- Joined
- Jan 16, 2017
The USA stands for something. European countries don't. I'm not sure you can grasp either of those cultures when you're part of the other unless you have lived in both places. I'm one of the limited number of people who have. America is a country founded on a set of ideals. That's incredibly rare, and what makes the USA special. I can think of maybe only three other countries that are or were an idea first, and a place second - the Vatican, the USSR and Liberia. Really that's it, and the USA was the only one that really worked. If I was American, I wouldn't leave, because there's something to fight for, something to defend. Europeans don't get that, they just see an inexplicable level of patriotism for such a relatively young country. They genuinely find it baffling.As for leaving your country, while I understand, it's still a shameful thing. For as much as I hate what's going on in the US, I love my country and will do my utmost to stay and try to improve it rather than leaving. That's probably naive, but if somethings worth fighting for, then I think you should fight.
The UK isn't like that. It's just a couple of rocks in the North Atlantic. There's no British ideal, not even an English one. There's not really an English nation in the broader sense. Even the whitest English people are a mixture of Anglo-Saxon, Nordic and Celtic stock. It's why we struggle so badly to have a sense of identity that we don't even have a written constitution. Its people have no sense of connection to the place they live, that's the major reason why the British are such awful people. In terms of loyalty, there isn't really something to be loyal to, especially when the country isn't loyal to you. Everybody here is in it for themselves, and it makes this country utterly fucking miserable to be in, and why there is no bright future - even if we guillotined the entire establishment, their replacements would still be British, as lost and rootless as the people they replaced.
I've served my time in the trenches here, trying to do my best to fix this broken fucking country, but trying to bring about even the smallest improvement is like banging your head against a wall, because the people here are not only angry, miserable cunts, they are determined to remain angry, miserable cunts and will fight anyone trying to fix anything with every fibre of their being.
Jeremy Clarkson, a man who has lived and worked on both sides of the Atlantic, understands this. He said something like: "If an American sees a man in a Ferrari, he says to himself, "One day I will have one of those". If a Briton sees a man in a Ferrari, he says to himself, "One day I'll have him out of that.""
I don't expect everyone to agree with my decision. In particular I don't expect Americans to even understand it, such is the cultural gap between the two nations. But, ultimately, there comes a point that when you're in a burning building and the fire is out of control, you put down the fire extinguisher and get your family out of there.
Especially if the house is shit anyway.