spoiler

He is very incorrect

This to me encapsulates the American "progressive" liberals illiteracy regarding politics and they're inability to recognise that other countries however adjacent in the imperial core just do not operate in the same wacky way US politics does.

Hearing someone so embarrassingly mischaracterise several UK cities with a rich political history down to "nooaaww the inner cities aaaarrrr liberull but the suburbs are conservative" and then just misrepresent or flatly get wrong the political landscape currently is just wild given his confidence.

My dude the incredibly down trodden satellite housing to a large city you keep circling back to is not rich and conservative you fucking dolt.

Progressivism = china town and liberalism

That's it, that was his whole spiel was

"this city is progressive, i mean they have china town.... liberalism"

THATS IT!!

This is someone thinks they are a socialist and knows what privatisation is but their understanding of even liberalism is "liberalism = progressive social justice" so like lmao.

And before anyone shakes their torches at me, this dudes is literally mansplaining this to this disinterested women about a country he isn't from, about policies he doesn't understand.

Wine cellar liberal thinking he can problem shoot a system he's not involved in or aware of.

Wild. My family should have never left Cork.

  • Thorngraff_Ironbeard [he/him]
    ·
    23 hours ago

    I don't know which is the worse of Americans abroad, Liberals or Conservatives. Liberals do this God awful shit but conservatives will slur you.

    • Verenata
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      22 hours ago

      It's a tricky one here's my findings:

      • vast majority of Americans visiting the UK are spoilt privileged white people
      • all are politically illiterate
      • mostly conservative/republican leaning
      • Will just expect you to take your headphones off and give them your time like the entitled little fash they are

      So like you just can't win cos if you don't give them a glare before they open their holes then you're now stuck listening about how American is better, our politics are stupid and we are choosing to destroy our country instead of following their example. Liberal or Conservative, that insane perception exists.

      Conservatives are easier to put on tilt by laughing and pointing out their insanity and how much of an embarrassment they using big words.

      Liberals don't fucking stop. It's like their holiday comes second to forcing their politics down others throats to the point we've seen them get thrown out of bars over it.

      I think it's the difference between American conservatives being able to gish gallop other Americans with buzz words vs American liberals having some understanding however illiterate.

      So like when I've met American conservatives if you just cut them off and call out their bs as nonsense American shit everyone else in the world laughs at them for, it usually stuns them since white Americans aren't used to being told to fuck off apparently and they just tut and call you rude and "this isn't what I expected British people to be like".

      Liberals take that ego hit and funnel it into legitimate harassment because they truly believe they are correct and it's akin to when Christians keep trying to convert people because they genuinely believe they are preventing someone from going to hell.

      In my experience.

      • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        19 hours ago

        can confirm. traveled a little in the UK and 90% of other Americans I met were wealthy psychos. which, makes sense because working class people in the states don't really make enough anymore to travel overseas. I went with retired family who covered hotels and helped with other costs. I've traveled in a lot of US national parks and would always meet people from the UK, IE, western Europe and they would have normal ass jobs like "teacher" and they took international trips each year. I found it instructive about the material distinction between our similar systems, because the chances of finding a teacher who can afford a trip across the Atlantic instead of of having to find a second job for the summer to make rent is low.

        one couple I met in a ferry ride up around Orkney seemed ok. we were all shit-tier low level university employees going through rounds of austerity cuts, so we complained about the neoliberalization of higher education without using the theory words. they had saved up for a long time for the trip and had wanted to go for years.

        but one guy was the most burger brained asshole. retirement aged, white, bourgeoisie, from Nebraska--a hinterland managed entirely for mechanized agricultural extraction and concentrated animal feeding operations--and he had the loudest nuclear takes. in one breath he would say the monarchy and its demand for new yachts is great because it creates jobs. in the next he would say the NHS is slavery. I remember the tour bus driver having the most powerfully blank look on his face about it.

        I wanted to choke him out and dump him in the north sea, but I don't know if that would be ecologically OK.

        • Verenata
          hexagon
          ·
          edit-2
          19 hours ago

          "Wealthy psycho" the correct way of describing them. 99% of the time it's retirees or they "own their owns business" and it's like sure.... move Yankee there's a queue forming!!

          Yes sadly while throwing electric car batteries in the oceans for the electric eels is both fun and environmentally conscious, i request no Americans in our rough and tumble puddle.

        • Ram_The_Manparts [he/him]
          ·
          18 hours ago

          I wanted to choke him out and dump him in the north sea, but I don't know if that would be ecologically OK.

          The crabs are hungry

          • MolotovHalfEmpty [he/him]
            ·
            18 hours ago

            They are. And the UK government is spooked because the crabs are Chinese!

