Life expectancy [2]: declining everywhere at about the same rate
Infant mortality [3]: Europe ranges from 2.5 (Spain/Portugal) to 3.4 (Netherlands) to 3.6 (Switzerland, Greece) to 3.8 (UK); US is 5.2. By comparison, Canada is 4.8
Guns [4]: Europe is hardly some gunless utopia. Switzerland has 27 legally owned guns per 100 people, Portual 21, Germany 20. Granted, the US does have 120 guns / 100 people.
Brownshirt gangs: no idea what this is
Lax regulations: hard to quantify this, also "lax" compared to what? Europe is frequently accused of having overly restrictive regulations, especially by entrepreneurial types.
The US has problems, but it's hardly a third-world place by these measurements. Instead, it comes off as the sort of condescension that your parent was complaining about. And it's not like Europe doesn't have it's share of problems.
Yes the people taking advantage of lax regulation in order to be wealthy capitalists are going to say regulation is overly restrictive. It benefits them. That’s what neoliberalism is. Which happens to be America’s economic system.
Life expectancy [2]: declining everywhere at about the same rate
Infant mortality [3]: Europe ranges from 2.5 (Spain/Portugal) to 3.4 (Netherlands) to 3.6 (Switzerland, Greece) to 3.8 (UK); US is 5.2. By comparison, Canada is 4.8
Guns [4]: Europe is hardly some gunless utopia. Switzerland has 27 legally owned guns per 100 people, Portual 21, Germany 20. Granted, the US does have 120 guns / 100 people.
Brownshirt gangs: no idea what this is
Lax regulations: hard to quantify this, also "lax" compared to what? Europe is frequently accused of having overly restrictive regulations, especially by entrepreneurial types.
The US has problems, but it's hardly a third-world place by these measurements. Instead, it comes off as the sort of condescension that your parent was complaining about. And it's not like Europe doesn't have it's share of problems.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_ho...
[2] https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy
[3] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortalit...
[4] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-owner...