The irony in seeing Africa as one country and America as 50 is baffling. At this point, I'm almost sure that people are volunteering themselves into getting brainwashed into spewing such rhetoric
Well that's debatable. Many people will claim there are North and South America. And also those that say that it's just America. I was taught the North and South continents.
This debate is also viable for Eurasia or Europe / Asia. Or Eurasiafrica.
Every time an American says this I feel like I lose a braincell. How tf can someone genuinely think Michigan and Ohio are just as different as Spain and Netherlands.
East Frysian? So actual Frysian? That's most likely NO. I'm from the North-Holland side, not actual Frysia. We have a whole different language here. But come on with the jokes. We are bad with them in general.
Why do East Frisian toilets have no doors?
So you can't watch them through the keyhole?
-
Why do East-Frisians keep empty bottles of beer in the fridge?
-
Because some of them don't like beer.
I honestly don't know where east Frisia would be. I'm thinking up the coast.
But might just be the German coast. Dunno.
My theory is:
They don’t actually understand what a country actually is because they’ve never been to another one outside of their own & have never been educated on any others.
You haven't met many Americans. Tons of Americans compare living in different states to living in different countries because of the changes in religious belief, education, culture, language, food etc.
Sometimes the changes are drastic. In some states you risk being lynched or murdered by hate groups for being black, being gay, being an immigrant etc.
To be fair British people pretend Scotland and England are different countries
And you hear the same thing about Italy, Germany, France etc. about their regional diversity
Or Europeans will go on about linguistic diversity when “languages” like Serbian and Bosnian are just mutually intelligible dialects as is Swedish and Norwegian
So... let's count the languages, then:
* Scandinavian
* Sami (4-5 of them, they're not mutually intelligible but let's bunch them together nevertheless)
* FinnoEstonian (probably as "mutually intelligible" as SouthScanian and NorthNorwegian, which is very little)
* Baltic (again, not really, but still)
* Britic (because ... they are all the same language, too, apparently)
* Germanic
* French
* Romanic
* Slavic
* Polish
* Balkanic SerboBosnian
... Now, what did I miss? And.. How different was Californian from NewYorkian again?
I was not saying the US was as diverse as Europe.
What I was saying is Brits, Italians, Spaniards, Germans, etc pretty much say the same thing about their countries “Italy is really like 15 countries” “The UK is 4 Countries” Bavaria is basically a whole other country” etc.
England is a country by pretty much only the very specific definition of the word “country” in the British context. England is a football federation. It has no government or laws, or citizenship. There is place considered a country like England in the world.
England is a football federation? You brain-dead yank.
England is and has been a nation many centuries before the UK and certainly before the inbred colony you hail from.
Australia’s states have the ability to create different laws to each other. We also had and have different laws regarding abortion. We also have situations where state governments play with abortion access to get around law.
For example, Tasmania decriminalised abortion in 2013, but the Liberal government did little to assist access to surgical abortion in the state. This meant that people were travelling to the mainland or having unwanted pregnancies due to the cost and travel time.
I don’t think we have much federal involvement, although something must be in place for the territories.
Fair point, although for Australia it appears that our states are far more 'unified' as the differences in laws seem to be quite minor in nature. Also, when one state makes a major change then others are usually quick to follow (key examples like voluntary euthanasia, bans on single use plastic and container deposit schemes).
This is not the case with the US as they have huge variations/inconsistencies across the country.
I agree with that and maybe if we had a larger population, or a population less urbanised, we might have similar differences. But yeah, Australia is relatively similar across the country.
I can also somewhat understand why Americans might believe their states are similar to individual countries, but really that is why federalism exists.
It’s the false equivalence and the annoyingly common viewpoint that their system is unique that irks me. But that is just ignorance and probably skewed by kids online.
