• General_Effort@lemmy.worldOP
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    1 month ago

    People, including many Europeans, make a lot of assumptions about Europe.

    Americans in particular seem to assume that issues fall along the same political Dem/Rep divide as in the US. That gives them bad ideas. European countries have more solid social safety nets, more accessible and cheaper health care and education, more developed and usable public transport systems, …

    On other issues like immigration or racism, they are on a MAGA-level. There is no big controversy because it is widely taken for granted that European nations are ethno-states. This is less so in the former colonial powers Britain and France. But they have their own baggage that gnaws at them from within, just like the history of racial segregation undermines the USA.

    Another area where Europe is just different from the US is freedom of information. It’s just not respected in the same way. Intellectual property, on the other hand, is held in much higher regard. That’s how it has been for a long time.

    Now that the copyright industry is waging an all-out lobby battle against citizens, you can expect much more like this.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      On other issues like immigration or racism, they are on a MAGA-level. There is no big controversy because it is widely taken for granted that European nations are ethno-states. This is less so in the former colonial powers Britain and France. But they have their own baggage that gnaws at them from within, just like the history of racial segregation undermines the USA.

      What about Spain and Portugal?

      • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        29 days ago

        Exceptions that prove the rule. Also, just like Greece, tons of migration over millennia because of the Mediterranean sea.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          28 days ago

          Are they exceptions?

          (I didn’t mean for that to be read as a leading question, BTW. I wasn’t necessarily expecting Spain or Portugal to be different from Britain and France; I just asked about them because they were the other major colonial powers but weren’t mentioned.)