Eh, I still don't see how Damian is a troll, but *shrugs* I can't find the energy to ask further.

This whole debate about America? Who really cares? Every country has it's bad points, just because America (am I the only one who sees how ambiguous calling the USA that, is? I mean, we aren't the whole of america, we're part of North America) is swimming in them (or at least publicizing them to the world. *sigh* Our media will be our downfall) doesn't mean its a horrible place. The country is too diverse to give those types of judgements based on the actions of the goverment.

True, I haven't found a lot of things I like about the country, but I'm not exactly looking. I think it just boils down the location. Then again, I might just be opening my mouth before I think.

 

Three words:

Slavery, Segregation, Prohibition.

To Clarify, all three were situations where the diversity of the country failed to prevent the religious conservative right causing grave harm to our Democracy.

Slavery: I will admit that there was a large economic aspect as well, but the south's radical hyper-calvinism was used to amplify things.

Segregation: Mostly enforced by southern WASP's

Prohibition: This can be blamed on women and religion.

All three were HUGE issues (one resulted in a civil war, one in a near civil war, and one in a massive uprising of organized crime that took over 60 years to put down).

 

*blinks* I'm more of a "forget the past, it is the present" kind of person (despite my love of history, or perhaps because of it), so I was commenting on modern day USA, but I concede. I shouldn't have opened my mouth.

 

to preface, i grew up in the US midwest (Chicago predominantly). am now currently living in China.

pure conjecture. why would it be better? how can anyone automatically assume that anywhere in any given part of the country there will be a greater concentration of quality educators than anywhere else?

or are you inferring educational standards? even then, it's still hearsay. most of the developed and industrialized nations can make claims about the status of their education being better than another. there are quality institutes of education all over the world.

why would this be privy to the US and not the UK? or Botswana for that matter? both the US and the UK have a long tradition of empirical studies, it would help if you gave some reasoning.

mer? there are still plenty of private schools in the US that adhere to strict dress codes and uniforms. actually, private or public, there are dress codes (differing levels of enforcement obviously). the concept of wizarding robes isn't eccentricity in the Potterverse...it's an established way of dressing. most wizards do not conduct business or meet with muggles - so why would they dress that way?

sure, in OUR muggle world, developed countries and developing countries tend to adopt western styles of clothing - because these countries are interwoven in a global economy. but for isolated tribes in south america, africa, and southeast asia and the pacific islands...i doubt you'd find many people dressed in t-shirts and jeans.

this is a bit of a leap of faith on the part of us readers from rowling. to think that wizards could completely avoid the muggle world and/or images from the muggle world is absurd...but that's the way she crafted it.

i'm going to link this to racism. why more muggle contact in the US than in the UK? there are people in the small town i grew up in (about two hours away from chicago) that go through their entire life SEEING (not interacting with) one or two black people in their lives. hell, even in Chicago, you have privileged northsiders who will NEVER venture south of Roosevelt. they do it out of AVOIDANCE, just like wizards might avoid muggles.

i think that depends. while the US Constitution would seem to provide a basis for such a freedom to study what one likes...i think such things would still be considered "dark". taught? maybe, but in private institutions for such things (like Durmstrang?). but taught to the masses, i don't think so. at least not at the K-12 level. think about it, even in AP History (which you may or may not take) you're going to get the vanilla version of history. the deep dark secrets of human history including details of genocide and xenocide are going to be glossed over. and what would be a muggle dark art? torture? firearms? martial arts even? all those can be taught, but not en masse.

no country has a monopoly on child abuse.

there are plenty of fostered and adopted children the United States who have lives much worse than Harry (pre-hogwarts anyways). just like i'm sure there are plenty of children in the UK and France that have extremely bad situations.

