British government now issuing blunt knives...

[Admiral X]

Yet.

[Admiral X]

Also on the plus side, my government recognizes my right to defend myself, and isn't doing its best impression of Big Brother on social media. Oh, and my leaders aren't just shrugging and saying that terrorism is a part of living in the big city. So given the two options, I'd say I have the better of them, at least so far.

[clearspira]

Also on the plus side, my government recognizes my right to defend myself, and isn't doing its best impression of Big Brother on social media. Oh, and my leaders aren't just shrugging and saying that terrorism is a part of living in the big city. So given the two options, I'd say I have the better of them, at least so far.

1) The American right to defend yourself translates to ''shit gun control''. I am quite happy with what I got thanks.
2) Big Brother on social media translates to ''we actually have a problem with you being a bigot, whether online or off it and we will stop you''. I am quite happy with living in a country that recognises that ''free speech'' is not an excuse.
3) So here's the thing: he's not wrong. You will NEVER stop 100% of all terror attacks and anyone who says that he can or will is a lying prick or perplexingly naive. And the most likely terrorist target is a city. So yes, in 2019, it is part of living in a big city. And I will also point out to you that we have been living with terrorism for half a century in Britain; it wasn't seemingly invented in 2001 like it was for you. Only now the IRA has changed to [[insert name here]] from the Middle East. We have a pragmatic view towards it.

And as we are now throwing random things into the mix, I am happy to be living somewhere with socialised healthcare. We look at what you've got with insurance companies acting as judge, jury and executioner over your treatment as absolutely horrific.

[LittleRaven]

Yeesh people. Both systems have upsides and downsides, and the vast geographical and demographic differences between our two nations mean neither one is likely to translate well. Let's just be happy that everyone is currently where they want to be. No need to get worked up over it.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Also on the plus side, my government recognizes my right to defend myself, and isn't doing its best impression of Big Brother on social media. Oh, and my leaders aren't just shrugging and saying that terrorism is a part of living in the big city. So given the two options, I'd say I have the better of them, at least so far.

1) The American right to defend yourself translates to ''shit gun control''. I am quite happy with what I got thanks.
2) Big Brother on social media translates to ''we actually have a problem with you being a bigot, whether online or off it and we will stop you''. I am quite happy with living in a country that recognises that ''free speech'' is not an excuse.
3) So here's the thing: he's not wrong. You will NEVER stop 100% of all terror attacks and anyone who says that he can or will is a lying prick or perplexingly naive. And the most likely terrorist target is a city. So yes, in 2019, it is part of living in a big city. And I will also point out to you that we have been living with terrorism for half a century in Britain; it wasn't seemingly invented in 2001 like it was for you. Only now the IRA has changed to [[insert name here]] from the Middle East. We have a pragmatic view towards it.

And as we are now throwing random things into the mix, I am happy to be living somewhere with socialised healthcare. We look at what you've got with insurance companies acting as judge, jury and executioner over your treatment as absolutely horrific.

Well I have taken note to what you're saying when you juxtapose our conservative cultures. From what I can make of it, our affinity for a limited overarching federal government seemed to make for more of a need for a superconservative culture where guns become an essential fabric for survival and free speech also becomes an essential tool in the arsenal to shit talk the government.

[Yukaphile]

I love clearspira.

[Madner Kami]

1) The American right to defend yourself translates to ''shit gun control''. I am quite happy with what I got thanks.
2) Big Brother on social media translates to ''we actually have a problem with you being a bigot, whether online or off it and we will stop you''. I am quite happy with living in a country that recognises that ''free speech'' is not an excuse.
3) So here's the thing: he's not wrong. You will NEVER stop 100% of all terror attacks and anyone who says that he can or will is a lying prick or perplexingly naive. And the most likely terrorist target is a city. So yes, in 2019, it is part of living in a big city. And I will also point out to you that we have been living with terrorism for half a century in Britain; it wasn't seemingly invented in 2001 like it was for you. Only now the IRA has changed to [[insert name here]] from the Middle East. We have a pragmatic view towards it.

And as we are now throwing random things into the mix, I am happy to be living somewhere with socialised healthcare. We look at what you've got with insurance companies acting as judge, jury and executioner over your treatment as absolutely horrific.

[Robovski]

Having lived in both I prefer the bread, strawberries, and health care of the UK while I prefer the guaranteed rights, less nanny-state, and at least some direct elections of the US.

[LittleRaven]

From what I can make of it, our affinity for a limited overarching federal government seemed to make for more of a need for a superconservative culture where guns become an essential fabric for survival and free speech also becomes an essential tool in the arsenal to shit talk the government.

And that's not even getting into the HUGE differences that we have in geography and demographics.

The United Kingdom has 65 million people living in ~81 thousand square miles.The US has 330 million people living in ~3.8 million square miles. So right off the bat, we're going to have radically different needs from our governments, if only because we live in very different ways. As Riedquat was lamenting in a different thread, in the UK, you're almost never more than a few thousand feet from another human being...in fact, you're generally within a few thousand feet of a LOT of human beings. Here in the US, although we have plenty of densely populated places, we also have tons of place where you can be dozens of miles from the next person if you feel the need to get away. There's not many places like that in Britain, and when you live in a country where a crowded theatre is never far away, making sure that people don't cry fire is perhaps a bigger issue than it is here.

And then there's the issue of diversity. The British population is...to American eyes, anyway...almost unbelievably homogeneous. Over 90% of their population is white...and not 'American White,' which is a huge grab-bag of various ethnicities, but British-born white. America, by contrast, is only 70% white, and we only hit that by calling most Hispanics 'white.' About 70% of the British population is Protestant, followed by 20% non-responsive and tiny populations of other religions after that. Here in the States, our biggest religious group (Protestant) tops out below 50%, with Catholics weighing in at 23%, and sizable populations of Jews, Mormons, Pagans, and Muslims. In short, the US is way, WAY more diverse than Britain, and yet Brexit, which is absolutely tearing the British government apart, appears to be driven largely by concerns about 'losing British identity.' I'm not at all convinced you could implement British-style society in the US without the country flying apart...the UK is barely holding together in light of globalization, much less a truly diverse population.

So yeah, different systems for different people, which is probably the best solution we can hope for.

[Darth Wedgius]

All I'm going to say is you can have my sharper knives when you pry them out of my cold, dead hands! Or give me lots of money, I'm not unreasonable.