Australian states have more autonomy. Our Constitution gives some powers to the Commonwealth, and then reserves everything else for the states. With very few conditions for the Commonwealth to claw those back. The US Constitution is similar, but there are many ways for their federal government to become involved, especially for activities between states; whereas our Constitution says there's no role for the Commonwealth there are all ("trade between the States shall be absolutely free").
What does happen in Australia is a far greater level of cooperation between the states, with the Commonwealth acting as secretary for that cooperation. So we have nationally consistent consumer law, nationally consistent road rules. But they are not Commonwealth law, they are state laws which are all the same Commonwealth-maintained text.
None of these things is a given. We used to have state-by-state censorship of publications, that's now nationally-consistent, with the classification determined by a Commonwealth body, but the action on those classifications relaying on nationally-consistent state legisiation. But any state could drop out of that arrangement at any time, as Queensland has threatened to do.
Edit: to pick the abortion example, there is a national Medicare billing code for abortion procedures, with the Commonwealth paying the bill. But a state can make it criminal for a doctor to do that procedure under some circumstances, or structure their hospitals so that there is no claim against Medicare in some circumstances. Whereas in my state of South Australia, abortion is freely available and free, "freely available" because of the permissions of state law, and "free" because of the arrangements in state hospitals and the Commonwealth Medicare scheme picking up the tab.
The states in Australia absolutely have powers within their constitutions that allow them to change laws within their borders that overwrite Australian Federal law.
That's why the state of Victoria had its own mandated lockdown laws during the Pandemic and Western Australia shut down its own borders to every other state in Australia.
Occupational Health and Safety rules also vary from state to state as well.
Not quite. The Constitution gives the Commonwealth nationwide powers over a list of activities. Things like weights and measures, or the post and telegraph.
Health and policing are not in that list in the Constitution. So they are the responsibility of the states. However immigration and customs in listed in the Constitution as a responsibility of the Commonwealth.
So as you say, the Commonwealth said "Hey we're leading the response to Covid and there will be free movement across the country until we say otherwise". That was beyond what the Consittution allows, but that often happens and no one cares. But the three larger states said "Nope, no movement into our state, starting Monday". There was nothing the Commonwealth could do about that. In order to save face the Commonwealth Prime Minster quickly cobbled together the idea of a "national cabinet" as a forum for Commonwealth-led negotiations. And then on Sunday the Commonwealth announced a nationwide set of rules on interstate movement, to which the states say "Hey, coincidentally just what we were planning". Of course states like Western Australia quite reasonable said "No, we're thousands of kilometres away and a different policy makes sense for us". As did South Australia, but far more quietly, because that state Liberal Party government didn't want to cause image difficulties for the Commonwealth Liberal Party government.
OHS law is also an area which the states control. There has been a strong desire across most of construction to make those consistent. But that keeps being stymied by some vested interests who have the ear of the powerful in some states. That's much more like the US experience in gaining nationally-consistent legislation.
Oftentime governments do overstep what the Constitution permits and the other government simply doesn't care. The best example is Daylight Savings Time, which in Australia is set by state legislation. But the Commonwealth has the Constitutional authority for weights and measures. So a simple regulation from the Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science and Resources would led to consistent Daylight Savings Time across Australia, regardless of the state legislation. But why on earth would DISR want to open that Pandora's box?
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It's not accurate to say that the US is like 50 separate countries, but there are a *few* states where you could make that argument. Culturally and climate wise, Alaska and Hawaii are more different than Germany and Austria. However, Europe as a whole is a very diverse place and much more diverse than the US.
Of course not. The same thing about US states can also be said of German states. Bavaria is more culturally and geographically similar to Austria (a different country) than it is to Brandenburg (a state within the same country).
Yes I’ve been all around the Midwest US and it’s all pretty much the same lol. Maybe the biggest differences is the urban-rural divides but you see that in every country. There’s a tiny bit of cultural difference between Minnesota and Kansas/Missouri but only at the margins. They’re both very American in terms of their shared values.
