Just witnessed somebody say "lie-berry' instead of library, like three times in a row. Needed directions to the lie-berry. Color me shocked that he doesn't know where the library is. This is why we can't have nice things, America.

As a white but neurodivergent person, I have been a recipient of repeated police harassment over a period of a year. Sure, #notallpoliceofficers, there's always a few nice ones, but the vast majority are trained to racially profile people, and they're also trained to look for "weak links" like me who show obvious anxiety or perhaps have an unusal/odd/strange manner. Obviously you generally cannot usually tell by looking at someone that they have a neurodivergence or severe mental illness, but some studies suggest that half of people killed by police have a disability...when you consider a huge proportion of those will be people of colour, especially Black people, it becomes doubly disgusting. I don't want to take away from the racial issue, but the police completely unfairly target people for a multitude of reasons. Also, I live in UK, this is not just an American issue, yours are just more dangerous because they carry guns as standard, only special types of police get them here.

I’m in agreement with another response that said corporate America is a sham, that most of us CAN work from home a good majority of the time. Another thing I’ve learned is that the real person shows during a crisis, whether you are kind or not and if you are kind to only those you deem worthy of your generosity. <~~i mainly witnessed the conditional kindness. Third thing I learned is that I really am lazy, being home this year and I still couldn’t keep my house sparkling clean.

More than 500,000 Americans dead from Covid. I remembered that about a year ago, people were saying they were tired of hearing about the virus, and it wasn't a big deal. I found my response. "going with the lowest numbers possible"; "in a year, 30M Americans will get the Corona virus, and 3M will need to be hospitalized, and 300,000 will die from it." I'm not posting this to show I'm right, I'm posting this in hopes that people will get news from reputable news sources, and listen to scientists. That was all I did to get reasonable data. As vaccines become available and we are learning more about masks (yes, double masking or N95 is the way better than a single cloth mask), it is imperative we follow the science.

This is an odd post, I know. I’ve tried looking into this, but I’m not finding any good answers, but does anyone have ANY advice or know anything about reporting child abuse committed by an American overseas? It really sucks because I have nothing to go on other than what I heard this person say. I will not post it here. From what I’ve read up on, the authorities here can’t really do anything. I don’t know if I could get more information. Maybe I could report him to authorities there? This man travels specifically to be with children under 16. There has to be a way they can arrest him at the airport or something. There has to be some way to prevent him from going again. There has to be something.

The Americans who are largely against those things are just racist, misogynist assholes. Largely male and almost entirely white, they want to keep marginalized groups poor. If they give them a living wage, healthcare, childcare, etc. then that gives them opportunities to better their life and get out of poverty. And that threatens their privilege. They know damn well there are plenty of women and POC who are smarter, more talented, and harder workers than they'll ever be. If they actually had to compete with them, they would lose. They have no problem giving money to billionaires to help them out, because they are mostly white guys too, so they see it as helping their own, even if they, themselves, live in a run down trailer. But ask them to help out the black, single mother with cancer and they'll say she just needs to pull herself up by the bootstraps and stop buying Starbucks.

I've known this for years as an outsider, but it is actually totally wild to watch poor Americans argue against things which would improve their life no end...raising the minimum wage to a living standard, massive taxes on the very rich, rent control, "socialized" medicine. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I've watched so many handwringing videos about millennials not having babies. I know this is a Western world problem, birth rates dropping everywhere here and also dropping fast in places that previously had high rates like India, but you guys don't even mandate maternity leave. I'm friends with a couple I met while visiting and they actually left their jobs so they could afford to have a baby because staying in work made it too expensive. That is absolutely crazy. People shouldn't have to fucking pay to have a child, raising them is expensive and difficult enough as it is.

The reason places like Amsterdam are so expensive is because there is just limited space. Like physical space. So they can't build more housing. It's supply and demand. If no one wanted to live there, it would be dirt cheap. But people DO want to live there because it's actually pretty great. My point is, your boss didn't leave Amsterdam because it was a shit hole or worse than the US or because the healthcare, free college, and government was horrible. BTW, my family is Eastern European, and some still live in rural Ukraine (Vovche, to be exact). Even they have said they wouldn't want to live in the US. My Canadian friend took a family vacation to Disneyworld (pre-COVID). Her mom begged her not to go because she said it wasn't safe and was afraid they would get shot. That's the view they have of America.

I simply do not understand why people in the US are against universal healthcare. It would actually cost you LESS money than the shit insurance coverage you have now. The average Canadian, for example, pays about $6,500 for healthcare a year. Yes, it's a tax. It also covers everything. The average American pays about $8K a year,. (BTW, the federal gov't pays another $10K a year per person on top of all that). So, if you take $6,500 a year out of someone's paycheck and call it a tax, that's unacceptable. But if you take $8K a year out of someone's check, like we do now, and call it a payroll deduction or deductible or co-pay, that's fine. Oh, and don't forget that if you lose your job, you also lose your healthcare.

The US does not rank very high in a lot of categories when compared to other countries. Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, etc. all rank much higher in just about every category from life expectancy, education, happiness, etc. Just because there are places that are worse, doesn't mean we're better. That's like saying, I may be a alcoholic, but at least I'm not a heroin addict. Yeah, heroin may be worse, but that doesn't mean being an alcoholic is a good thing. America is no longer great. Sorry, it's just not. Yeah, places like the Ivory Coast are much worse, but plenty of places are much better. I don't see Canadians flocking over our border.