Why is Europe more liberal then the United States?

free2beme

I have wondered this for awhile and can not figure out why. Any ideas? Apparently being liberal does not lead to an economic power house, but it does lead to a lot of hatred of the United States in these countries. I just wondered why the difference, when we are basically just offspring of Europe that moved to North America. It seems like we should have that in common more. One show I watched recently said that the views of Europe changed, when so many men were killed in WW1 and WW2, which killed off some of the more conservative base that built Europe's history. What are your thoughts?

Double Edge

I once heard something on the History Channel that indicated that the U.S. was unique because of it's make-up of immigrants from around the world. It equated it's free-spirited, conservative, wild-west attitudes with the types of immigrants that came here. In other words, the people that left their homelands, for whatever reason, were the ones who were adventerous, took risks, picked themselves up by their own bootstaps, made their own future, depended on no-one but themselves and their familes and were the ones with "big ideas". Generalization, sure, but I think there's a lot of truth in that. When I think of the things handed down by my immigrant great-grandparents, ideas of self-relience and conservative values, those are hard to change. Now think of this country and the huge number of families that are here because of immigrant forebearers.....kind of make sense. (at least to me).

btw, I've also heard of the impact WWI and WWII has made on European attitudes .... interesting, to say the least.

GermanXJW

While I tend to agree with Double Edge I would like to comment on the quote

a lot of hatred of the United States in these countries

Europe in general do not hate the US. One some topics we agree, on others we disagree. That's it. You as a country are so full of yourself that you feel every disagreement is hatred. You may see hatred in some contries but that is not Europe.

I was in the US last week. I had this conversation with a guy who was also sure that all the German are against the US. He was not even aware that our current chancellor is a conservative that gets really well along with Bush.

In his view the reason was that all the country see politics just from a national viewpoint while the US has the international view. To me that is BS.

Highlander

I have to agree with GermanXJW.

Most americans seem to have a warped view of the rest of the world(that is if they even have an opinion) I found it interesting that few americans even read about the world news, yet

when I travel to Europe, most of the people there know the latest news headlines for not just their own communities but that of the US and all other parts of the world.

vomit

I am from Europe I wont say exactly because I am a fader. For a long time I must confess I was anti-American as I grew up I could differentiate a bit more, especially as I met many Americans abroad. For me its the selfishness and arrogance that gets to me, it seems that their parents never told them "not to blow your own trumpet" the phrase itself seems lost on a lot of people. There is arrogance in Europe, but it doesn't seem to be encouraged as a positive attribute. As a child JWs I met from America didn't even seem as spiritual as us, and often used what we considered bad language. (I don't feel the same way now).

America tries hard to advertise itself to be "#1" but just like Politicians, Pyramid schemes,, American Branded Christian Religions, the product is just empty, the lifestyle is empty... Sometimes the emptiness is even entertaining, I dont know if anybody is watching "Beauty and the Geek". I cringe when I can actually recite the pledge of allegiance or name states beginning with "New ...." better than the contestant's who actually live and grew in America. I dislike American news as it is the pinnacle of sensationalism, i hate this even in Europe, but I find that my peers can see through a lot more of the crap than the average American.

Shazard

I agree with German. We do not hate USA, we just have points where we disagree and what's important, meny values and points we agree to.

Fe2O3Girl

A few thoughts.

Europe is not one country.

Define "liberal". Socially liberal? Economically liberal?

Whatever "liberal" means, is it directly related to the economy?

However many times however many posters from European countries repeat that while they may or may not agree with all of the current US governments policies they do not "hate" America or Americans, some posters keep saying that Europeans hate America.

bigmouth

Highlanders comment, "Most americans seem to have a warped view of the rest of the world(that is if they even have an opinion) I found it interesting that few americans even read about the world news,"

I have spent a number of years working in and around Queenstown (Lord of the Rings site) where there is a large number of American landowners and visitors. I have gained the impression that there is so much going on in the USA that the rest of the world hardly exists! Many come here and wish that New Zealand was just like America. Many are pleasant enough but kind of in their own world if you know what I mean.

fifi40

Hi Free2beme

I can only speak on behalf of myself, but having being born and raised in England and having mixed in all the various social, economic and cultural communities within this country I have to say I have never experienced any form of hatred towards Americans or the USA in general. I have visited America myself and loved your country, and the few people I met were impressively upbeat and nice. Only yesterday we had the final day of a reality TV show called Celebrity Big Brother, where the British public vote throughout the early stages for contestants to be evicted from the Big Brother house and finally on the last day vote for who they want to be the winner. This is after the contestants have been in the house for 3 weeks, there every move and word monitored and shown on TV. I am not really a fan of reality TV but this particular one hit the news big time because of the apparent bullying/racism toward one of the contestants and it kinda got me interested. Anyway yesterday was the final and strangely the last Brit out of the house went out in 4th place. 3rd and 2nd place went to two Americans, Dirk Benedict and Jermaine Jackson and the overall winner was the Indian actress Shilpa Shetty. My point being that we the British public voted two Americans into 3rd and 2nd place over about a dozen others (mostly Brits). So it seems we can hardly be accused of hating the Americans.

As for the rest of Europe, of which I have travelled to most of, hatred of America or Americans has never been glaringly obvious and, again, is not something I have ever experienced. But, perhaps they are all 'closet' anti Americans.

I dont mean to sound flippant of your thread, its just that what you describe, is not how it feels being this European.

The only thing that I could safely say is that the Europeans are aware that we are better at football than the Americans. (Is that what all this is about really) Hee hee