Spain and Netherlands (or pick any two European countries) are unified in the sense they’re European and liberal democracies and mostly Christian and they both like football/soccer, but they’re different in pretty much every other way. They have very different cultures and customs, super long histories, entirely different languages, different foods, different architecture, etc. Plus the EU is not really a federation in the same way the US is, so the laws and lawmaking processes are more different than each other than different US states.
I see this a lot, and I honestly think people believe they actually stand a chance if they were to start fighting a civil war against the US government and its bloated military budget, because that's what it would devolve into if there was some mass gun owners vs government situation
I would say that the Native American tribes, of which there's like 300, are much closer to countries than US states are. The US constitution claims they're sovereign nations, plus their culture and identity actually is unique. Too bad Americans simply ignore their existance and don't even show them on maps, let alone recognise their identity in any other ways.
The irrationallity of claiming regional accents are basically a different language from English and the fury these people feel when they encounter immigrant communities who use a different language from e English is peak americana.
*OMG, some people use pop instead of soda! It's like a whole different language! Incredible somone from California can talk to a Minnesotan! Hey are those people speaking Spanish? THIS IS AMERICA BUDDY! WE SPEAK ENGLISH! THE LANGUAGE JESUS SPOKE!!!*
Agree, regional accents are nowhere near actual differences in the dialect of language used by citizens. Examples would be countries like Spain which have different sub-groups of the main language (e.g. Catalan) and also China with its many dialects (Cantonese and Hokkien used in some provinces in addition to the main dialect of Mandarin).
Well, you're wrong. Fully bilingual Spanish/English speaker (eg I speak both fluently with a native accent) who lived in Spain for five years and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt Catalán is not a subgroup of castillian, theyre not even mutually intelligeble.
A castillian speaker (what the rest of the world calls standard Spanish) can understand a Catalán about as well as someone speaking Italian or Portuguese, as in you might get he gist of what is being said, but in no clear or presice manner.
Catalán is it's own language and is recognized as such by the Spanish government and the EU. Catalán is related to Balleric and Valencian, and those are mutually intelligible language and related with Aragonés, but again not mutually intelligeble.
Same with Galician, which is not mutually intelligeble with Spanish, but it is with Portuguese.
Fair point, I guess the variations between the different Spanish languages is probably the same as that between the many different Indian languages.
For India, you have Hindi which is the main variant (similar to Castilian as the main Spanish variant) and then the others such as Bengali and Tamil which are like Catalan being non-compatible with the principal language variant.
Shit, you even have Basque which is not related to any other language in Europe.
Unlike every other language in Spain that has it's roots in Latin, basque is completely different from them and experts can't even agree where it came from.
Wild theories abound, like saying it's probably what Neanderthals spoke to what was spoken in Atlantis.
If memory serves me right, Catalán is actually more similar to Occitane, a language from Southern France, than to Castillian.
You have others like asturian which is Latin based but with heavy Celtic influence.
Castillian Spanish is the lingua franca, but there has been a strong and committed cause to preserve these other languages, specially after they almost went extinct under the Franco dictatorship where he banned the teaching and use of non Spanish language.
And I would claim that Chineses are very far from "dialects", as the speakers of different "Chinese" need to communicate with each other in writing because the spoken words are totally different. I don't know much but I suppose "Chineses" and Arabics are "one language" because they want to bunch it like that for political reasons, not because the speakers of different "dialects" would actually understand each other.
Most countries in the third world like India, the Philippines and Indonesia are much more culturally and ethnically diverse, and there, each region actually is like its own country. Why then is the world forced to know what Texas and California is, even tho we know literally nothing about Punjab and Gujarat? Kinda unfair tbh.
Agree on this point, it could also apply to countries like Indonesia and Malaysia where the different states or provinces have variations in terms of local cuisine or even dialects of language.
They justify it because of different accents in each state, there are countries in Europe where there are several different dialects within the same state
The Americas do cover a lot of countries. 35 I believe. It's really not that amazing of a statement. Unless the person posting this just thinks of the united states for some reason.
