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Socially engineering the US to be like Western Europe

Loonatic93 said:
Care to give an example? I am honestly curious what someone from Scandinavia (or really any other first world country) would consider a positive attribute of the U.S. Especially in comparison to their own country.
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Australia could do with more US style innovation, entrepreneurship, and ability to simply get (commercial) things done.
 
MikeG said:
If something is ill-fitted to the modern world, do you change it, or do you accept it as cast-in-stone?
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If there are large swaths of the American people who do not consider the Second Amendment as ill-fitted to the modern world, then changing the law is quite difficult. I believe a former NRA president once described the Second Amendment as "first among equals."

Furthermore, even if the president had a magical eraser that he could use on any part of the Constitution and the president made the Second Amendment disappear, actually enforcing European-style laws in the U.S. would require the type of social engineering that includes wide-spread violence with fatalities conservatively measured in the hundreds of thousands.

And yes, I do appreciate the irony of people claiming that the Second Amendment is not ill fitted to modern society being prepared to kill law enforcement officers who try to gather outlawed guns.
 
Being different from Europe is a feature, not a bug. It's kind of designed that way on purpose.

My ancestors fled western Europe.
 
MikeG said:
If something is ill-fitted to the modern world, do you change it, or do you accept it as cast-in-stone?
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The Constitution is not cast in stone, there are provisions for changing it if that's what is wanted.

MikeG said:
The assumption in the point you have made twice is that the reason the gun laws can't be changed is because of the constitution. If that were the only or main reason, it would be a damn silly reason. It is probably far less important than a whole lot of other reasons, isn't it, such as the "cold-dead-hand" bollocks that so many people espouse? But you put it forward as the only reason cited why the gun laws couldn't be brought into line with Europe.

3point14 put it so much better:
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There's nothing silly about adhering to written laws. I certainly do not want to live in a country where any given law can simply be ignored on a whim, obviously you think of laws as mere guidelines rather than, well, laws.
 
How much of a consensus is required to change the constitution?

Given the current state of American politics, where the 'left' gainsays everything the 'right' does and the 'right' reciprocates (to the point of attempting to bring the country to its knees) What are the odds of the constitution ever being amended again. The party of opposition will oppose it on principle even if it appears to be the best thing since sliced bread. The primary driver of US politics is not what's good for the country but simply the mantra that the other side must not be permitted to have success, no matter how well that works for the country.

Given that the US political system couldn't agree on releasing funds to pay for things that had already been passed, does anyone think that the constitution of the US will ever again be amended without major political upheaval?
 
WildCat said:
Being different from Europe is a feature, not a bug. It's kind of designed that way on purpose.

My ancestors fled western Europe.
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Why?

When?

Western Europe was probably different then.

I mean, I wouldn't want to be in Japan 80 years ago, but now it's a different story.
 
My ancestors left Germany, at the turn of the century, because they weren't big fans of Wilhelm.

My Great Grandmother had the catchphrase "shoot the Kaiser."

And for some reason they got to Minnesota, saw the horrible weather and decided to stick around.
 
Spindrift said:
Except it has been amended 27 times, last time in 1992.
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Now, technically has it not been amended 18 times, given that the first ten were all at the same time?

MikeG said:
If something is ill-fitted to the modern world, do you change it, or do you accept it as cast-in-stone?
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Written on leather, if I remember correctly. And, as has been pointed out, it can be changed with a lot of effort. In fact, isn't the actual part of the constitution that protects "the right to bear arms" an amendment?
 
Puppycow said:
Why?

When?

Western Europe was probably different then.

I mean, I wouldn't want to be in Japan 80 years ago, but now it's a different story.
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Early 1800s (Germany), and after WWI (when the French ethnically cleansed ethnic Germans from Alcase-Lorraine).

Frankly it really hasn't changed that much since then, the UK is imprisoning people for saying mean thins on the internet and now France wants to ban a comedian and a certain hand gesture and of course Germany has it's own anti-free speech laws because it's always on the brink of another Nazi-style fascist takeover and so those ideas must be suppressed. If it wasn't for the presence of US troops and NATO western Europe would have started WWIII by now, the urge for tribal warfare runs deep.
 
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WildCat said:
Frankly it really hasn't changed that much since then, the UK is imprisoning people for saying mean thins on the internet and now France wants to ban a comedian and a certain hand gesture and of course Germany has it's own anti-free speech laws because it's always on the brink of another Nazi-style fascist takeover and so those ideas must be suppressed. If it wasn't for the presence of US troops and NATO western Europe would have started WWIII by now, the urge for tribal warfare runs deep.
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In the UK it is (or ought to be) a hanging offence to write the highlighted.

As for the rest of your post, it is comedy gold. Thanks for the larffs.
 
angrysoba said:
In the UK it is (or ought to be) a hanging offence to write the highlighted.

As for the rest of your post, it is comedy gold. Thanks for the larffs.
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It's 100% factual, my apologies for the apostrophe.

The only reason western Europe hasn't seen a major war in the last 65 years is because of heavy US military presence and influence. If left to their own devices they'd be killing each other again just as they had for thousands of years prior to the USA putting a stop to it all.

What's laughable is the contention that Europeans all of a sudden came to their senses 65 years ago and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the heavy US military presence. In fact the Bosnia/Croatia/Serbian wars would likely still be raging today (and may even have spread) had not the USA dragged NATO in kicking and screaming to put an end to it in the late 1990s. Europeans have a piss-poor record in ending conflicts before they become giant conflagrations.
 
And btw, my neighborhood is chock full of recent refugees from European tribal conflicts. Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats.

It takes a special kind of myopia and hubris to conclude that western Europe is the pinnacle of human civilization, something the rest of the world should aspire to, even as the legacy of 5 centuries of western European colonization continues to fuel wars and hatred wherever their boots hit the ground.

The USA took the best of what Europe had to offer, rejected the rest (even fighting a horrific civil war to shake off the worst European legacy), and built our own civilization. And if not for that the best would have been lost long ago, indeed the france that produced Voltaire ("I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.") today is talking about banning a comedian over an anti-Semitic gesture. Now it's "I do not agree with what you have to say and I'll ban you and fine you for saying it".
 
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DavidJames said:
The meme of the Arrogant American has a new poster child.
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I guess since you can't form a rational argument against anything I've said you have nothing to offer but name calling.

That's exactly the sort of post this forum was designed for, I bet Randi himself moves it to "Forum Spotlight"! :rolleyes:
 
WildCat said:
And btw, my neighborhood is chock full of recent refugees from European tribal conflicts. Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats.
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I didn't know they moved Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia to Western Europe.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that your neighborhood is even fuller of North American immigrants, fleeing an impoverished country run by drug lords.
 
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