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How Will I as an American be Precieved in the UK

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Reply 80

MacSci

Original post by Joinedup

You might be expected to apologise for the crimes of GW Bush by undergraduate trotskyists before they'll be your friend... as a postgrad hanging out with undergrads would be optional I guess.

Most British people think real life americans are cool imo - just some of the ones we see on the telly are a bit nuts.

In case of emergency you could always pretend to be Canadian.

Lol...I'm glad I already am.

But clue me in. I'm not quite sure why, supposedly, Brits like Canadians over the Americans? :confused:

Reply 81

Made in the USA

Original post by the_lone_ranger

You're an idiot, and you make all Americans look bad.

Vietnam was started by Eisenhower, who was Republican. World War II was started by Hitler and Japan, not by FDR. World War I was started by a Democrat, but it was certainly not started by a liberal. You're delusional if you think Woodrow Wilson was a liberal.

Bosnia, Kosovo, and Somalia were not wars by any definition of the word, unless the definition you are using is "civil war" and the United States, United Nations, and NATO are peacekeepers.

The policies of the GOP are far from a mirror image of UKIP. UKIP is a Eurosceptic party first and foremost, and as far as I know the GOP is not Eurosceptic and has no opinion on it. Also, the GOP mainstream is not as reactionary about legal immigration as UKIP and the BNP are. They are more reactionary about illegal immigration, which is not as substantial a political issue in the UK. Also, UKIP is FAR from a mainstream political party in the UK. They only tend to receive significant support in EU elections, and that's because of their stance on the EU, not because of their stance on anything else.

If by "liberal" you mean the modern definition used in the United States, which is to say someone on the center-left of the political spectrum, the UK is significantly more to the left of the United Kingdom. The policies of the Coalition in the UK are closer to the Democrats than the Republicans. They want to cut social services somewhat; they do not want to tear them asunder. The GOP most closely resembles the BNP.

I would have no problem with people being conservative if they could only articulate their arguments clearly and intelligently, rather than coming off as ignorant and greedy.

Sometimes I feel like my posts are being read by children. Do I need to spell everything out? You are taking everything I am saying literally. I didn't mean that the wars were physically started by these presidents, but they involved us in the conflicts during their presidencies. I thought people would be intelligent enough to get my point, that they started US involvement, but I need to be very specific and careful with my words or you folks get lost. Vietnam was started by Lyndon Johnson, Woodrow Wilson was a democrat.

My point was that the GOP is hardly a war mongering party. Outside of Iraq, every single war following the civil war was taken part in with a democrat president. George Bush even ran on an anti-nationbuilding platform in 2000. It was only the events of september 11th that forced him to change course, otherwise it's very likely that the pattern would have continued.

Reply 82

jumpingjesusholycow

Original post by Annoying-Mouse

Stop trying to appeal to emotion. You can't even justify in a reasoned debate as to why you oppose war from what I've seen, heck not point limiting it to the war anything. Remember your post on the Israel/Palestine thread? If you can, feel free to do it here preferably without committing a logical fallacy and using certain buzzwords every 5 lines.

I would think that by now, the Iraq dilemma has reached a conclusion. It is widely recognised as the biggest failure of UK-US foreign policy in post 19th century history. If you don't like my opinions, deal with it and find something constructive to say.

Reply 83

noodlecup93

Original post by MacSci

Lol...I'm glad I already am.

But clue me in. I'm not quite sure why, supposedly, Brits like Canadians over the Americans? :confused:

Who doesn't eh? :rolleyes:

Reply 84

User414413

Original post by jumpingjesusholycow

If you feel so, have you tried arguing it against the active pro-war users e.g. Folderol, Aeolus, Lord Hysteria and ------? I've suggested you argue your case, how is that not constructive?

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 85

jumpingjesusholycow

Original post by Annoying-Mouse

If you feel so, have you tried arguing it against the active pro-war users e.g. Folderol, Aeolus, Lord Hysteria and --------?