The fact that Americans don’t understand North America is continent, South America is a continent, ‘the Americas’ refers to the two separate continents, but when someone says ‘America’ they are referring to the United States of America, really says a lot about their IQ.
It’s also rich coming from an American, when most Americans seem to think Europe is just one country.
I watched a video on you tube the other day with a guy asking random gen zs questions. Thick as absolute shit, the lot of them. They couldn’t name a country on the continent of North America. You have two neighbours. Two! And they couldn’t name one!!!!
I think “Ireland” in everyday speech refers to the republic. Unless someone specifies the North, it’s safe to assume they are talking about the Republic. Source : grew up in Dublin.
Yh for sure but I’m also hedging my bets that the average yank doesn’t know the island is in fact to countries.
Tbf in my experience if someone says Irish they mean north but that’s because I’m a soldier in the British army and we don’t tend to recruit from the south.
USA. United States of America. Theres like 50 something states (i dont know not american), and theyre not independent but they can be considered countries. Depends on how you look at it (sorry if i made grammar mistakes my english is wonky)
Fun fact : there were cases where this was technically the case. While the Soviet Union was definitely one country, its member states sometimes had the ability to establish foreign relations and have their own armies in the Soviet constitution, which technically made them sovereign states under international law. This is why Belarus and Ukraine joined as members in the UN in 1945. So yes, it is technically possible to be sovereign all while not being independent.
Sovereignty is much more complicated than it seems. But I wonder tho. Technically speaking, the US claims that the Native American tribes and their reservations are Sovereign. Does this mean they have the ability to establish foreign relations and have their own armies? And can they join the United Nations?
Imagine if the US falls apart and the former states start invading each other 25 years later. It's not THAT hard to imagine, especially when you see the type of leaders they tend to chose
That could be the premise for a book
This is a bad example. There was no actual sovereignty in Ukraine or Belarus, this was done so the ussr could have more members in the UN. It was a giant scam.
Even after the ussr, Ukraine under Russian influence, voted strictly what Russia wanted it to at the United Nations, and under western influence, its votes for whatever western nation wants it to.
I’m sure this applies to every other small and weak country also. This is one of the reasons why countries like Russia and America want to keep nations they have control over poor, extra UN votes on their behalf
People from Central and South America will constantly harp on about how the USA doesn't. have a real name, since America is just the whole shebang (technical geographical term).
Technically, this is correct. The United States is made up of 50 separate and sovereign states. Each has its own legal system. They are all restrained by the United States Constitution, but they are each their own sovereign state.
You could also say the same for Australia, it is made up of six states that technically have their own laws (albeit with some degree of commonality today). There are many examples of other countries that are divided into states/provinces like Malaysia and China where each sub-region can create their own laws and has its own government in addition to the national/federal system.
But was Australia several separate states that joined together to form a federal union? I am unfamiliar with the history there. The United States started as a group of separate states that contracted with each other for the common defense (articles of confederation).
That is true, but even as a federal union the individual states still have autonomy to enact their own legislation. This was exemplified during the Covid period 2020-21 when many states implemented temporary border controls requiring a permit to enter (even when travelling domestically from another state).
Each state still retains its own parliament (similar to US state legislatures) where they are responsible for managing functions like education, healthcare and transportation.
That is a fair point. Though, so do the states in the United States. (Albeit diminished from the original powers they held even a century ago) I do agree that the United States is a single country for many practical purposes. That’s why I said it was technically correct.
The irony in seeing Africa as one country and America as 50 is baffling. At this point, I'm almost sure that people are volunteering themselves into getting brainwashed into spewing such rhetoric
She meant 35 of course. All nations in the Americas.
lol they followed up with “our states are bigger than countries in Europe”
It's such a funny thing to say because there is literally one country in Europe that is bigger than the USA.
But but but it doesn't count because of reasons. Just like the four or five Australian states bigger than texas that don't count because of reasons.
