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by enraged_camel
3193 days ago
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>>What I object to is someone who's bitter because he's not American launching into an irrelevant tirade and acting like they are somehow better when 60 years ago Europeans were exterminating each other. 75 years ago Europeans were exterminating each other. Today, they are united and peaceful for the most part, and their union is one of the largest and most successful economies in the world. 75 years ago America entered World War 2 and helped defeat the Nazis. Today Nazis are openly marching in the streets and running over counterprotesters with cars, and the President suggests that "both sides" have "very fine people". Perspective is a hell of a thing, isn't it? |
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I think it's delusional to believe that the prejudices that led to literal genocide in Europe within living memory (more recent than that even, see the Balkans) have faded more than the prejudices of slavery in the US which show up at events like Charlottesville. The hatred is alive and well in European societies like it is anywhere else. You're citing a single counterprotester getting run over (horrible, yes) when in the Ukraine there is an ongoing invasion and throughout Europe, Islamic terrorism (due to divided societies) will last for a generation.
Your perspective (which sees as a vice the suggestion that both sides of any conflict might have some realistic grievances) is a myopic, tribal one which too often parades around in places like HN and sees itself as diverse and open minded when it is anything but. You don't realize how: "Today, they are united and peaceful for the most part, and their union is one of the largest and most successful economies in the world." is just as applicable to the US and such an optimistic view of Europe is an incomplete portrayal. If that's not how you intend for it to come off, I apologize, but it has a very strong undercurrent of bias.
All I'm saying is Americans are humans, descendants of the same Europeans, Africans, Asians, and native Americans that came before them, so it's not shocking that we'd have the same flaws as every other society, and in fact, historically, the actions of the US have at times been no more or less deplorable or laudable than any other people.