And we don’t have people walking around with guns (yet).
Europe has gangs and guns and whatnot. But people have more to lose I think. Something like that. Better education maybe?
Could be way better here as well
Every country have criminals and guns. The difference is how available they are to the general public. And what type of guns.
Anyone in the US that isn’t a convicted felon can buy a handgun as soon as they turn 21. And there are very few laws on how you’re required to store them.
Compared to Europe where it’s incredibly rare for an average citizen to have access to a handgun.
More chill, probably.
Unchecked capitalism of this degree is a stressful world to live in and it drives people insane. Fear and hate not only breeds mass shooters, it makes your random Joe shoot PoCs, delivery guys or really everyone stepping on their lawn. And it’s not racism or some other kind of hatred alone. It’s a general fear that EVERYTHING entering your comfort zone is there to fuck you over. And in the US they aren’t totally wrong, because many things we find normal in Europe, like affordable healthcare, insurance, education, etc - are traps constructed to drink you empty, not to say about how many real scams flourish there. They are in a fight or flight mode like 24/7, so it’s no wonder they shoot on sight and cheer to bigotry.
Meme/anecdote: many european listeners of Cool Zone Media podcasts were confused, while visiting US of how many advertisements to buy gold deposits were in automatic ads while there, and how agressive they were. In a sense, gold investments is a panic button you press when you gamble on everything else going down. And this particular scam, the popularity of crypto, and the power of rabid christian sects kinda says a lot about how secure regular folks feel.
I’ve never been to the US, so it’s all built on assumptions and hearsay.
Hardened criminals have access to firearms but they tend to be expensive and difficult enough to get a hold of that you don’t waste them on holding up a 7-11.
But angry children and adults who just want to hurt people generally don’t.
It is why gun control works. It isn’t about getting rid of ALL guns. It is about reducing their number so that people don’t realize a year later that five of their ar-15s are missing
eh… in my country firearms are illegal, yet somewhat available. heavy explosives/fireworks and WW2 grenades on the other hand… plentiful
The above chap hit the nail on the head in terms of the UK.
Sure, hardcore criminals can get their hands on a gun, but the sort of people who want to cause trouble at a school certainly don’t.
I went to one of the worst schools in the country and while some of our students did occasionally murder people out in their private lives (I lived in the biggest shit hole in the country - the government even said so), in the school itself the worst thing I ever saw was a pupil throwing a chair at a teacher. And that was incredibly rare and shocking.
A student did arson one of the maths rooms too but that was over the weekend when nobody was there. They really hated that teacher haha. We had to do the rest of the year’s maths lessons in the Hall. So weird.
But ya, that’s all the extreme cases, and they’re nowhere remotely near “gun” territory. That’s just insanity. I never felt unsafe in a school.
Again? When did everyone stop?
Why is this a picture of grass?
That’s where the fence goes
Have you heard of “induced demand” courtesy of the FuckCars community?
Well, the same applies to violence.
If you have police on campus people subconsciously expect violence. It’s a self-fullfilling prophecy. The more security theatre you add, the more actual security you’ll need.
Normalizing shootings by giving them such media attention also doesn’t help, if the prospective shooter craves it. Neither does the fact that it occupies a large part of the US public consciousness.
Some kids do it because others have already, and because school shootings are such a hot media topic.
If I must
I’ve seen security in European schools. Usually in the morning, due to congestion traffic concerns.
Who the fuck emigrates to Europe as a hardcore American fascist? Seriously? What the actual fuck?
It’s funny, the fascists “won” here, but they are still expatriating themselves to fuck up other people’s countries too.
Imagine being racist and wanting to enjoy it instead of making it political. In the US it’s culture war shit. In Europe you can go to a football match and throw bananas at the black players and it’s chill. It’s just easier to be casually racist in Europe because racism doesn’t exist there, and if it does, it’s not as bad as America.
Recently in Spain a football fan got sentenced for racist chants
In fairness nobody ever died from a stray banana.
I’m an American living in the EU, and I’m surprised by that. All the other American immigrants I’ve met so far have been opposed to Trump and Republicans generally. I always figured the conservatives were likely to be buying into AmErIcA iS tHe BeSt propaganda and would thus be uninterested in moving to another country.
We have plenty of fascists here. It’s not like the US have a monopoly. We don’t quite let them run the show yet, but we’re certainly working on it.
Yeah, but a really big part of the MAGA platform is hating on the “communist” and “woke” “yuropoors”. She must really really hate it here.