            (This is actually true. For the last couple of years there's been signs all over several stretches of coast warning about scary Chinese flag-covered crabs with a line and exclamation point through them. There's been an uptick in mitten crabs, which are an invasive species and could actually be pretty bad for local biodiversity, but the signs are a bit much.)

        • Dolores [love/loves]
          ·
          17 hours ago

          the monarchy and its demand for new yachts is great because it creates jobs

          monarchy but just for yacht-based keynesianism chefs-kiss

      • CleverOleg [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        18 hours ago

        vast majority of Americans visiting the UK are spoilt privileged white people

        1,000% correct. Any American traveling anywhere abroad (except maybe to Mexico or on a Caribbean cruise) is almost certainly going to be of a middle class or wealthier background. The working class in the US either can’t take time off (because PTO is not legally mandated), they drive to the beach, or fly to Vegas or Orlando.

        Edit: I originally said PTO is mandated, that was a typo I meant to say not mandated. This actually came up during the Biden admin as something he could do to make life a little better for workers so of course he never did anything about it.

        • Verenata
          hexagon
          ·
          18 hours ago

          It's stuff like this

          The working class in the US either can’t take time off (because PTO is legally mandated), they drive to the beach, or fly to Vegas or Orlando.

          My God.

          • CleverOleg [he/him]
            ·
            18 hours ago

            Finding out if someone did international travel when they were growing up is an incredibly useful shorthand for determining their socioeconomic upbringing here.

            • Verenata
              hexagon
              ·
              18 hours ago

              Going on holiday i sleep,

              Finding out they went travelling with money they "saved up" and then they end up spending 3 months in bali it's like.... nepo baby.

      • TheWolfOfSouthEnd@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        18 hours ago

        We live in a world where people think “speaking confidently” means “knowledgeable”. My English teacher brought this up in 2002.

        • Verenata
          hexagon
          ·
          18 hours ago

          I used to go to uni with someone who had mastered this.

          Failed both uni courses mummy and daddy paid for but it's fine cos dad's got that sweet business position waiting.

          I hate them.

        • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
          ·
          18 hours ago

          when has that not been the case? that's what the premise of rhetoric was and is, that delivery is an analogue for beauty, which is an analogue for truth.

      • Thorngraff_Ironbeard [he/him]
        ·
        22 hours ago

        Genuinely curious what do they say you are doing to destroy your country? I'm guessing conservatives say something about immigrants/multiculturalism?

        • Verenata
          hexagon
          ·
          edit-2
          22 hours ago

          Liberals say the same shit, it's just tempered.

          Like both think:

          • immigration is erasing our culture
          • immigration is hurting native Brits (you can see their settler brains on this one, native Brits hahahaha)
          • our communist benefits system is bankrupting our country and hurting those apparant native British again.
          • NHS is communism and means that people get less health care
          • we don't start enough wars and appear weak

          The only difference is the politeness of how they articulate it from my experience.

          Celts crying rn 😢

          • CleverOleg [he/him]
            ·
            18 hours ago

            NHS is communism and means that people get less health care

            This is classic from the 1990s. Back then in the US, you could just say any crazy shit about countries with universal healthcare and no one would call you out on it because no one knew any better. A whole lot of talk about “death panels” and how everyone living under universal healthcare has to wait years to have a mole removed and everyone hates it. Then with the internet most people who are currently under 40-45 realize that’s total bullshit.

            I still come across boomers who believe this, and I usually will just mock them and say even if the British have complaints about the NHS, when you tell them stories about US healthcare they will think you are taking a piss, because no one would think that such a deranged healthcare system should exist.

            • Verenata
              hexagon
              ·
              17 hours ago

              The NHS is a joke and if you are ND you WILL NEVER get treatment or support unless you become a danger to others.

              That's unacceptable.

              But in terms of getting life saving/aiding surgery and medical care or for A&E situations, nobody gets made bankrupt, nobody gets their dying mother rejected for chemotherapy, nobody has to worry about the anesthetic timer running out.

              The NHS is a jewel, anyone who thinks it's not necessary is too privileged to need it and they deserve to pay more NI.

            • Verenata
              hexagon
              ·
              22 hours ago

              It's so fucking silly. Your eyes hurt from rolling them so much when they talk to you.

      • Verenata
        hexagon
        ·
        edit-2
        20 hours ago

        I'd feel safer around a lib in the immediate environment, but I know full well they despise me just as much and WILL vote my rights away when the time comes.

        Can't win lmao 🙃

          • Verenata
            hexagon
            ·
            10 hours ago

            💯 💯 💯

            The eternal knife edge that minorities have to walk.