Alien America

Mitt Romney has been visiting and managed to offend by criticising the U.K.’s readiness to stage the Olympics. It’s quite funny, because he hasn’t said anything that one of the British newspapers hasn’t said, but we’re all still quite cross.

Well, of course, one can criticise members of one’s own family, and still be deeply offended if an outsider criticises them, and Romney should have had more sense and tact.  But the fuss started me thinking about the differences between the U.S.A. and the U.K.

 The first time I went to the U.S.A., I’d never been anywhere so completely foreign. I think that because Americans speak English, we expect them to think like us, and then are shocked to find this enormous gulf between our values and beliefs and theirs; and on top of this, Americans themselves seem largely unaware of the gulf. Beliefs which appear to them not as a belief, but as an unchallengeable fact, leave us utterly amazed. The two most obvious examples are gun control or the lack of it, and healthcare or the lack of it. There’s just been another mass shooting in Colorado, which sums up, to my European mind, the madness of American attitudes. First, the killer had assault weapons and 60,000 rounds of ammunition. 60, 000!!! What on earth is a civilian doing with this sort of arsenal? It can only be intended for mass murder – that’s the only purpose it can have. I remember the boys finding the signs on public buildings in Kentucky “No Concealed Weapons”,  hysterically funny, and all of us being open mouthed at the sign in Wal-mart, “We are sorry, we may not sell automatic weapons after 11 p.m.” I’m sure any European who reads this will be as staggered by these signs as we were. But Americans just don’t get it – they just don’t appreciate how it stuns non Americans. Apparently, after the latest shooting, the sales of guns in Colorado have greatly increased!  This is when you feel like giving up – they’re aliens, and it’s no good even trying to understand them.

On the health care topic, the newspaper was saying that some of the Colorado wounded  have no health insurance. Apparently American hospitals have to give life saving treatment, but should any of them need further treatment, they won’t get it. Good God, how can you call this a civilised society?  I simply can’t get my head round the fact that the richest nation in the world won’t take basic care of its citizens. It seems that even those who are insured are likely to be refused further tests if their condition is hard to diagnose.

Other issues that one simply can’t broach with most Americans are crime and punishment, the Middle East, and the fact that America’s ban on drugs isn’t working, creates crime, and is wrecking Mexico and much of central America. It’s the complete closed mindedness that’s so frustrating. Well, that and the attitudes that were outdated in Victorian times here.

We’ve just had the Olympic opening ceremony, and I particularly liked the tribute to the N.H.S., the gallop through our cultural history, and idea that it was for everyone. I’m feeling pretty patriotic at present.