Also insane because I’m willing to bet she grew up and went to school in the era before we militarized our schools
We have European fascists here. The point here is: why would an American fascist move to Amsterdam?
The difference is that while we may have several fascists here, unlike in the US the majority are not fascists.
Maybe they needed the more affordable healthcare?
We need that, and healthcare that isn’t tied to our jobs, because that significantly entrenches the whole wage slavery thing.
They come here to spread their culture, their ideology of violence and intolerance.
Europe has its own nest of fascists and they’re gaining popularity.
As an American, please enthusiastically tell any American that tries to do this to fuck all the way off and go back to our own shitty country. I don’t want us fucking up your continent too.
Here here. If Europe goes to trash I won’t even be able to VPN my way out of fascist bullshit.
If Europe goes to fash, my options narrow to Japan or SK or A/NZ, and none of those have the same geopolitical weight as the EU.
The EU is, IMO, the last best hope for democracy in the world these days, in the context of a geopolitically significant polity that is (mostly) cohesive.
And I hope that statement ages like wine, not milk (or, like the B5 S3 intro)
I mean Japan’s political situation is kind of weird. The LDP has basically been in power forever (with super brief interruptions). It lost power recently though so we’ll see what happens I guess. IIUC tho anti-immigrant sentiment is rising (at least partly fueled by the massive waves of shitty tourists IMO), which prob isn’t a great sign based on what’s been happening in other countries.
I still speak a reasonable amount of Japanese, and am familiar with the social norms. I think I would be fine, despite being white as a picket fence.
That’s not to say I am dismissing the xenophobia - it’s real, and it’s one of the aspects of Japanese society that troubles me the most, in a general sense.
Could be a military member stationed there. A guy I work with is one of those 4chan “libertarians” and had nothing but “horror stories” about living in Germany. Same guy is terrified to venture into the local major metropolitan area or take the light rail system.
I’d love to hear more
Spreading the plague, as insects are wont to do.
As an American, I would like to apologize profusely for the rank idiocy of my fellow citizens.
No need for an apology here, I too am beyond mortified by what my country has revealed itself to be. I do sincerely hope the rest of the civilized world resists the ideology we seem to be exporting before it’s too late.
Maybe for a specific job? Booking.com used to heavily recruit US talent to work in Amsterdam. It was usually only for a few years at a time, though, in accordance with Dutch labor and immigration laws.
Not for years and years. Most of the booking.com staff is remote. All the senior staff is outsourced now too and very little is in Amsterdam. If you get a job there, word to the wise, don’t compliment the one lady’s chickens, she gets big mad.
Europeans invented fascism so she’s just trying to learn from the best.
Yeah, fuck off back to your own shit country if you don’t like it
Lily (MAGA)
expat in Amsterdam
Can someone tell this bitch to go back to where she came from?
Not an expat, an immigrant. I hate the term expat.
I’ve always assumed it depends on what your context is. If your perspective is the country that the immigrant is from, then they would be an expat. If you are in context of the other country they are an immigrant.
Ie
“My friend is an expat who went off to The Netherlands.” “My friend is an immigrant that came here from The USA.”
Emigrant. That’s the kind of migrant who leaves a country. They’d be an immigrant in their new country.
But, IMO there’s a difference with an expat. An expat is often someone who isn’t moving permanently, and as a result is often not trying to integrate into their new country.
From my observation when living in The Netherlands as an immigrant (from Portugal) sometimes working in companies with lots of foreigners, most of us said of ourselves as being “immigrants”, except Americans and Brits who often said they were “expats”.
Curiously, generally the other people from different nations, including the Dutch, would use immigrant rather than expat when refering to the status of the self-proclaimed “expats” in that country - “expat” was very much their label for themselves.
The Americans and Brits were there in average for just a long as the rest.
I don’t think it’s really length of stay, at least not directly, I think it’s about the immigrant believing or not that their country of origin is a “greater country” than the country they’re living in. You can see this for example in places like Spain where British retirees have retired to and live the rest of their lives in their own Little Britain communities calling themselves “expats”.
This also matched to how some of the British immigrants most pissed of about their homeland (for example, a gay guy who had to move to The Netherlands to marry his partner, as back then that was not allowed in Britain) made a point of using “immigrant” for themselves instead of “expat”.
It’s about national delusions of grandeur, IMHO.
That’s what I’ve always assumed too, but I only ever hear it in reference to other Americans, so I could absolutely believe that it’s just some weird shit they use to separate themselves from immigrants.