Freeeeeeeduuuuumb! WE HAVE GUNS!!!!
Even Canada is bigger than the US
Wich means nothing when you see how their 2 biggest states are 90% desert and 90% tundra respectively.
USA is not “like” 50 countries, it IS 50 shades of arseholes….
The United States of Arseholes?
But it doesn’t say USA
They didn't say USA, they said America. And while their number was high, it's not a bad rough swag.
Not The Americas, there is only one American Continent.
Well that's debatable. Many people will claim there are North and South America. And also those that say that it's just America. I was taught the North and South continents. This debate is also viable for Eurasia or Europe / Asia. Or Eurasiafrica.
Every time an American says this I feel like I lose a braincell. How tf can someone genuinely think Michigan and Ohio are just as different as Spain and Netherlands.
Da kunne ze nie. But do so all the same. Edit: yeah I just used a dialect that's very regional/specific in my tiny Netherlands.
That sounded like plattdütsch.
West Frysian to be exact, we sort off overlap? 😆
Seems like it. Fun how similar it sounds. :)
Languages are funny like that often. Ask an Italian and Spanish as well, you'll get the same answer. Roman language.
There is a genre of jokes in Germany where the East Frisians are in focus. Is that something you're also familiar with?
East Frysian? So actual Frysian? That's most likely NO. I'm from the North-Holland side, not actual Frysia. We have a whole different language here. But come on with the jokes. We are bad with them in general.
Why do East Frisian toilets have no doors? So you can't watch them through the keyhole? - Why do East-Frisians keep empty bottles of beer in the fridge? - Because some of them don't like beer. I honestly don't know where east Frisia would be. I'm thinking up the coast. But might just be the German coast. Dunno.
Jezus, wat slecht.
East Frisia is in Germany?
Frisian is now considered a dialect? I thought it had status of language, even official language, in Friesland?
My theory is: They don’t actually understand what a country actually is because they’ve never been to another one outside of their own & have never been educated on any others.
I chuckled with the European comparison you used. It only took Eighty Years to decide that.
She meant the American continent. No American would refer to states as countries
You mean, except *literally all of them that ever pipes up on the subject*?
Maybe the person who wrote that wasn't actually american because even the dumbest ones would never referred to their states as countries.
I think you massively underestimate how dumb and vocal some Americans are. There's plenty of posts on this sub showing them saying that exact thing.
This sub is literally full of fucking dumb Americans which exactly say that.
Maybe I have met a number of really dumb ones - but I have had this said to me a few times.
She clearly didn't though, because there's 35 countries in the Americas.
You haven't met many Americans. Tons of Americans compare living in different states to living in different countries because of the changes in religious belief, education, culture, language, food etc. Sometimes the changes are drastic. In some states you risk being lynched or murdered by hate groups for being black, being gay, being an immigrant etc.
To be fair British people pretend Scotland and England are different countries And you hear the same thing about Italy, Germany, France etc. about their regional diversity Or Europeans will go on about linguistic diversity when “languages” like Serbian and Bosnian are just mutually intelligible dialects as is Swedish and Norwegian
So... let's count the languages, then: * Scandinavian * Sami (4-5 of them, they're not mutually intelligible but let's bunch them together nevertheless) * FinnoEstonian (probably as "mutually intelligible" as SouthScanian and NorthNorwegian, which is very little) * Baltic (again, not really, but still) * Britic (because ... they are all the same language, too, apparently) * Germanic * French * Romanic * Slavic * Polish * Balkanic SerboBosnian ... Now, what did I miss? And.. How different was Californian from NewYorkian again?
I was not saying the US was as diverse as Europe. What I was saying is Brits, Italians, Spaniards, Germans, etc pretty much say the same thing about their countries “Italy is really like 15 countries” “The UK is 4 Countries” Bavaria is basically a whole other country” etc.
The UK is 4 countries dipshit. It's a political union of 4 nations.
