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British anti-terror fighters demolish far-right propaganda after London attack.

joG said:
You mean, you don't know the documents?
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Of course I do, but you are the one coming with accusations so prove, that it is so stated in the documents.
 
PeteEU said:
Of course I do, but you are the one coming with accusations so prove, that it is so stated in the documents.
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That was no accusation. It was only an observation.
 
joG said:
That was no accusation. It was only an observation.
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And you manage to yet again not prove your "observation"... same old same old.
 
I'm curious. Is right wing opposition towards the EU born out of partisanship or something else? For example... seems to me that the concern is the lack of liberty amongst individual nations. Is that an accurate assessment or fear-mongering?
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
I'm curious. Is right wing opposition towards the EU born out of partisanship or something else? For example... seems to me that the concern is the lack of liberty amongst individual nations. Is that an accurate assessment or fear-mongering?
Click to expand...
Hmmmmm............

For starters I'd hold it to depend on the side of the pond it comes from. As such Americans are obviously not going to come under any EU laws so one might ask what concern the whole issue is to any of them. I suspect, with criticism gladly invited, that a significant concern will lie in concerns of economic clout, namely that an economically united Europe forming a uniform body to be reckoned with far more than a bunch of individual dwarf states, is not seen as being in American interests. Seeing that a uniform economy obviously brings with it a greater degree of political clout.

As far as Europe herself is concerned, the primary driving force in opposing the EU lies in "make ...............(insert any country or myself and the horse I rode in on)............. great again".

One can clutter that basic desire (born from inferiority complex) up with as many factoids as one wishes, lie outright, misrepresent juristic, economic and political data, garner it all with outrageous claim of loss of personal freedom etc. etc. etc., but cut thru all the claptrap and that's what remains.

Political parties without even a semblance of any marketable program, fill that deficiency by feeding on those suffering the described ailments and, where there's not enough of it around to enhance for party political gain, even attempt to create it.

It's already been described here how "the narrative" of loss of personal or national liberty is basically invented first of all (like all good inventions not without a grain of truth), with the facts, if at all presented, made up afterwards to fit.

There are plenty of examples where detailed listing would blow the thread into the next world, the most telling ones however lie in the radical right having perceived the refugee crisis as a gift from god.

Rather than pursuing (often somewhat justified) criticism of the EU's failings in internal policies, economics, monetary measures, this platform of comparatively low merit was abandoned at once, the minute the exploitation of xenophobia offered greater spoils.

One should remember that France's Front Nationale was openly anti-semitic until Marine kicked her Dad out. That gives no insight into the extent in which the whole bunch has changed its way today.

Germany's AfD at one time actually held quite a few of economical savvy that at least offered some debatable anti-EU takes. In the attempt of these founding members to cleanse the party of the anti-semitic and generally xenophobic muck that had considered it a good gathering ground, the party split with the moderates leaving it and the Nazis winning to the point that recent gains in municipal elections were achieved at the cost of the party that actually called itself Nazi outright.

The Netherlands' Wilders lot isn't even a party, considering that his PVV consists of just him and him alone.

For UKIP one just needs to name Farage for the educated reader to move on.

All of them have in common that they present no intelligent alternative of governance, other than wanting us all to put our seats back to vertical and turn our watches back to 100 years ago.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
I'm curious. Is right wing opposition towards the EU born out of partisanship or something else? For example... seems to me that the concern is the lack of liberty amongst individual nations. Is that an accurate assessment or fear-mongering?
Click to expand...

Now that is a damn good question. Kodus

I personally believe that it varies from country to country. Most the mainstream right wing parties in Europe are very pro EU/Europe. There are exceptions.

UK: The UK right wing is all about power and maintaining it. Empire, glory and all that. Why? Because if you look at it, the EU is a right wingers wet dream. Open free markets where business can flourish. And yet they are against it.. why? Because they cant control it in the way they could once. You have to remember the British Empire was built by the British right and they miss it. And hence the EU became the enemy. To prove my point, I point you to the European Convention of Human Rights. It was largely written by a Tory (right winger), and largely based on UK and US "human rights". And yet the UK Tories are now against it. Why? Because it has been used several times to prevent the UK in breaking their own laws and human rights when it comes to Northern Ireland and other so called undesirables. So since the first judgements in the 1970s against the UK, the Tory party that wrote the freaking convention has been against it. They even had the balls to propose their own "human rights" act in the UK, which is largely the same as the European Human Rights convention, other than they are the ones in control on how it is interpreted... basically mean they can break it if they see fit. You also see it today, where the Tories have been trying to be so undemocratic that it required legal action to stop them. And there is more to come since they are pushing a new bill about Brexit that basically bypasses the UK parliament.. ups! I always laugh when Tories say that they want to take power back from an undemocratic Europe, when they are sitting with absolute power despite only getting 32% of the votes at the last election... The UK Tory party is blinded by power and has been since Thatcher, when she ended decades of Labour domination. And for the record, some of the Tory policies are good ones..