I always assumed that ‘expatriate’ meant that you gave up citizenship in the old country to get citizenship in the new country. Like it’s a type of immigration that a lot of people like to pretend they’ve done because it’s pretty hardcore.
For those unaware, an expat is an immigrant, but white.
I think Japan also gets ‘Expat’ credentials too.
I always thought expats had to live in little expat communities, keeping themselves aloof from the rest of the population. It’s a level of snobbery beyond even still caring where you’re originally from. That was my understanding from all the little compounds I saw in the global south.
Don’t forget to mention why they left their own country.
We should call them extracts and their communities “extractor communities”
I mean some people typically called immigrants do that too
Typically because that’s where they’re ALLOWED to live.
I mean income directs it a bunch but some communities are just very insular and like to keep to themselves.
I agree, that’s why I went with typically, but many aren’t allowed to live near the future “expats” so that property values aren’t negatively impacted.
When brown, they are inmigrantes anda those are ghettos. When white, they are expats in expat communities.
Typically “expat” communities are much wealthier. Poor white immigrants live in pretty shit conditions too and the areas are considered ghettos, at least historically
For those unaware, an expat is an immigrant, but white and racist.
I’d personally argue against it. I’ve a British neighbour old-man who I walk with and he’s very nice and world travelled. He even said that he chose to have the British retirement fund over my country’s because that’s where he paid taxes in.
we should call the us ones immigrants though. i think it would bother them a bit.
We don’t want her back. Throw her into the sea and let nature take its course.
Shots fired
I remember the exact day they closed up the college with fences and the look on the face on the children who started to feel like prisoners. I also remember the day they started to locked all doors but one to inconvenience potential invaders in high school forcing surveillance on who’s coming and who going on grown teens.
To be fair. We deserve all the smoke.
Yeah I see people online talk about how Europeans can supposedly only come up with one reason to criticize the US and it’s just…
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Not true at all there’s a hundred reasons Europeans could criticize us
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I can’t think of a single criticism I’ve seen of the US that wasn’t completely valid
Like yeah I guess you could argue the average citizen is well aware of the school shooting issue and knows the answer to the problem, but at the same time our last election really calls that perspective into question.
Half the country is illiterate.
whilst half of europe is at least literate in more than one language.
and no… Texas and Massachusetts accents don’t count.
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How big is the ocean between Europe and Russia?
Narrator: The problem wasn’t the kids it was the US.
Clarification: venues getting shot up is a specifically elevated problem in the US (exacerbated by availability of guns, but that’s not really the root of the problem). The thing is, the root of the problem (right-wing-leaning low-information constituents – lumpenproletariat in left-wing speak – suffering from precarity sometimes turn to violence) is being visited on European nations where two-party systems have taken root, and neoliberalism has set in. It’s the old King Log vs. King Heron problem. We’re seeing violence and counterviolence in the EU, just with less frequency and fewer guns, but it will catch up to them.
my favorite time!
“Expat” is my favourite dog whistle. Because “migrant” is only used for brown people, or other undesirable minorities for racists.
She has “MAGA” in her display name. Why listen for dogwhistles when there’s a red alert siren?
BTW I had several teachers that described themselves as expats from the UK or US, and they were alright.
There is technically a difference in the definition, but mostly people use it exactly as you’re describing.
I’ve really had to catch myself when I notice myself using it.
But honestly it’s so expected that people can get confused when you call yourself an immigrant (and you aren’t doing it to make yourself a martyr somehow).
I hate the word for the reasons you’ve said, but I know a lot of black Americans in Portugal that refer to themselves as expats.
Feels to me that the line is drawn along economic privilege lines rather than simply race.
“No war but the class war” strikes again
There’s also this level of like, still identifying as being primarily of the country they’re from, like a rejection of assimilation into the place they’ve moved to. I’m not saying that’s inherently good or bad, but, it’s an interesting dynamic, and an option that a lot of immigrants don’t have.
an option that a lot of immigrants don’t have.
Especially when a lot of the same type of people will throw a fit if an ‘immigrant’ doesn’t do everything they can to assimilate.
Because these people think they are “better”. So when a wild barbaric immigrant shows up, they want that person to assimilate, but when they move among the unwashed lower folks, they don’t want to assimilate themselves, because it would be a step down in their eyes.
(I am talking about their view, which I very much despise, just as a clarification)
Wherever white people get mad at black people you hear the word “thug” thrown out a lot and i always wonder if they’re just using that word to substitute another one they’re not allowed to use publicly.
