They glorify soldiers way too much and teachers way too little
Between the two there is a big difference:
One is a profession that can be a particularly dangerous way of life. Orders from above put you into place far from support, with limited resources, often in contact with hostiles on a daily basis. You’re often left to fend for yourself with only what you have on you against overwhelming odds. Command structures often pit you against your peers in petty internal politics around rank. The pay isn’t great, and those that stick with it for the long haul to make a lifetime of it often leave scared and mentally injured. It can be a thankless job in putting your life and health on the line to achieve the overall goal.
The other profession usually involves wearing a uniform and enforcing USA’s geopolitical interests in other countries.
U got me in the first half not gonna lie
Your comment made read the other comment.
Worth it.
Ah, the old
RedditLemmy switcharooHold my bulletprove backpack. I am going in.
It was good but I saw it coming right away lol.
A family friend of ours just quit his highschool teaching job and is moving his family because he was threatened with a gun in his classroom. The student was expelled, but not arrested and knows where he lives.
I fucking hate it here. Guns need to go.
As an American, it confuses me as well
Soldiers and patriotism…
While travelling in the states, I was so perplexed to see that in some car parks where you’d expect to see disabled parking that there were parking spots for veterans.
id argue that that’s not true but my roommate and his friend made me watch 30+ minutes of commentated (by my friends) WW2 footage. i had to be like “hey man with all due respect i get the appeal I think but im not really interested in the glorification of something this horrific im sorry.” they were understanding but that level of interest in something so bleek was crazy.
also they were using WW2 japenese slurs and saying id walk up to that if i were there. and im like NO THE FUCK YOU WOULDNT you wouldnt even make it out of the armored car that took you there bud. people are not as badass as they think they are and soldiers arent badass they just want to see their families again we dont have to cheer them on like the opposing side doesnt also just wanna go home to their families.
ugh
Sticker price isn’t the price you pay at the till. Why? Why do you do that.
Massive gaps between the walls and doors of public lavatory cubicles. This is not some mystical, advanced technology. Get it together.
We do that because our country is founded on the “right” for moneymakers to put as much onto the customer as they can get away with. Hence things like tipping culture.
No offense but how thick do you have to be to make a door that is put in place solely to shield you from other humans, have a massive gap?
It seriously boggles my mind.
It’s not about doing it right for most. It’s about saving every dime you can. There are some that properly enclose stalls, like a nationally known Magic card seller in my locale.
I don’t understand the question O:
Why
Oh, that. Because nobody gives a fuck about anybody’s rights in this country unless that person has a reasonable ability to sue.
or a reasonable probability to draw a gun.
What am I looking at here?
The inside of a toilet stall. As you can see it has a massive design flaw from top to bottom. That seems to be the norm in the grand ol’ US of A.
Ahhhhh now I get it, thanks. It was a hard perspective to catch up on without the explanation :)
They deliberately do that in some public toilets to discourage people from hooking up in there.
I think the toilet wall thing is because we have an expectation that every public building must have public toilets available. Places don’t want you to fuck or shoot up in the bathrooms, so they make them un-private so you hurry the hell up and leave. It’s a bit of hostile architecture, like making park benches that you can’t lie down on to keep people from trying to sleep on them. Make the “undesirables” uncomfortable enough and maybe they’ll go be undesirable somewhere else. Meanwhile it’s just a little bit less nice for everyone else as well.
This is a thoughtful reply. I will just say that the UK also has public toilets all over the place, and a desire for people to not screw & get high in the cubicles. Ditto many other countries. But I’ve never been anywhere else with this door gap problem, where no-one gets privacy.
I did once use a UK bathroom in a supermarket where the lighting was all blue, which makes it hard to find a vein to inject. But the doors still closed properly.
American here. I like your response and the one you responded to. Thanks for this insight. ^^
Pleasant interaction ^ Thank you.