I'm not really sure. But to be honest, I don't need the warbles of Zionists. I already recognise the fact that they have no regard for human life.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 86

Made in the USA

Original post by MacSci

Lol...I'm glad I already am.

But clue me in. I'm not quite sure why, supposedly, Brits like Canadians over the Americans? :confused:

It shouldn't even be possible to pose as a canadian, but I guess they can't tell the difference between a US and Canadian accent? :confused:

Reply 87

DivinityofReason

Original post by momoso

Hey,

I am seriously considering going to the UK for postgraduate study and one of of my biggest fears is not fitting in. I have a feeling that has kind of been reinforced by some of the responses on this forum that Americans are not well received in the UK especially those from the south. I'm from Texas and there have been many disparaging remarks made about Southerners and Texans on this site. Am I wrong in thinking this or does this feeling hold weight.

Thanks :smile:

1. Dont be fat
2. Dont like george bush
3. Dont EVER use the word 'soda'

Follow the above rules and it will be fine!

Reply 88

User414413

Original post by jumpingjesusholycow

I'm not really sure. But to be honest, I don't need the warbles of Zionists. I already recognise the fact that they have no regard for human life.

I see, I see. But, the thing is you say this but chances are if you accuse them of this in the Israeli/Palestinian thread you won't be able to justify it, remember your last accusation? You seem very passionate about the subject, so why not try and debate it and see if you can justify it and maybe, just maybe you might change your views.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 89

jumpingjesusholycow

Original post by Annoying-Mouse

It wasn't an accusation, it was a statement of fact.

I am indeed very passionate, and perhaps I will.

Reply 90

the_lone_ranger

Original post by DivinityofReason

1. Dont be fat
2. Dont like george bush
3. Dont EVER use the word 'soda'

Follow the above rules and it will be fine!

What do British people call soft drinks like Coke and Sprite?

In Texas, it's most common to call them all Coke regardless of what brand they are. This includes stuff like Sprite and Fanta. "What kind of Coke do you want?" will usually get an answer like Dr Pepper, which is a separate brand altogether.

Otherwise, we'd call them "soda" or "soft drink."

What do y'all call them?

Reply 91

the_lone_ranger

Original post by Made in the USA

Yeah, you kind of do need to spell everything out if you mean something by your words other than the standard meaning used by the rest of the English speaking world.

If you think Vietnam was started by LBJ you're both delusional as well as remarkably ignorant. There's no other way to put it. The United States was involved in Vietnam during Eisenhower's administration as well as during Kennedy's. After LBJ, Nixon, who certainly did not run on an anti-war platform, intensified the war. When do you date the Vietnam War from?

George Bush did not run on an "anti-nationbuilding" platform. His platform was "I'll cut your taxes even though the economy is booming and you really don't need it." He was very slightly anti-UN but it simply was not a major issue during the campaign. Once the War in Afghanistan began, a war which was quite obviously justified, just as the far more bloody attack on Pearl Harbor justified World War II (that that dirty warmonger Roosevelt started because he was a Democrat, according to your version of the facts), he continued to cut taxes, then proceeded to start a second, completely unrelated and senseless, war in Iraq, and proceeded to bankrupt the country. He was supported one-hundred percent of the way on each of these moves by the GOP, a party which still refuses to accept plainly clear facts which state that there was not, in fact, any legitimate reason to attack Iraq, and yet you call the Democratic Party a party of warmongers.

Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat. He was not a liberal. Your original statement was that every American war since 1865 were "all started by liberals." That's not a historically accurate statement or one that's relevant to modern politics in the slightest. George Wallace was also a Democrat. He certainly was not a liberal. Is that clear enough for you? Or do I need to make that clearer, and perhaps use smaller words, because I know that "accurate" is difficult for the Fox News crowd to understand.