Far right parties (Le Pen, AfD in Germany, UKIP and so on). These parties are populist parties that only exist because of hatred and ignorance. They are xenophobic or out right racist parties and very very authoritarian. The leaders cant get anywhere in traditional parties, so they form their own and use populist views to attract disenfranchised peoples who are easily manipulated with falsehoods and lies. Take UKIP.. it is basically falling apart after Brexit, because it has no policies that people care about and the people that replaced the "dear leader", are flawed with racist, xenophobic and worse problems.

But basically it comes down to power and control.. and how to maintain it. Now you might say, but so does the Left.. and yes they do, but the last 40 years in Europe, it is the right that has show its more traditional aspects of disenfranchisement of minorities, women and those that are against them. You see it here in Spain, where at the previous election, the PP (right wing) party gained absolutely majority. What did they do? Fix the economy? Naw.. they started to push anti-Abortion legislation that was hugely unpopular even with their own base. They put in legislation that made it illegal to protest or take pictures of authority figures and so on and so on.. basically curbing the individual rights of people and of course their main opponents.

That is why I a very big fan of coalition governments over the middle.. it keeps the right wing and left wing in check. It all goes "tits up" (a very British saying) when either side of the political spectrum gets absolute power.
 
Chagos said:
Hmmmmm............

For starters I'd hold it to depend on the side of the pond it comes from. As such Americans are obviously not going to come under any EU laws so one might ask what concern the whole issue is to any of them. I suspect, with criticism gladly invited, that a significant concern will lie in concerns of economic clout, namely that an economically united Europe forming a uniform body to be reckoned with far more than a bunch of individual dwarf states, is not seen as being in American interests. Seeing that a uniform economy obviously brings with it a greater degree of political clout.

As far as Europe herself is concerned, the primary driving force in opposing the EU lies in "make ...............(insert any country or myself and the horse I rode in on)............. great again".

One can clutter that basic desire (born from inferiority complex) up with as many factoids as one wishes, lie outright, misrepresent juristic, economic and political data, garner it all with outrageous claim of loss of personal freedom etc. etc. etc., but cut thru all the claptrap and that's what remains.

Political parties without even a semblance of any marketable program, fill that deficiency by feeding on those suffering the described ailments and, where there's not enough of it around to enhance for party political gain, even attempt to create it.

It's already been described here how "the narrative" of loss of personal or national liberty is basically invented first of all (like all good inventions not without a grain of truth), with the facts, if at all presented, made up afterwards to fit.

There are plenty of examples where detailed listing would blow the thread into the next world, the most telling ones however lie in the radical right having perceived the refugee crisis as a gift from god.

Rather than pursuing (often somewhat justified) criticism of the EU's failings in internal policies, economics, monetary measures, this platform of comparatively low merit was abandoned at once, the minute the exploitation of xenophobia offered greater spoils.

One should remember that France's Front Nationale was openly anti-semitic until Marine kicked her Dad out. That gives no insight into the extent in which the whole bunch has changed its way today.

Germany's AfD at one time actually held quite a few of economical savvy that at least offered some debatable anti-EU takes. In the attempt of these founding members to cleanse the party of the anti-semitic and generally xenophobic muck that had considered it a good gathering ground, the party split with the moderates leaving it and the Nazis winning to the point that recent gains in municipal elections were achieved at the cost of the party that actually called itself Nazi outright.

The Netherlands' Wilders lot isn't even a party, considering that his PVV consists of just him and him alone.

For UKIP one just needs to name Farage for the educated reader to move on.

All of them have in common that they present no intelligent alternative of governance, other than wanting us all to put our seats back to vertical and turn our watches back to 100 years ago.
Click to expand...

Personally, I don't hold much credence into an American's assessment of EU issues. American's tend to be self-centered and know little about the intricacies of policies outside the US... and worse yet, they tend to look at them through US filters. From my observation, politics is very different "across the pond" and apply American standards to European issues is idiotic... just like the reverse would be.

In your opinion, in what ways has the EU helped individual European countries, and in what way has it hurt them?
 