Child Services in any country are not omniscient. With a population near 300 million, there are plenty of children that Child Services and its like will never find out about.

word up. the only places i would add would be somewhere near the Great Lakes. and maybe the Mississippi.

shrug, it makes sense...but it would make just as much sense to have a Secretary of Magic. or have a committee for magic that is made up of muggles and magic-folk.

see above.

see above.

i don't know jack about the UK court system. except that the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand have some jacked up laws.

if you mean we'd have a better wizarding court system? depends on how you base it. does the UK courts have trials judged by a jury of peers? a system of appeals? state supreme courts? national supreme courts? would the US wizarding court system separate adult and juvenile cases?

I do applaud your patriotism (and a lot of great things about the US are highlighted when you're living abroad in China - a place that also has its good points)...but the US is not nearly as free as you think it is. i know at this point in your education, you're (should be anyways) going over the Constitution and whatnot...and yes - the Constitution is great but the crux of the matter is that restrictions are enforced by the will of the people.

the UK wizarding folk of the Potterverse allow restrictions to be placed on them, and they adhere to them.

so would people in the US.

both peoples in the US and in the UK have histories of fighting for freedoms when restrictions became too much.

maybe, but this is hearsay. i'd think the most technomagic would be found in Japan or China.

the problem with this list has nothing to do with your age or your level of knowledge. no one would have nitpicked this as much if you had given a sentence or two of reasoning beside every point. but because you didn't...it's easy to assume naivety on your part.

 

Amsterdam is not Europe, and compared to them, the UK is as prude as the US. You keep taking this from stereotypes about how sexually liberated America is vs Britain (and to a lesser extent Europe as a WHOLE), which is the topic, to how prude America is because of example x and y in specific European nation z. I do not deny that America is more conservative sexually than Amsterdam... hell, Hell itself probably is. I however believe that the difference in the original comparisons (US v UK, US v all of EU combined) are overstated. Exagerrated. Pick a word that means more than non existant and less than a gaping canyon, and you might finally get what I'm saying. Or perhaps the pretense of debate is false, and you aren't even trying to understand me.

This is two seperate issues. First, that is not a universal American event. Women can go topless in NY, and that is not excluding beaches. Your friend would not be arrested everywhere in america, and I fully admit though that she could be arrested other places. The second issue is you confusing police arresting her with 'people caring'. You know from experience that she would be arrested, but I feel it safe to assume you did not poll the entire beach for their opinion on if they were offended. The prudishness of certain laws and the police does not mean the people are neccessarily equally prude. Even in Italy I know for a fact there are old, backwards laws that are still on the books that no one bothers to enforce or overturn. I think if you did poll the beach-goers, you would be surprised (based on your admitted views of Americans) to find how many people think the law is just as dumb as you do, and they are 100% American.

I have not seen or heard of one instance of freedom of speech being curtailed by HLS. If that were the case, all the very vocal Bush haters in this country would actually hesitate to do all the inane whining they do, everyday. The Supreme Court rarely inhibits free speech either. The most restrictive ruling I can think of recently by any courts concerning speech is anti-Christian decisions around Xmas time that ban Christian symbols from public displays, but that goes back and forth dso often lately I don't pay attention. This is really beside the point, can you point to any recent decisions that put any practical restrictions of free speech? I can't.

I think you misunderstood me, I didn't mean Springer or Stern, I meant the people watching. You, and Mid, assume that everyone watching does so for the shock value (it seems), whereas it sounds like you're implying that Italians watch (read/hear/etc) things for more 'mature' reasons of some sort, making their intentions more sophisticated and less worthy of brash and widespread judgement like you're doing with Americans. I don't see the press react to most of the things I had listed in a negative or condemning way... Stern and others are given very favourable covorage on Fox News at least, and Fox is supposedly the neocon media HQ. I also don't know many people that are shocked or offended by most of the things I listed, except perhaps old people and mothers, but you know what, I'm guessing if an Italian mom sat down and watched South Park, she might be a bit offended. I wouldn't assume, however, which is what you and Mid seem, to me anyway, to be doing. You assume because a dozen nuts protest, or they run a news story about it, or because some of them are trying to be shocking, that the general public lacks any maturity and is a bunch of titilated little giggling children. I don't believe this is the case at all.