I’m still not sure why there’s a regional difference, my guess is that it’s a quirk of history. We’re more used to it in the US, and there are benefits for the owners of the public toilets, so they don’t change.
How did we get so used to it? I’m no toilet historian but it could be a (horrible, evil) company had a near monopoly on stall design during a formative part of our architectural history. Could just be the newness and utilitarianism of a lot of American architecture in general. We kind of sprung up overnight and so sometimes bad ideas got caught up in that wave of “progress” and became the norm due to being in the right place at the right time, and not really because they were good ideas or ideas that worked. Tipping culture, tax added at the till, and other weird Americanisms could all have similar root causes! Once you’ve gone down the route of something pro-business and anti-consumer, and gotten most people to accept it as normal, there’s no going back in a capitalist society.
I’ve seen this conversation many times on Reddit, and from what people say I assume there is a regional thing going on on. I’m from a part of the US where toilet stalls do not have massive gaps. There is a big gap at the bottom but too low for anyone to be seeing under unless they are crawling on the floor. Gaps along the sides are quite narrow. 1 cm at most, and nothing anyone is going to be seeing you through unless they are some kind of freak putting their eye right up to it. These stalls are prefab panels you can easily put into a room. The gaps mean ventilation for the room takes care the stalls too.
I assume stalls started this way and became normalized, and in some parts of the country they’ve gotten sloppier, and sloppier, and normalized these huge gaps I hear people describe but never see.
This might be my bias, but I assume these are the places where everything is a suburban stripmall wasteland, where there are no sidewalks, and where it seems to me the whole environment is increasingly dehumanized.
Thank you for your comment. I can’t speak for the entire world, but in the UK a 1 cm" gap in the door of a public toilet would be massive and unacceptable. It’s not enough that someone can only see into a stall through a gap in the door if they are “right up to it”; they should not be able to see in at all. Public toilets in other countries have doors with gaps you can’t leer through at all.
Re. the “gaps meaning ventilation”, surely the “big gap at the bottom” and the fact that the whole top is open will be contributing more to ventilation?
You say you think this might be a regional thing in the US. Okay, could be. I have personally encountered this issue in Washington, California, North Carolina, DC, Massachusetts, Georgia, Texas, Oregon, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
I can understand that to someone not used to this, any gap at all might be troubling and one might tend to exaggerate it as “massive”.
However note that these walls are fairly thick which narrows any visibility angles considerably. So to really see someone through the gap you would have to be at exactly the right angle and looking straight at them. Sitting on the toilet in one of these you can see some really narrow strip of the sinks area which also reflects the areas in which someone would have to be and looking straight at you to see you. People at the sink area have their back to you. People walking past them to another stall, are not looking to the side.
I’m not trying to convince you that they are ideal, or that your should like them, just that when the gaps are pretty narrow it is not as big a deal as you might think to get used to.
Again this is assuming these gaps are pretty narrow. I get the impression from what some Americans have said in other discussion that in some places they are quite a bit wider than I am used to, and what I said above may no longer apply.
Oh, I absolutely believe that people in America can accept it’s “not as big a deal as you might think”.
This is a thread about things about America that make no sense. So: I don’t understand why America, seemingly uniquely, accepts this as “not a big deal”.
It’s weird. Land of the free, home of the public toilets strangers can see inside. So odd.
Two party system. They can’t possibly represent everyone’s interests. Feels more like religion to me .
They don’t represent anyone’s interests except their own.
And those who lobby them and/or help them get reelected.
Two party system is great for polarizing the society.
Divide and conquer.
More precisely: The reason for the two party system: FPTP voting. The Brits do the same shit, and have the same problems.
The way it feels now (more cult-like than political and representing the populace) automatically and unavoidably stems from this FPTP issue. It automatically reduces the whole field to a reduced number of options, and while each reduction step takes longer than the last, this will ultimativley lead to a one-party state. It’s not a question of IF, it’s a question of WHEN and the REP program for 2025 to basically turn the government upside down to get unbeatable is trying to achieve this very single party state.