PeteEU said:
Now that is a damn good question. Kodus

I personally believe that it varies from country to country. Most the mainstream right wing parties in Europe are very pro EU/Europe. There are exceptions.

UK: The UK right wing is all about power and maintaining it. Empire, glory and all that. Why? Because if you look at it, the EU is a right wingers wet dream. Open free markets where business can flourish. And yet they are against it.. why? Because they cant control it in the way they could once. You have to remember the British Empire was built by the British right and they miss it. And hence the EU became the enemy. To prove my point, I point you to the European Convention of Human Rights. It was largely written by a Tory (right winger), and largely based on UK and US "human rights". And yet the UK Tories are now against it. Why? Because it has been used several times to prevent the UK in breaking their own laws and human rights when it comes to Northern Ireland and other so called undesirables. So since the first judgements in the 1970s against the UK, the Tory party that wrote the freaking convention has been against it. They even had the balls to propose their own "human rights" act in the UK, which is largely the same as the European Human Rights convention, other than they are the ones in control on how it is interpreted... basically mean they can break it if they see fit. You also see it today, where the Tories have been trying to be so undemocratic that it required legal action to stop them. And there is more to come since they are pushing a new bill about Brexit that basically bypasses the UK parliament.. ups! I always laugh when Tories say that they want to take power back from an undemocratic Europe, when they are sitting with absolute power despite only getting 32% of the votes at the last election... The UK Tory party is blinded by power and has been since Thatcher, when she ended decades of Labour domination. And for the record, some of the Tory policies are good ones..

Far right parties (Le Pen, AfD in Germany, UKIP and so on). These parties are populist parties that only exist because of hatred and ignorance. They are xenophobic or out right racist parties and very very authoritarian. The leaders cant get anywhere in traditional parties, so they form their own and use populist views to attract disenfranchised peoples who are easily manipulated with falsehoods and lies. Take UKIP.. it is basically falling apart after Brexit, because it has no policies that people care about and the people that replaced the "dear leader", are flawed with racist, xenophobic and worse problems.

But basically it comes down to power and control.. and how to maintain it. Now you might say, but so does the Left.. and yes they do, but the last 40 years in Europe, it is the right that has show its more traditional aspects of disenfranchisement of minorities, women and those that are against them. You see it here in Spain, where at the previous election, the PP (right wing) party gained absolutely majority. What did they do? Fix the economy? Naw.. they started to push anti-Abortion legislation that was hugely unpopular even with their own base. They put in legislation that made it illegal to protest or take pictures of authority figures and so on and so on.. basically curbing the individual rights of people and of course their main opponents.

That is why I a very big fan of coalition governments over the middle.. it keeps the right wing and left wing in check. It all goes "tits up" (a very British saying) when either side of the political spectrum gets absolute power.
Click to expand...

I find this to be an excellent analysis of the hypocrisy of some right wing policies. One would think as you explained... the EU seems to really benefit business. Yet, they are now against it? Power and control is as good as an explanation as I've heard.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
I find this to be an excellent analysis of the hypocrisy of some right wing policies. One would think as you explained... the EU seems to really benefit business. Yet, they are now against it? Power and control is as good as an explanation as I've heard.
Click to expand...

Are you a history buff? If not, you would see through out history that power and control was the key to many historical moments. Remember the Crusades? Was that religious? Naw, that was a power grab by the Pope who was bankrupt. The persecution of Jews over the centuries.. religious? Naw, not it was European royalty that was deep in debt to Jewish bankers that did not want to pay the money back. The list goes on and on.

Now in the modern world, the right have been promoting the "freedom for all and free market principles", and yet when they get into power they often go the other way... and it is in fact the modern left to centre that in fact are the freedom for all and free market principles now days and not the right (at least in Europe).. go figure.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Personally, I don't hold much credence into an American's assessment of EU issues. American's tend to be self-centered and know little about the intricacies of policies outside the US... and worse yet, they tend to look at them through US filters. From my observation, politics is very different "across the pond" and apply American standards to European issues is idiotic... just like the reverse would be.
Click to expand...
Well, speaking of the reverse, I've known plenty of Europeans that were barely better when it came to pertinent assessment of things across the pond. Based purely on my experience though (IOW anecdotal and thus of little merit where evidence is concerned) the average European knows more about the US than the average American knows about Europe in general or any of its countries in particular.

