[bdfh42]

I think that the thing we Europeans (and us Brits in particular) often fail to grasp is that the USA is a very foreign country. I love my visits there and my US friends but it does not take a long stay for you to run into things that seem "incomprehensible" and you start saying to yourself "that cant be right".

However it works the other way too. We fail to deal properly with things like the right to free speech - and our USA cousins find that pretty incomprehensible - surely a fundamental freedom.

There are some huge cultural differences - made more difficult sometimes to understand because of the vast common components of shared culture.

[zurn]

The collective failure of governments (and voters) to address CO2 emissions is more loony by many orders of magnitude than guns or traffic. And this even with international institutions (WTO & UN) that could be used to goad everybody to fall in line.

For future generations, the hysteria about terrorism while ignoring the the more serious threats will look baffling.

[jjkmk]

I'll be honest with you, as a US citizen who has traveled to the U.K. often (to visit family) I'm right with you. There are way too many things that seem "incomprehensible".

For the most part its due to religion and social conservatism. You kind of learn to pretend it doesn't exist in order to deal with it.