You claimed that "Democrats started every war since the civil war, other than Iraq." Oddly enough, you ignore the war which is currently happening, as well as the war in Afghanistan completely, yet you cite a war seventy years ago in which the United States was attacked by a foreign navy without warning and in which both parties nearly unanimously voted in favor of declaring war as proof of the modern-day Democratic Party supposedly being warmongers. You also ignore the Spanish-American War, in which a REPUBLICAN president chose to ignore facts which certainly were presented to him that the USS Maine exploded on accident and instead chose to start an expansionist war against a country with which we had been at peace for our entire existence and which was one of our earliest supporters.

I'm simply pointing out that you are, in fact, completely wrong on multiple counts.

I would not have even become involved in this if it were not for the fact that earlier in this thread, you claimed to not be a typical Republican, yet you have an anti-President Obama profile picture (might I mention, two years after Obama has been in a campaign) which might be appropriate during a presidential campaign, but outside of one is simply unnecessary if not unpatriotic. You also responded to someone stating that they didn't like neo-cons and warmongers by saying that they were "a complete idiot" and that the Democrats had started every war in the nation's history other than the Iraq War (arguably the ONLY war in the country's history, with the possible exception of Vietnam, that the country had no legitimate reason to enter), which is simply wrong.

Simply put, you make every American look remarkably ignorant of world history and current events. It's offensive that you're trying to represent my country to the rest of the world here on the web, and I'd just like everyone else who has the misfortune of reading your drivel to realize that you are not, in fact, a typical American, and that quite a few of us are both intelligent as well as well-informed and don't base our impression of history and world events on a partisan and jingoistic view of the world.

The right-wing certainly do not have a monopoly on starting wars (look at New Labour), but for you to claim that the Democratic Party is more inclined to launch wars than the Republican Party is simply preposterous.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 92

the_lone_ranger

Original post by Made in the USA

I'm not a neo-con and you are to the right of many continental european countries. I don't know what you mean by liberal, but if you are talking about classical liberalism, we are in many ways more liberal than the UK. Some states have legalized gay marriage and you only have civil unions, our right to free speech is far more extensive, it covers all types of speech, including hate speech. If you burned a koran in the UK you would be arrested, but it's perfectly legal in the US as a form of free speech protected by the first amendment. Michael Savage is banned from entering the UK because his speech was deemed offensive by your nanny state, but he can say whatever he wants on our radiowaves. We have the right to bear arms, you don't. Prostitution is legal in Nevada.

You know perfectly well what he means by liberal, considering the fact that you use liberal as a slur only two posts above to describe the center-left.

"We have the right to bear arms, you don't" is simply not accurate. British people do have the right to bear arms; they do not have the right to bear any kind of weapon they wish in any location for no reason whatsoever. Their system is based on regulating gun control sensibly, rather than giving people free range to do as they please.

You cite that gay marriage is legal in several US states, yet not one of those states is run by the GOP or by your "classical liberal" principles. Most of the United States does not have civil unions, so the UK's stance on granting liberty and justice to ALL is substantially better than ours.

The US is absolutely more libertarian than the United Kindgom, but if you are talking about liberalism in the modern sense of the word, the only sense of the word which is relevant to discussion about politics today, than the UK is quite a bit more liberal.

Reply 93

otilov

dosnt matter what park of america youre from you will get stick, especially if you call football 'soccer' you will get twatted

Reply 94

anti-duck

Original post by momoso

Don't worry about it; Americans were invented in England :smile:

Reply 95

amandacalifornia

Original post by jumpingjesusholycow

Well I would state that I'm in a much better position to comment being a native Brit myself as well as a member of political party and youth representative for the local council party. However, if you have some evidence to show that I am wrong, present it. If you do not have anything to offer other than "LOLOLOL111!! U WRONG!", I suggest you swallow your words.

Having British citizenship says nothing about your knowledge of comparative politics.
If you read as far as number 2, I said "See Scandinavia for a great example [of modern liberalism]." If I really need to go so far as to explain to you the difference between the level of the welfare state between the British system and any Scandinavian country, or even France, then I don't know what to say considering you are so proudly actually from Europe. Their economic systems are much more intertwined with the state, and public spending is a much larger percentage of their GDPs.
A previous poster listed off why it is not classically liberal when it comes to social issues, either.