I don't hold that to be an achievement though that is founded in some sort of superior education here, it's simply that the average European could never afford to be totally ignorant of outside countries. Mainly, as I tend to joke with the Dutch but also the Swiss, because if you hit the accelerator on your car too hard, you're outside your home country before you even realize it (with the Dutch you're also in the sea). :mrgreen:

In your opinion, in what ways has the EU helped individual European countries, and in what way has it hurt them?
Click to expand...
In business, subsequent economic development, overall affluence of the individual, general education, human rights .......(endless list) it has helped everyone. Not even the "Greek patient" can serve to prove the opposite.

Whether one wants to call it actual "hurt" (I'm reluctant in use of the term), it has developed and furthered an economic neo-liberalism that leaves many people behind. Specifically in the traditionally weaker "Southern" economies but even in countries as highly developed industrially as Germany.

Nevertheless most of my Spanish neighbors here agree that everyone is far better off than before the country became a member, controversy arises over whether they wouldn't be even without having joined.

I posit "NOT", alone considering the vast sums that flowed to Spain to bolster its infrastructure. Just as one example.

And where there has been "exclusion" of certain societal groups (born from economic developments the consequences of which were not properly countered), proper address of such problems lies with the individual nation state.

It's always been popular though (and the UK is the most telling example, currently) for individual governments to claim all domestic successes for themselves and to place all blame for failures at Brussels' doorstep.
 
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PeteEU said:
Are you a history buff? If not, you would see through out history that power and control was the key to many historical moments. Remember the Crusades? Was that religious? Naw, that was a power grab by the Pope who was bankrupt. The persecution of Jews over the centuries.. religious? Naw, not it was European royalty that was deep in debt to Jewish bankers that did not want to pay the money back. The list goes on and on.

Now in the modern world, the right have been promoting the "freedom for all and free market principles", and yet when they get into power they often go the other way... and it is in fact the modern left to centre that in fact are the freedom for all and free market principles now days and not the right (at least in Europe).. go figure.
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Yup. Big history buff. Most things during history have been about power, no matter how things seemed to appear to look, either personal power or power for a specific group. The desire to subjugate others or to become more powerful in and of oneself, in all forms, is a cornerstone of motivation. I find it causes hypocrisy in the basic tenets of groups.
 
Chagos said:
Well, speaking of the reverse, I've known plenty of Europeans that were barely better when it came to pertinent assessment of things across the pond. Based purely on my experience though (IOW anecdotal and thus of little merit where evidence is concerned) the average European knows more about the US than the average American knows about Europe in general or any of its countries in particular.

I don't hold that to be an achievement though that is founded in some sort of superior education here, it's simply that the average European could never afford to be totally ignorant of outside countries. Mainly, as I tend to joke with the Dutch but also the Swiss, because if you hit the accelerator on your car too hard, you're outside your home country before you even realize it (with the Dutch you're also in the sea). :mrgreen:
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I agree with you, and this forum is a good example. Our European posters are more well versed in US politics than the reverse.

And yes, not knowing what's going on in other European countries can be very detrimental, as you all can cross borders in mere hours. It's also why more of you can speak more than one language, whereas here in the US, there aren't a lot of folks who consider knowing another language to be of great importance.

In business, subsequent economic development, overall affluence of the individual, general education, human rights .......(endless list) it has helped everyone. Not even the "Greek patient" can serve to prove the opposite.

Whether one wants to call it actual "hurt" (I'm reluctant in use of the term), it has developed and furthered an economic neo-liberalism that leaves many people behind. Specifically in the traditionally weaker "Southern" economies but even in countries as highly developed industrially as Germany.

Nevertheless most of my Spanish neighbors here agree that everyone is far better off than before the country became a member, controversy arises over whether they wouldn't be even without having joined.

I posit "NOT", alone considering the vast sums that flowed to Spain to bolster its infrastructure. Just as one example.

And where there has been "exclusion" of certain societal groups (born from economic developments the consequences of which were not properly countered), proper address of such problems lies with the individual nation state.

It's always been popular though (and the UK is the most telling example, currently) for individual governments to claim all domestic successes for themselves and to place all blame for failures at Brussels' doorstep.
Click to expand...

Ah, so even with successes, the self-centeredness around responsibility (if it's good, we did it, if it's bad, it's their fault) remains. I guess one cannot alter human nature.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
I find this to be an excellent analysis of the hypocrisy of some right wing policies. One would think as you explained... the EU seems to really benefit business. Yet, they are now against it? Power and control is as good as an explanation as I've heard.
Click to expand...