We do do the same and we do have the same problems, but it’s not so bad. We have at least 4 parties in parliament who have a voice and a number of others who are at least represented. It’s not good, but you have it worse
Two parties that are, if I’m not mistaken, the Right and the Rightest.
Didn’t the USA see any leftist ideology as radical?
The Cold War did some terrible things to our ideology.
They openly call Democrats radical lefties nowadays
We technically have more than 2; but nobody ever votes for the other parties, and the other parties are almost never given the opportunity to debate or have big ad campaigns. 🤷🏻♂️
And to be fair: Some of those other parties are even more narrow minded than the two big ones.
CGP Grey made an excellent video explaining our voting system: Minority Rule: First Past the Post Voting
Skip to 1:36 to hear about how, no matter how many parties we have, it always comes down to 2 major parties competing in this voting system.
I vote for one of those other parties!
The two party system isn’t really codified in law, it’s just kind of a side-effect of the way we vote and the way government is organized. Due to those two things, it’s hard to change.
It’s an inevitable conclusion of our winner take all voting system. “The man with the most votes wins.” If 4 candidates run, and they get 22% 22% 16% and 40% of the vote, the man with 40% of the vote wins the race, and 60% of the population didn’t get the candidate they voted for.
Now imagine you’ve got a red, orange, green and blue party. Orange voters get together and decide "You know, the Red party’s platform is pretty similar to ours, what if we didn’t run a candidate next time and instead encouraged our voters to vote for the Red candidate instead? The blue candidate won with 40% of the vote, but our two parties put together would have 44%.
In the next election with three candidates, the red candidate wins 44% to 40%, prompting a similar conversation at the Green party headquarters. Soon enough there are two parties.
We’re one of if not the oldest representative democracy in the world today; our constitution is 250 years old, there’s some old bugs still in the code base.
Jokes on you, in the end they both represent the same interests
It’s like a restaurant with a single dish and you can only chose a side. One’s xenophobia with a sprinkle of batshit crazy, the other’s utter impotence.
American here. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
Basically because we were early adopters to modern republic systems. We tried something new because parliament was a bit too kingy for our tastes. But due to its simplicity it became really easy for two parties to wipe the floor with everyone else. And basically the only times they’ve changed was at the start and again shortly before our civil war. Neither party has ever had good reason to change the system, which would require massive agreement to change our constitution. So nobody does.
For example, politically I’m a syndicalist, but the democrats are pro union, pro environment, pro woman, and pro lgbt, all of which with a big asterisk but still I consistently vote for them because the greens didn’t win with Nader so they’re definitely going to lose now. So I dutifully vote Democrat because the only other party that has a chance is the republicans and they hate me and everything I believe in.
If we could do it again we’d do it better but in our defense we didn’t really have anyone to model off of
First Past the Post voting makes it more likely: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?si=X-8oz1K6iYxKhBeB
As an American, I find it amazing that countries can have more than two active parties but also have a plurality voting system.
Tipping
Also, losing their shit over nudity
Puritans for the latter.
Bribery / slavery for the former.
While having a huge porn industry.
Huh, the US and Japan aren’t so different.
We have tipping in Europe, but that’s mostly only done if you have a very good experience, not because you are expected to. Just pay your employees.
They will say of themselves as being Irish/Italian/other-european-nationality because their great-grandfather or great-grandmother came from there.
A “politics” channel on a site called Lemmy.World that is specifically only for US politics, because America is the world.
City zoning.
Oh, i have to drive from single family zone to commercial district to pick up a loaf of bread. Then drive to education district to drop kids at kindergarten, and finally to business district to work. At the end of the day i hang out at bar/entertainment district with the guys from work to have a beer, but there’s no public transport so I have to drink alcohol free so I can drive back home. That’s only 120 miles in a day!
The obsession with mutilating baby boy’s penises.