I agree, I never stated that Liberal attitudes within Britain are synonymous with the ideology of Social-Liberalism as a whole.

"British Liberalism in its contemporary form was the foundation of the welfare state, as opposed to the economically liberal position of laissez fair capitalism."
"Liberalism in Britain is primarily concerned with taking a compassionate stance on a range of social issues"

However, the two are connected, no doubt which is why I cite the article. I see no reason why I shouldn't, there isn't a single political party in Britain which doesn't have at least some relationship with Social-Liberalism.

This applies to the United States, as well as nearly any mainstream political party in any liberal democracy.

Classical Liberalism certainly has its place in British politics, but certainly isn't the sole proponent driving British liberalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_economy
Take a course on political economy. Classical liberalism is much more than an outmoded foundation in British politics. The US, as many former colonies of the British empire, inherited its legacy.

Don't blame me for your ignorance. If you are unable to respond to reasonable logic, that is your own fault.

Totally confused as to what you are referring to.

Whilst I do recognise that people can be for/against any war for a multitude of reasons. I cite Iraq in particular because as a Brit, I notice that most are against the war because of principals parallel to that of Liberalism;

Principles. And you could equally argue a liberal who believes in freedom, democracy, equality and state interventionism would support deposing a tyrannical dictator and attempting to set up a democracy in its stead, no matter its cost to the country doing it.

...they resent the idea that we allied with American-butchers simply because Blairite-Labour had an Atlantacist stance which carried through from Clinton to Bush.

I'm sure you know that Prime Ministers speak for their parties, not just for themselves. And Clinton was not exactly a dove when it came to foreign policy by any stretch of the imagination.

And no, actually. I don't think it's 'safe to assume most everyone would like peace'. Peace is not brought up by reaping bloodshed in Iraq and the incoming prospect of Iran. That was not a mission of peace, it was a mission of imperialism; for oil and for defence contractors that was held only in the interest of the Americans.

Well, clearly, this is the only correct position and everyone with an opinion on the war agrees with these suppositions.

The current republican administration is so far removed from the ideals of Classical liberalism, I have no idea how you could link the two.

Although there is no current Republican administration, I completely agree with you. The past one was not classically liberal at all. They supported policies which impeded on civil liberties, expanded the size of the state, and spent public money like it was water in the name of benefiting people halfway across the planet. I don't link them. These were all policies that proved extremely unpopular in an overall political culture which favors classical liberalism.

I suppose classical liberals just love murdering civilians didn't they? :rolleyes:

No. But as I said, I don't think it's as simple as a political ideology at all.

And where did I cite that it was the liberal-Americans pushing the war dip****? :hmmm:

"Whilst liberalism does of course include upholding the civil liberties we enjoy around us, liberalism is more an all encompassing position which can be used in multiple contexts; such as the war in Iraq. One which American warmonger's persisted with, so they could commit massacres and butcher the middle east."
Since the second sentence is a fragment, I assumed "one" referred to liberalism, since it was the subject of the "first" sentence.

I would assume that I know more Brits than you do and I would bet a heavy wager that Brits would identify American warmongering as 'disgusting'.

Congrats. Again, refer to the polls which show mirror proportions. Your statements about your experiences aren't quantifiable or concrete evidence to support an argument.

I have no interest in supporting right-wingers like yourself in my home country.

I'm not right wing. I couldn't care less about your support for whatever geographical location I choose to be in. I love the UK and enjoyed my time there, and will again.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 96

amandacalifornia

Original post by the_lone_ranger

X
The right-wing certainly do not have a monopoly on starting wars (look at New Labour), but for you to claim that the Democratic Party is more inclined to launch wars than the Republican Party is simply preposterous.

A little mean, but :clap2:

on the rest of it!

Reply 97

jimbo139

in my experience the vast majority of people in the Uk have no problem whatsoever with americans on an individual basis. but on anonymous boards like TSR you are always going to see reference to exaggerated stereotypes - it doesn't follow that you'll meet those reactions in real life.