Please point out to me where I said or even implied that Americans are more sexually liberated than anyone? You might want to reconsider who you're calling a troll, if this is me being 'proven wrong'. I never even implied such a thing, I simply said, more times than necessary now so please pay attention for once, that America's prudishness is overstated.

The American (and I guess Italian) people, who you are labelling liberated vs prude based on the actions of regulating minority bodies are who I meant.

I don't see how this applies to me. I hardly ever argue, and when I do, its usually about my 'controversial' opinions, not any matter of fact. Can you point to proof otherwise? Hint: if they are 'examples' like the above, incorrect, declaration that I supposedly believe America to be more sexually liberated than Europe, or if it is any opinion I put out that you decided to take as me trying to pass it off as a fact, then it would be in everyones best interest if you took the time to rethink the evidence of my 'trolling'. And I say nothing for the sake of inflaming anything. If my opinions are so bothersome to you, perhaps it is you who is prudish?

I hope that isn't what you think has happened between us, and is more general... I've never been debated into a corner on this forum, nor do I think you are any more hypocritical than most people, of any political alignment (including neocons), so I am sure I never labelled you one (except perhaps in what I believed to be obvious sarcasm). I actually respect everyones opinion on this board, even if I think the opinion itself stinks. Well, I confess, I'm not too keen on you and penguin guy (who's name I forget) calling me a troll... that seems like pretty much what you're saying neocons do. What a convinient and utterly immature little label to slap on someone when you can't think of anything better to say. But I'll assume you were being sarcastic.

 

I knew this thread was gonna get rough, I'm glad I got out when I did. Just one thing to say

WTF??
Have you ever studied geography?
Having been to amsterdam i'd have to say that the attitudes I saw there were not much different from those in the UK, it's just that the laws are less restrictive IMO.
Leaving again now.

 

As I made clear in clear in my counter-patriotic flamebait a few pages ago, one of the most important differences between the US and the UK today is that UK media and politics is not dominated by an increasingly conservative and fanatical Christian right wing.

Last year a 'gay marriage' law was introduced across the across the country - it was voted in by a large majority in Parliament and supported by popular opinion and most of the media.

Cf. the USA, where gay marriage has been introduced in a few states, and there was a massive public outcry, both in the majority of the media and politicians, and you perhaps begin to see the difference.

 

Meep! I'm starting to wish that I had thought some of these things out...

 

I think The Curch in the US has way to much power.In my country(Belgium) there is a complete separation of state and religion. If our king were to say
'may god bless us' all there would be a rel under the politicians.

we Belgians have to pay taxes on our income (the half of our wage goes to the state) wich the state uses to support the jobless (in Belgium when you are jobless you can get up to 8OO euro a month. we also have free healthcare

 

It's ok patriotism is good.
I'll not hear a word against New Zealand, I know it's not perfect and has its flaws but I'm still ridiculously defensive of it. Say what you like about England but don't touch NZ.
(I'm dual nationality btw, just making that clear)

 

I don't think it was even that. I think he was just saying what he was thinking. Don't worry too much about, LINKed up, the debate isn't a bad thing. After all, that's what democracy is suppose to encourage right? :roll:

 

True. Why do you think there are things like debate teams?

 

im dual nationality too, Northern Ireland and New Zealand

I hate the UK with the passion so if the main land and NI were nuked tomoro (without me there) i would not cry.

 

What about Scotland! come on we rock!

 

:? :shock: :wink:

sure.

 

We do, but i have to hand it to you, Irish accents are better than Scottish ones

 

thanks : ) mordecai said that Ireland was the arse of Britain. Didn't anyone tell him not to anger a sick irish girl!?! :lol:

 

Ouch not a good move, i would not like to be mordecai

I once saw an Irish girl who found her boyfriend cheating on her in a club, not a nice sight

 

lmao!!! well my boyfriend and all my friends know that i am particuarly volatile and sadistic : )

 

they shall be very carefull around you then, i was around one of my gf's, who kicked a guy in the balls so hard he pee'd blood