Where are the police? Where are the military personnel?
That absence is one difference an American notices while in Europe. Whether it is having a pizza before getting a connecting train at Frankfurt bahnhof, taking hour-long walks through a friend's town on the Neckar River north of Stuttgart, or waiting for a flight at Zaventem Airport in Brussels, the absence is apparent.
Why do we need so much security in the U.S.? Has it prevented terrorist attacks for the past 12 years? Perhaps, but we don't know for certain. Has it prevented violent crime? Obviously it hasn't prevented mass shootings, has it! Perhaps having a lot of weapons in private hands requires a lot of security. Well, that is disproved by Finland, Switzerland, and other countries which have a high private gun ownership rate, but much lower gun violence. But enough about guns. Others have said it better than I.
There are many other differences you notice in Europe. The one that sticks in my mind is the difference in the relationship between natural and legal rights. What I mean is that the social contract seems to work much better in Europe than it does in the U.S.
You get one perspective from visiting and observing another country, another culture, even if you can speak the local language, have studied their history, and visit frequently. However, no matter how sincere the attempt, the perspective is usually one from the "outside". On the other hand, living for years in that country, that culture, provides you with the opportunity to learn the details, to see below the surface, and to start to understand why these people see their reality of the world.
One comment I received to a previous "American In Europe" diary noted that America was better at resource / wealth re-distribution than the Europeans, but the comment gave no evidence to support the claim. Based on knowledge that the income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor is much higher in the U.S. than in any other industrialized country, I have to ask myself why that comment was made. Where did that person get such a faulty perspective on the U.S.? For example, consider Sweden and Japan, both of which have very narrow gaps between the rich and poor. Yet they also have among the lowest crime rates, particularly rates of violent crimes, than most other countries, and the U.S. has the highest among "first world" countries. If any comment can be made, it would be that there seems to be a direct correlation between the income / wealth gap and violent crime rate.
It seems to me that some of the problem is due to lack of information, some is due to an inability to rise above one's own cultural limitations to understand others, and due to a personal predisposition from one's own personal and public history. When you talk about "big" issues, it is difficult to rise above the personal in order to see the bigger picture. It would be wrong to generalize that all Europeans can see the bigger picture better than all Americans, but a much larger percentage do.
There are many things about the U.S. that Europeans, Aussies, and Kiwis (among others) find incomprehensible, such as universal health care, blaming the victim for his condition, the lack of some sort of social net to help less-advantaged or dis-advantaged individuals. Europeans seem to know that anyone, at any time, for any number of reasons can fall on hard times. To them it is self-evident, and in the interest of human dignity, that those less fortunate are not immediately excluded or cast out of society. It simply boggles the European mind that many American political leaders show an absolute and total lack of empathy--a cruelty and viciousness with which those who are in need are attacked. As an American, I know it is not only the leaders, but a percentage of average Americans who also exhibit this trait--a too high percentage in my opinion. Americans are more narrow-minded, less tolerant than Europeans. Perhaps it has to do with war.
Most European countries have had a history of dysfunctional governments, and they have had to learn from that experience, while America, excluding the little problem of a civil war, has not had that experience. Until lately, that is. Most Europeans have a clear understanding of the reasons governments exist: to do that which no single individual or group of individuals can do. Governments should be concerned with infrastructure and policies that affect all citizens, not simply a select few. To a better extent than Americans, they demand that their governments are concerned with such things, not the interests of a few major corporations or rich individuals.
Lately, Americans have had reasons to fear that their government is dysfunctional, but they have only themselves to blame, for they allowed it to happen. The idea that money controls the actions of elected officials has had a long tradition in America. What we see happening today is simply the logical end of a process that was initiated over a hundred years ago.
Militarism has dominated American history from the Mexican-American War in the 1840s, through to the Spanish-American War of the late 1890s, and ever since. America was the last Western country, except for Brazil, to abolish slavery, but to this day have not instituted equal rights for all their people. While many other countries have had a woman as the head of state, there has never been a woman President or Vice-President in the U.S. It wasn't until 1992 that as many as 3 of the 100 members of the U.S. Senate were women. Native Americans were not guaranteed the right to vote until the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, yet since then Native Americans have had to go to court over 70 times in some states to guarantee their right to vote as American citizens. Most Europeans know these things, but most Americans do not, and Europeans do not understand how Americans are so blinded to their own history and how it has resulted in the situation America finds itself in today.
To Europeans, America was once a great land that offered the opportunities absent in their own country. It stood as a chance to start anew. But no more. The intolerance Americans exhibit in their daily lives, the level of violence, the number of guns, the government supporting wars around the globe, the police attacking Occupy protesters, Guantanamo, external rendition, drone killing of American citizens overseas and innocent Afghans and Pakistanis. America has become a brutal and violent place, unable to rationally and diplomatically resolve domestic and international issues. Money and large corporations dominate politics.
What really troubles me is that some European leaders think that they can imitate what America is doing. The leading countries in Europe have joined forces with the IMF to impose austerity on Greece, forgetting that austerity has already failed in Ireland and England, and is failing in other European countries. What is being done to Greece is criminal. The banking and free market fanatics have won the day in the U.S., and some leaders, led by Merkle in Germany are slowly but steadily falling under the same spell. Americans should be very concerned about the power of the financial world, and should support those politicians who are also concerned. In contrast to the U.S., the French have never been afraid to take to the streets, and others in Europe are becoming increasingly restless. But I am not certain all will turn out well, unless something is done very soon. Otherwise it will be too late.
The biggest problems that Europe face are all related to the fact that too many European governments are following America's lead in financial matters. It has become obvious to even the least suspecting, that monied interests are dominating what Europe is doing, and is dictating what they are able to do. The effects that are bringing Europeans to this realization all have to do with the reduction, if not elimination, of benefits that were long fought for and considered set in stone. The attacks in America on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, labor unions, workers' retirement plans, wages, education, the environment, are also being threatened in Europe. It is time for Europe, as a whole Union, to move forward and learn to stand on its own two feet.
There is every reason for Americans to be afraid of America, and for everyone else to be afraid also. While the U.S. was once a friendly generous land which welcomed immigrants whom they liked, they have become a myopic and violent people who have lost the better part of their diplomatic and social skills. American is armed to the teeth, both as a country and as individuals, and have shown that they are willing to use weapons against their own people as well as any others they feel are in their way. To a large degree, the corporate and political factions have merged under the guise of a misplaced patriotism.
Well, I have ranted on long enough, and didn't really get to say anything about natural and legal rights. It would have been boring anyway.
Let me end by saying that the number of vineyards in the boundaries of the city of Stuttgart is simply amazing. And that, for the most part, Europe works.
Oh, by the way, if you are almost forced off the E41 north of Stuttgart by a speeding auto weaving between lanes, it most likely means that the authorities have re-instated Elaine's driver's license.