Also when going on Reddit, it's 80% about US News and content, but not necessarily the best news.
Overall, what bothers me and others is how much patriotic a lot of the Americans seem to be and how great they seem to think they are, even when you hear how bad the society is in terms of healthcare, pension, divided politics, crimes, conspiracy theory, etc.
But everytime I've been to the US, I've only met great and friendly people and have always appreciated it. You usually hear about the bad parts in the news.
We are only friends because the other big guys look way because out of the big guys the usa look the least scary.