Vote for people who actively oppose universal healthcare, mandatory PTO policies, universal family leave policies, universal college-level education, etc.
The way politicians and the political system nakedly serves the needs and interests of corporations and the wealthy, and not the average individual.
The way that the price you’re quoted invariably gets bumped up by various taxes.
The insane system that is tipping, including the fact that a lot of workers are so underpaid that they rely on tips to get by.
The incessant adverts on TV for medical products, particularly prescription drugs.
Voting registration. I get a letter that I can vote and what the options are. Then on voting day, which is on a Sunday, because why would it be on any other day, I just walk into my town hall with that letter and my ID card, put down my crosses and leave. It’s like a walk in the park, often quite literally.
I think the thing is, in America people aren’t required to register their residence with the government. At least here in Austria, we are, and that doubles as voter registration if we are eligible to vote. So there is voter registration here too, but it is compulsory.
Ah, if that’s the case, then I can get on board with a separate voting registration. Not sure, I’d prefer it, but at least it’s not just arbitrarily making democracy harder.
Making democracy harder is definitely part of it. Elections are super regional in the US, so states have a ton of control. If a state elects a state government controlled by Party A, that party has a lot of incentive to make it harder for members of Party B to vote next time. So if Party B is mostly young and working class, you make it so elections take place when those people are stuck at work. If Party A is super religious, you make sure that voting spots are near (or inside) churches. If Party B is less likely to have access to a stable address or a driver’s license, you make registering to vote without those difficult, and you maybe wipe the voter rolls occasionally and require re-registration.
The goal is retaining power and not on strengthening democracy. It’s fucked up, and it’s going to get worse as each party is forced to continue escalating. You can’t fix the system without power, and you can’t get power without undermining the system. We all know something in this country is deeply broken, but we hate and distrust each other too much to work together to fix it.
Wow. Over here, we thankfully have more than two parties, so if one party attempts such a thing, the 5+ other parties will denounce that in unison and it becomes pretty clear that it’s not just one of the usual quarrels.
It also means, you pretty much always have coalitions ruling the country, so not even the ruling parties have a shared interest in pushing anti-democratic horseshit. Many of the smaller parties would in fact really like to see more voters reached, because those are wildcards and not just voting for always the same big parties.
You definitely are required to register your home. Those property taxes aren’t going to pay themselves.
But you don’t need a home to vote. We went through a whole period in our early history where only land owners were allowed to vote, and generally only white men. It would be discriminatory to not allow homeless people to vote.
Homeless people can vote in Austria too. But they do have to register separately as such. For everyone else, the government already knows where they live (because we are required to register our residences) and uses that information to compile a voter registry .
It’s since the elections are state run, so there’s no central db. Once you register though your electoral experience is a state by state crapshoot.
Some will make you stand in line for hours forcing you to miss work, others do mail-in ballots with early voting which is kind of awesome.
Wild idea, states should have a central database of the people permanently living there. The fact that they don’t seem to have one is baffling to me.
oh I know we don’t do it on Sunday. America was so spread out that it took days to get into and kind of town. So you go to church on Sunday then travel on the on Sunday/Monday and and vote on Tuesday.
Yes, they did what was convenient for those times. I don’t think it’s comvenient anymore though, so why not change it? If people start serving a tradition instead of the tradition serving the people… just get rid of it?
Well in the us voting is done on many days. The official election has to held on Tuesday but you have weeks in advance of early voting. You really have to have many days of voting for a population this size.
How about you’d do both? It is possible to have early voting AND vote on a day where more people are home from work by default.
we do early voting happens on the weekend.
Healthcare, electoral college, how supreme court justices are elected, first past the post voting system.
Edit: and the self assurance to nitpick a foreigner over the details of how justices come into their job.
The EC is a mechanism to make the Presidential election less democratic.
Supreme Court Justices aren’t elected at all. The President nominates a judge and the Senate votes to approve that person for the post.