It is good, but only if we consider it in context. I mean, when he suggests it was the idea of the 'Right' (I'm not disputing that) but was there a 'Left' or at least a credible left? Not really.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
~................ It's also why more of you can speak more than one language, whereas here in the US, there aren't a lot of folks who consider knowing another language to be of great importance.
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I wouldn't want to claim that I'd be much different if I lived exclusively in a country the size of the US where I get to see two oceans, can travel from alpine to tropic to desert to plains etc., do it all with one currency and needing to use just one language, meeting my same own nationality all the way.

As we agree, comparisons of totally different governing parameters are always problematic, especially when the temptation arises to transpose them from one area onto another.

That said, I've come across many Americans in my times in the US that had at least one foreign language (often more) and were very well versed on affairs abroad. But then I circulated in the business world, hardly the representative cross-section of America (or other countries for that matter).

Ah, so even with successes, the self-centeredness around responsibility (if it's good, we did it, if it's bad, it's their fault) remains. I guess one cannot alter human nature.
Click to expand...
The ultimate challenge, success never completely achievable but always worth the effort.
 
gunner said:
It is good, but only if we consider it in context. I mean, when he suggests it was the idea of the 'Right' (I'm not disputing that) but was there a 'Left' or at least a credible left? Not really.
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In addition to which one needs to remember the different application (definition) of "right" both sides of the pond.

As for today's Europe those "right wing" gripers we now have hardly represent what one could call those conservatives that actually birthed the EEC (and then, finally, EU) or those that joined up later. More a centrist lot in their time.

The European left (in the real sense of the word, meaning far beyond Labor in UK or Social Democrats elsewhere) was more concerned with creating "The Internationale" in the post war years. Seeing how nobody in W.Europe wanted a Moscow run union, their chances were always at zero.
 
Chagos said:
In addition to which one needs to remember the different application (definition) of "right" both sides of the pond.

As for today's Europe those "right wing" gripers we now have hardly represent what one could call those conservatives that actually birthed the EEC (and then, finally, EU) or those that joined up later. More a centrist lot in their time.

The European left (in the real sense of the word, meaning far beyond Labor in UK or Social Democrats elsewhere) was more concerned with creating "The Internationale" in the post war years. Seeing how nobody in W.Europe wanted a Moscow run union, their chances were always at zero.
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Exactly. The terms have become so convoluted that it near on renders their use meaningless, unless we opine a heavy dose of context.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
I'm curious. Is right wing opposition towards the EU born out of partisanship or something else? For example... seems to me that the concern is the lack of liberty amongst individual nations. Is that an accurate assessment or fear-mongering?
Click to expand...

The things that have led to where we are, were not necessarily issues for the "right" as much related to citizans' rights and liberal in the original sense of the word. The "right" has more or less taken possession of them by default, as all of the traditional parties had greater the mess and had vested interest in not admitting having not only been wrong but dishonest as well.

To start with, one might want to contemplate the French and Dutch referenda concerning the introduction of the Constitution of Europe. The Eu elite could not find arguments to convince the citizenries of these countries to accept it and, though, the constitution was rejected the Eu elite took practically the same contract, renamed it "Treaty" and passed it in Parliament as, it was said, treaties needn't be put to the people. The German process was more complicated, but actually even more arrogantly

Again one must remark that the propagates of the Eu had a new chance to make the argument for why the Eu was good for the population in the two years running up to the Brexit referendum. Again they found no convincing arguments. As a matter of fact the Eu proved the U.K.'s warnings against the Euro and Schengen Treaties correct prior to and during this period. At the same time the justification of the Eu as a guarantor of peace was shown to be pure populism in Crimea.

Here I include an article by Krugman explaining why it was so unbelievable that the Eu introduced the Euro as it did and how either ignorant or arrogant doing so was. Krugman is beyond suspicion of being a wild eyed right extremist.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2012/06/24/revenge-of-the-optimum-currency-area/?referer=
I also post a book review from The Economists of a friend's book.
http://www.economist.com/news/books...euro-crisis-far-over-ordoliberalism-revisited
Following is a link to the state of affairs of the solution of the Euro problem.
The Greek Crisis

Here is an article about immigration problem well known, when Merkel opened the borders in the run up to the Brexit referendum from The Guardian about the problems in France and the U.K. with the integration of immigrants. This paper is also no "right" venue.
https://www.google.de/amp/s/amp.the.../multiculturalism-assimilation-britain-france
The same can be said for cfr.
Europe's Angry Muslims - Council on Foreign Relations
And for Germany Der Spiegel is definitely very social democratic.
http://m.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-603588.html

This is part of the background to the present situation. I have not gone into a good number of further aspects like the very disturbing way the Eu treaties were pushed through the German Supreme Court et alias. The Eu elite has dug a very deep hole and is stuck in the quagmire that has collected at the bottom. The problems are at many levels and have nothing to do with Americans being wary of Eu potency or "right extremists". I wish it did.