For us latinos it’s immigrant.
From my own experience as an immigrant in The Netherlands and Britain, “expat” is generally used by Americans and Brits when living abroad and pretty much nobody else no matter what their skin tone. I mean, I’ve seen on or two Ozzies using it but it’s way rarer with them and I suspect they were just copying the Brits and Americans. The New Zeelanders I crossed paths with weren’t “expats” and neither were the Canadians. Similarly I never heard any of the other Europeans immigrants there refering to themselves as “expats”.
I think “expat” is more a thing of people who thing they come from a “great country”, as if somehow it’s a priviledge for the other country to have them there.
I would have said the two words are different by perspective. An “expat” is talking about where you’re from. An “immigrant” is talking about where you are. Also, if you start talking about 2nd generation immigrants, then “expat” can’t be used at all, which means it is narrower in scope, too.
In my experience people will use “immigrant” to talk about were they’re from by referring their nationality (i.e. “I’m a Portuguese immigrant”) or explicitly adding a “from” and then using the country name (i.e. “I’m an immigrant from Portugal”).
If talking about where they’re an immigrant in, they will explicitly use “in” (i.e. “I’m an immigrant in The Netherlands”).
Even though “emmigrant” is about where you were born and aren’t living in anymore and “immigrant” is about were you went to, in my experience emmigrant is only ever used when physically in one’s country of original and talking about living elsewhere (i.e. when in Portugal I would say “I’m an emigrant” whilst when in The Netherlands I would say “I’m an immigrant”).
It’s funny since as I’m writting this I remembered that when I first left my country of birth to go live abroad it actually took me a while to figure out the proper usage of the whole immigrant/emmigrant thing.
As I said, I was an immigrant in The Netherlands and worked often with other immigrants from all over there (mainly because until I learned Dutch I could only work in English-speaking environments and in my area - software engineering - those attracted immigrants), and most people would use “immigrant” when talking about were they came from (i.e. “I’m a French immigrant”) and I only ever heard expat used instead of immigrant by people from Anglo-Saxon nations, overwhelmingly Brits and Americans.
That said, “expat” was used as a single word combining both “immigrant” and “emigrant” - in other words, unlike with the immigrant/emmigrant pair, the single word expat is valid both when one is physically on one’s country of origin and when one is physically in one’s host country: when I lived in Britain I did hear Britons saying that they were “expats” and meaning it as “living elsewhere than Britain”.
And yeah, 2nd generation don’t call themselves expats, but they also don’t call themselves immigrants. It’s only people from outside talking in general about people who are the direct descendants of immigrants in a country who will use “2nd generation immigrants” for the groups as a whole. Calling somebody who is a national of that country and has immigrant parents “an immigrant” in that country is only ever used as an insult by Far-Right extremists.
I know there’s some opinions on this, but I would consider this to be the case. Many people don’t have so much pride in their origins to consider using a term like expat, then there’s Americans, who’s entire identity is based on where they were born.
So it makes sense that someone from America living in another country would identify as an American expat, while everyone else is just, immigrated to where they are. Not enough focus on what country they came from to bother with an expat definition.
Makes me think that American expats are looking backwards, while other immigrants are looking forwards.
Hopping onto this matter of perspective. I think it also takes on a state of permanence. My brother and I both moved to an EU country. He plans on returning home at some point, and he calls himself an expat, while I have no plans on returning, so I think of myself as an immigrant. Though I guess it’s not the technical definition. It’s how I always thought about it
I think “expat” is more a thing of people who thing they come from a “great country”, as if somehow it’s a priviledge for the other country to have them there.
This is it. If you move from a “better country” to a “worse country” you are an expat (because you think you are something better than the lower people you live among). If you move from a “worse country” to a “better country” you are labelled as a migrant (by the “better” people you live among).
Well, in my experience it’s the immigrants themselves doing it and never the locals.
Further, even in a poorer European country like Portugal I’ve never heard say, Germans or French calling themselves “expats” even though those are much more wealthy nations - it’s pretty much only Brits and Americans living there who speak of themselves as “expats”.
I think the use of expat is specifically a thing for people from countries were national delusions of grandeur are widespread (which I know for sure from direct experience is the case in the UK and seems to very much be the case in the US) rather than merelly the coutry of origin of the migrant being “better” than the host country.
Also these experiences of mine I’ve mentioned are in some cases from way back in the 90s - this shit was already done over 2 decades ago well before the recent anti-immigration sentiment in the West.
