America vs the rest of the world

[JackWilson]

J-Mac

As a South African who has travelled to Asia, Europe and now just less than a week ago, America, I feel I can make some additional comments.

The thing I hate most about South Africa is the crime. Trust me, living in a home with 2 sections of outer gating, 1 section of inner gating, EDIT: (all with electric fencing) CCTV cameras all around and TWO alarm systems does not give you any real security. It's simply a matter of making your home a slightly less attractive option for criminals. People here aren't just robbed, they're wiped out. People will come into your house and clean out the entire place and then kill you. There are highway interchanges that I now avoid because there are 4-5 murders at that interchange PER DAY.

It's a bit ridiculous. Some of the things I saw in America and Canada were amazing. Kids playing out in the street. Self-checkout supermarkets (trust me this would never work in South Africa). Homes with no fencing or walls, doors and cars left unlocked/unattended. There are too many things to even mention here.

It has to be said though that Canada far outstrips the US in terms of things like safety, cleanliness and friendliness of people and so on. Canada wasn't as interesting as the US but it was certainly nicer being there. In America I saw a bit of poverty here and there, lots of beggars, much bigger divides in economic class, I was also racially attacked twice in America and made fun of for being a tourist and in general people were much less friendly.

[JustinWilliams]

Great post J-Mac

[daryn]

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I was also racially attacked twice in America and made fun of for being a tourist and in general people were much less friendly.


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please elaborate

[prohornblower]

America, %&*$ YEAH!!!

[Vivalution]

I [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J-Mac

[Redd]

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I love that a few dozen incredibly smart men sat in Philadelphia 220 years ago and just thought up some ideas that changed the world.

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J-mac,

I hear Americans say this all the time and I've never understood it. I don't know if you're implying this or not, but many Americans I've talked to seem to think democracy was invented in philly in 1788. Wikipedia even cites the US as being the first (although the citation is some arbitrary book review that mentions it off-handedly).

What was unique and novel about the US' revolution that hadn't been done in rome, greece, iceland, gr. britain, and (basically concurrently) france? I don't understand why the founding fathers' democracy was any truer than what had been going on over 2000 years earlier; to me, it looks like it was still a system of restricted suffrage designed exclusively by white male land(and slave)-owners that maintained the status quo for white male land-owners. What was so groundbreaking about the original US democractic system?

[tsearcher]

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What was unique and novel about the US' revolution that hadn't been done in rome, greece, iceland, gr. britain, and (basically concurrently) france? I don't understand why the founding fathers' democracy was any truer than what had been going on over 2000 years earlier; to me, it looks like it was still a system of restricted suffrage designed exclusively by white male land(and slave)-owners that maintained the status quo for white male land-owners. What was so groundbreaking about the original US democractic system?

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The Greek and Roman democracies were even less inclusive than the early U.S. Neither of them were sustainable. Although the ideas of the Greeks were influential on the founding fathers, the founding fathers did a much better job of implementing those ideas.

Although GB had begun to move towards democracy at the time, they were struggling with it. The monarchy still had a lot of power.

The French and Americans had a lot of influence on each other. But the French failed miserably. Whereas the Americans succeeded. It took the French another 100 years to catch up.

Iceland appears to have succeeded with democracy earlier than any one else. But they were weren't influential in any way.

[Norrmusty]

1. J-Mac seems very ignorant despite having seen many different places.

2. Raegarding poverty. I remember watching TV when New Orleans was hit by the hurricane, if I had not known it was in New Orleans I could have mistaken it for a city in Africa.

3. USA is far from the most democratic country in the world.

[szw]

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2. Raegarding poverty. I remember watching TV when New Orleans was hit by the hurricane, if I had not known it was in New Orleans I could have mistaken it for a city in Africa.

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What is your point here? They were just hit by a [censored] hurricane!

[tsearcher]

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1.
3. USA is far from the most democratic country in the world.

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The US does not have pure democracy. I believe the correct term is a representative democracy. Any way, what would you consider the most democratic countries in the world? How far is the US in terms of democracy from these other countries?