Though, the populations across the Eu are politically informed homogeneously by mainly government dependent or near government media and hardly have the education, time or energy to work through the raw information people have increasingly realized that there is something wrong, while they have been being told otherwise. This has led to angst and anger without any visible way out.



I include a
 
Right, the people of Europe are all darn stupid and utterly lacking education, the latter having been replaced by every nation's modern version of the "Propagandaministerium".

With the exception, of course, of those possessing the intelligence and education to gather their facts from the likes of such geniuses as Le Pen, Petry and Höcke, Wilders and, not to be diminished, Farage.

Occasionally complemented by the odd American who has clearly managed to live extensively in two European countries (or so it's claimed) without knowing anything about even one of them.

Watched an old replay of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar this afternoon and this comes to mind:

Oh wisdom, though hast fled to brutish beasts
and men have lost their reason.

Much nicer than the usual "what the dickens are you blathering about". :mrgreen:
 
Where one indeed tires of repeatedly having to address the same old, same old mantras of "how everybody cheated", here is an actual summary of national processes right up to the (subsequently abandoned) Treaty for a Constitution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitution_for_Europe#National_processes_at_a_glance

from which one can see that a majority of member states actually ratified it, nevertheless unanimity was required and not achieved.

and here some more on the Treaty of Lisbon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon

which, as one can see if one cares to peruse details, was agreed upon (signed) by all 28 member states and is NOT the back door way of establishing the constitution (as some people insist on falsely claiming, no matter how often actual facts are pointed out).

Being past history, the fact that neither the Dutch nor the French referendum on the constitution were legally binding to either government may not be so interesting any more today, what is interesting though is how some posters decide upon how non binding referendums should be acted upon or not, and base either case on how they fit their personal political agenda and prejudices (or not).

As we have seen wrt to the take presented (and repeated ad nauseam) of how the UK should not invoke article 50 (the official initiation of leaving) at this point in time, in complete defiance of what the Brits voted for.

With the Brexit referendum having been just as little legally binding as the other cases.

Hypocrisy much?
 
gunner said:
It is good, but only if we consider it in context. I mean, when he suggests it was the idea of the 'Right' (I'm not disputing that) but was there a 'Left' or at least a credible left? Not really.
Click to expand...

In the US, the left and right are fairly defined. How would one define the left and right in Europe... and are they very different between different nations?
 
Chagos said:
I wouldn't want to claim that I'd be much different if I lived exclusively in a country the size of the US where I get to see two oceans, can travel from alpine to tropic to desert to plains etc., do it all with one currency and needing to use just one language, meeting my same own nationality all the way.

As we agree, comparisons of totally different governing parameters are always problematic, especially when the temptation arises to transpose them from one area onto another.

That said, I've come across many Americans in my times in the US that had at least one foreign language (often more) and were very well versed on affairs abroad. But then I circulated in the business world, hardly the representative cross-section of America (or other countries for that matter).
Click to expand...

I don't know. I find my countrymen to be decidedly self-centered and consider the goings on of other countries as fairly irrelevant and unimportant, globally. Perhaps it's like that all over, but around here, many only see the importance of things in other countries in how it affects them. That may be a reflection of having much of the country being several hours, at least, from the nearest border, whereas in much of the rest of the world, going to another country is barely a day trip. Context is important and, to me, it creates a difference in attitude.

The ultimate challenge, success never completely achievable but always worth the effort.
Click to expand...

Usually, as long as one recognizes the limitations of the endeavor.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
~....................whereas in much of the rest of the world, going to another country is barely a day trip. Context is important and, to me, it creates a difference in attitude....................~
Click to expand...
Yes, a prime example of confirmation being the Dutch. Possibly the country whose inhabitants are the most likely to speak several languages beyond their own, simply because expecting everybody else to learn their language (spoken by a "mere" 17 million living on an area about the size of New York State) is seen as unrealistic. Most have English and German, many French.

Belgium and Denmark (Scandinavia in general) are no different.

In fact the bigger the European country by size and population, the less likely the proficiency in more than one foreign language. English is of course wide-spread thruout.
 
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