nintendofan85
Good grief.
Last night, I was shamed by my parents, mainly by my dad, for saying that I believe France is superior to the United States. My reasons for this are quite simple, actually, despite me being an American:
My parents consider it morally wrong to consider any country, in any way, better than the United States, which is why I ask. When I mention that of my two parents that got upset with me over this, it was my father in particular who lashed out at me in anger-after saying this in a phone conversation with him, he yelled at me.
Also, keep in mind that this belief I have is a fairly recent one. I'm not saying that the United States can never be better than France-but maybe, to at least be as good as it, it could take a thing or two from France and other countries-such as Japan-and learn a thing or two. My mother says that what makes us so great is our military, but is military strength really everything?
- France has a much better standard of living, especially when it comes to its healthcare system.
- It has a far more educated populace, unlike the US (and, I'm sorry, but the fact that so many American right-wingers are poorly educated emboldens these sentiments in myself, with many being ignorant on basic history and current events).
- Its election process seems superior to what the United States has-there is no electoral college (which has no parallel whatsoever to other democratic nations), and instead, there is a two-round vote, which the first round, if no one gets a majority, determines who will be the top two candidates that will be the presidential candidates in the second round (Brazil and Argentina have similar systems).
- On the same subject of French politics versus American, the French political parties offer more choice ideologically, whereas the Overton window in the US is clearly very small-not only do we essentially have nothing more than a two-party system and have for nearly two and a half centuries, but the Democrats are basically in the same position ideologically-if not to the right of-French and other European conservative parties, with the Republicans by and large, I am well aware, being seen in Western Europe as extremist parties that, in France, only Marine Le Pen's National Rally could compare to.
- France just simply historically has a rich culture and one filled with the arts, one that the United States simply cannot keep up with. Perhaps American culture has been better-exported, but even then, that's a recent trend that arguably didn't happen until after World War II, whereas France's influence in the arts has existed since the 18th century.
- As a bisexual guy, it's worth noting that France beat the United States by two years on same-sex marriage legalization, and the US was well behind many other developed nations on this.
- France's handling of the coronavirus pandemic hasn't been the greatest, but the response from the United States has been atrocious, and we have one-fifth of the world's cases.
- Clearly, with Donald Trump refusing to concede an election loss to Joe Biden, while I have more faith in the American people now with Biden's election victory, Trump has made a mockery of American democracy, and I still maintain, for this reason, that electoral politics in France are superior to its American counterpart.
- Freedom fries. That point I will leave at that.
- Without France, there would be no United States-French support for the US in the Revolutionary War is how it became independent from Great Britain, after all.
My parents consider it morally wrong to consider any country, in any way, better than the United States, which is why I ask. When I mention that of my two parents that got upset with me over this, it was my father in particular who lashed out at me in anger-after saying this in a phone conversation with him, he yelled at me.
Also, keep in mind that this belief I have is a fairly recent one. I'm not saying that the United States can never be better than France-but maybe, to at least be as good as it, it could take a thing or two from France and other countries-such as Japan-and learn a thing or two. My mother says that what makes us so great is our military, but is military strength really everything?