AMERICA NEEDS TO GROW UP & ACT LIKE EUROPE!

[drexel dave]

Run time: 05:10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAibHN6AAeE   Posted on YouTube: November 05, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: November 07, 2009 By DU Member: drexel dave Views on DU: 2415

 
what this guy says.

[snake in the grass]

1. I've been in the U.S. for 2 years now after...

...living in Germany for 22 and I don't think I'll stay here much longer. This country is the most backward of the industrial nations and I don't see any hope of change during my lifetime. I figure I have around another 30 years on this planet. I'd rather spend it in a civilized country.

[valerief]

2. Europe isn't burdened by a gay-bashing, abortion-hating Jeebus like America.

[CurtEastPoint]

3. Rick Steves is great. Love the shows and books and now I love HIM!

What a sane argument he presents. We arrested 800K people in the US last year for weed? I had no idea of the scope of that.

I laughed when he said he could say what he wants because he isn't running for office and can't get fired. If people boycott his shows and books for his views, he says, "Good. Europe will be more fun without them."

Go Rick!

[rhett o rick]

7. I am a huge Rick Steves fan. I have taken two of his tours and followed his books on a number of

other trips to Europe.

[gtar100]

4. Wow, straight forward, practical talk about drugs.

I wish everyone could hear this. Wouldn't convince the people who are already closed minded but it is definitely food for thought for those who feel something isn't right but not quite sure how to put it. Rick Steves says exactly what needs to be said - our drug laws are causing more harm than the drugs themselves.

[newmac]

5. We could be rational in this country too; if we'd only stomp out the right

Call them the "Regressives"

[sasquatch]

8. Block all representiatives from the old confederacy

I know we'll lose an Alan Grayson, but he could run for office in NYC or something.

[ooglymoogly]

6. KR Why is the truth so foreign and so rationed and so rare, in this country.

I too wish I could go back to Europe, where I lived 12 years of my young life and live out the rest of my life now that I am older. The thuglicans and their ruthless greed make this a mean and dangerous place to live. The house of cards the thuglicans have built is made of bars razor blades and lies.

[sasquatch]

9. Post #8

[Strider2]

10. Maybe he is right, but

US culture is different than European culture. Using incarceration data to prove your point may simply conceal the real problems. It doesn't help to have government induced slums, either.

[lumpy]

22. The US is uncultured, and worse, it has gone amouk and out

of control.

[Iterate]

11. Watch the entire talk

His entire talk, "Rick Steves: Travel As a Political Act", is from The Commonwealth Club and is available here:

http://fora.tv/2009/10/28/Rick_Steves_Travel_As_a_Political_Act#fullprogram

I must admit that prior to this I never gave him credit for being so thoughtful. Europe gained its wisdom from hundreds of bloody years of religious wars and a right wing that killed tens of millions. We would do well to pay attention to our cultural cousins.

[Strider2]

12. In Europe, the right wing is

the opposite of the US. They are the socialists/communists/Marxists. I would hate to see someone get confused here.

[Iterate]

13. It appears that someone here is already quite confused

Obviously I was referring to the 20th century fascists, among others who concentrated power in the hands of a few. I can assure you there is no such confusion in Europe and they have always been identified with the right. European Marxists on the right? That's just nutty.

Education by talk radio is not a good thing.

[Strider2]

15. Without getting into Hayek,

let me just adjust my point by saying it has been the statists (read communists/Socialists/Marxists) who have caused more death & destruction in Europe than any other group.

[Iterate]

16. Oh god, not Hayek again

Volumes of crafted nonsense and tangled assumptions that takes a paragraph to deconstruct any two given consecutive words. Take it elsewhere, I won't spend the time.

As far as your other assertion goes, it always pays to learn who owns the bullets: the strikers or the strike breakers, the peasants or the royalists, revolutionaries or the neo-czarist cults.

And beyond that I would argue that the greatest expansion of socialism from post-war Britain to EU expansion has been largely peaceful and democratic, while the futile attempt by small elites (whatever they might call themselves) to maintain or expand empire from the Boer War in South Africa to India to the Congo to Algeria to Vietnam to the Soviet Union to Iraq to Chile has been a bloody mess. Well, so many counties, so little time...but at least they have Hayek for a philosophical mask and magical free markets to justify it all.

[Strider2]

17. It remains that the greatest death toll

has been rung up in the 20th century by the left, the socialists/communists/Marxists. It is also true the western Europe succumbed to the wiles of socialism (to various degrees) with nary a shot being fired. Trading their monarchies for socialism is not that great a step. For the US, however, that final step will be huge.

[Iterate]

18. Pure fundie nonsense

"succumbed to the wiles of socialism"? Damn that Satan. But those Europeans were weak and don't fear God.

Turn off the teevee, read more than one good book, enjoy your brief visit.

[Strider2]

19. Is your mockery supposed proof

that I provided false information or evidence that you have no argument?

[Iterate]

20. This is the wrong forum for this type of discussion

To dismiss 800 years of struggle and blood, in England let's say, from a near absolutist monarchy to a system that incorporates a few elements of socialist ideals with your phrase "Trading their monarchies for socialism is not that great a step" suggests to me a thin veneer of understanding and lack of regard for people who have learned hard lessons.

If you wish to discuss and learn, then PM me.

If you merely want to argue your points, then take it to the GD forum, where I think you'll be shredded (if not tombstoned) within about two hours.

[LynnTheDem]

24. The "confused somebody" is a birther.

Need one say more? :rofl:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7158197#7158536

[Overseas]

14. No they aren't. They have free market privateering xenophobic right wingers there too.

They also have some formerly communistic countries that include what we might perhaps call a hard left (that we don't allow a voice on our media over here) that wants to return to communism. It is only their longing for autocratic, totalitarian rule that makes them similar to US right wingers. But those hard left who want to return to nationalizing all their industries are not economic right wingers. Our right wingers believe in privatizing as many government services as possible.

Europe certainly has corporate hard right parties who believe in the "wisdom of the free market" and privatization of government services. It is just that they've had more social compassion than we have for decades now, so they don't seem right wing to us. Angela Merkel, for example, is considered to be a conservative in Europe, but over here she'd be seen as a centrist Democrat.

We haven't heard much about Jean Marie Le Pen lately, but he was a French right wing leader. And there are Nazi Skinhead types in England and elsewhere in Europe, whose fear of immigrants is exploited for political ends. And Tories. And multinational corporations that profit from exploiting plutocratic governments in other countries to privatize their industries and utilities.

[go west young man]

21. Well put.

[lumpy]

23. OMG ! Yes, America must grow up and, judging from your

post, it's educational system is broken.

[elleng]

25. 'Europe' is a number of countries,

each of which does what it wants the way it wants. I really see little comparison.

PS, I'd like to spend more of my time there. Maybe, some day.