FTtP voting is bad. It’s just awful. The more you understand it the clearer that becomes.
Healthcare… no cap, we don’t understand it, either. It’s a mess.
What’s not to understand about your healthcare? It’s the one thing you literally cannot live without. Make the barrier to it $$$ (and tie it to your employment) means you’ll always have a subdued work force, and a big money funnel for the wealthy.
That’s only the start and even then not quite accurate. I don’t have insurance through my employer, for example: I used to have it through the government and now I have private, and before either I just bought healthcare with cash on the barrelhead.
And the thing is, paying cash is usually less than half of the price charged to insurers, even if you set up a payment plan, because individuals are easier to get to pay than the insurance corporations. And there’s ab additional discount for paying day-of-service because then they don’t even need to send a bill and they know they’ll actually get paid! So it can be a lot cheaper to buy healthcare in cash, depending on how much you need.
But now let’s say you have government insurance: Very good on preventative care, pediatrics, prenatal. Everything generally performed in-house and same-day, but scheduling is a crapshoot. Still the simplest insurance option once you have it.
Employer-provided insurance: My ex-employer, two jobs and half a decade ago, is still fighting with their insurance provider at the time about a hospital visit I had back then. Insurance says it wasn’t withing coverage dates, HR can prove otherwise.
Private insurance (but also employer insurance): Actual healthcare providers don’t know and don’t care if services are within network; which can change on a whim anyway, so someone who was in network when you schedule an appointment might be out-of-network three months later when you finally get in there. Since you can’t just schedule with a specialist without a referral, it takes at least two months and two appointments to see one, often more like six months, and whether or not your insurance will pay for it is up in the air anyway. And you’re paying hundreds of dollars each month for this “service”. It’s insane.
And this is for a young family in relatively good health seeking preventative care. I can’t even image this nightmare of corporatism and bureaucracy with a chronic condition or an emergency.
Supreme Court justices aren’t elected.
How any judge is just elected…
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If justice isn’t democratic then nothing is.
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I remember hearing that Europe doesn’t use drywall nearly as much. A benefit of drywall is cost and repairability, but is basically glorified paper, yes.
You don’t have to repair it if you can’t break it.
Try breaking a brick wall with your head or fists, lol.
It also hurts way less if you accidentally hit it as an side benefit. I’m Canadian and we also use drywall for everything.
Where does this come from. All Euro houses made out of harden steel and concrete?
Canadian here but still, shoes in house? Gross. Obsession with gun culture? Also gross.
German here. The shoe one is worse.
What I really hate is that it seems like American homes are designed for wearing your shoes indoors. Entryways don’t commonly have enough space next to the doors to put shoes or a shoe caddy, or there’s no nearby wall, so you’d have to put your shoes out in the open.
I know that may be a dumb excuse, but it always annoys me
Shoes in the house is very regional. I live in Colorado and everyone takes off their shoes just inside the door when visiting. The only exception would be like if someone came to deliver a piece of furniture or something where they need foot protection. Maybe it’s more common where it doesn’t ever snow, to leave them on?
Canadian too, I wear my shoes inside. I don’t have kids, and I don’t roll around on the floor, so why would I care?
For me, outside is dirty and that’s fine, inside is clean.
If I stepped in chewing gum or dogshit or even just general grime, I don’t want that inside.
Are your walkways made out of dog shit? These are very specific things that you dont step on regularly.
Also Canadian, and never understood it - but in thinking, are there any Canadian shows that show the people in their own house without shoes on?
Guns. Just restrict them, it’s not that hard
The “winner takes all” political system that ends with two extremist parties and a huge divide between people
Healthcare. Do I need to say anything?
The extreme divide between rich and poor
Police force. They hire lowly educated people, preferably racist, receiving barely any training, and what they do get is mostly nonsense. They then get military equipment, and the entire system is protected by a corrupt union
The amount that news organizations are allowed to lie