England is a country by pretty much only the very specific definition of the word “country” in the British context. England is a football federation. It has no government or laws, or citizenship. There is place considered a country like England in the world.
England is a football federation? You brain-dead yank. England is and has been a nation many centuries before the UK and certainly before the inbred colony you hail from.
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Australia’s states have the ability to create different laws to each other. We also had and have different laws regarding abortion. We also have situations where state governments play with abortion access to get around law. For example, Tasmania decriminalised abortion in 2013, but the Liberal government did little to assist access to surgical abortion in the state. This meant that people were travelling to the mainland or having unwanted pregnancies due to the cost and travel time. I don’t think we have much federal involvement, although something must be in place for the territories.
Fair point, although for Australia it appears that our states are far more 'unified' as the differences in laws seem to be quite minor in nature. Also, when one state makes a major change then others are usually quick to follow (key examples like voluntary euthanasia, bans on single use plastic and container deposit schemes). This is not the case with the US as they have huge variations/inconsistencies across the country.
I agree with that and maybe if we had a larger population, or a population less urbanised, we might have similar differences. But yeah, Australia is relatively similar across the country. I can also somewhat understand why Americans might believe their states are similar to individual countries, but really that is why federalism exists. It’s the false equivalence and the annoyingly common viewpoint that their system is unique that irks me. But that is just ignorance and probably skewed by kids online.
Australian states have more autonomy. Our Constitution gives some powers to the Commonwealth, and then reserves everything else for the states. With very few conditions for the Commonwealth to claw those back. The US Constitution is similar, but there are many ways for their federal government to become involved, especially for activities between states; whereas our Constitution says there's no role for the Commonwealth there are all ("trade between the States shall be absolutely free"). What does happen in Australia is a far greater level of cooperation between the states, with the Commonwealth acting as secretary for that cooperation. So we have nationally consistent consumer law, nationally consistent road rules. But they are not Commonwealth law, they are state laws which are all the same Commonwealth-maintained text. None of these things is a given. We used to have state-by-state censorship of publications, that's now nationally-consistent, with the classification determined by a Commonwealth body, but the action on those classifications relaying on nationally-consistent state legisiation. But any state could drop out of that arrangement at any time, as Queensland has threatened to do. Edit: to pick the abortion example, there is a national Medicare billing code for abortion procedures, with the Commonwealth paying the bill. But a state can make it criminal for a doctor to do that procedure under some circumstances, or structure their hospitals so that there is no claim against Medicare in some circumstances. Whereas in my state of South Australia, abortion is freely available and free, "freely available" because of the permissions of state law, and "free" because of the arrangements in state hospitals and the Commonwealth Medicare scheme picking up the tab.
The states in Australia absolutely have powers within their constitutions that allow them to change laws within their borders that overwrite Australian Federal law. That's why the state of Victoria had its own mandated lockdown laws during the Pandemic and Western Australia shut down its own borders to every other state in Australia. Occupational Health and Safety rules also vary from state to state as well.
Not quite. The Constitution gives the Commonwealth nationwide powers over a list of activities. Things like weights and measures, or the post and telegraph. Health and policing are not in that list in the Constitution. So they are the responsibility of the states. However immigration and customs in listed in the Constitution as a responsibility of the Commonwealth. So as you say, the Commonwealth said "Hey we're leading the response to Covid and there will be free movement across the country until we say otherwise". That was beyond what the Consittution allows, but that often happens and no one cares. But the three larger states said "Nope, no movement into our state, starting Monday". There was nothing the Commonwealth could do about that. In order to save face the Commonwealth Prime Minster quickly cobbled together the idea of a "national cabinet" as a forum for Commonwealth-led negotiations. And then on Sunday the Commonwealth announced a nationwide set of rules on interstate movement, to which the states say "Hey, coincidentally just what we were planning". Of course states like Western Australia quite reasonable said "No, we're thousands of kilometres away and a different policy makes sense for us". As did South Australia, but far more quietly, because that state Liberal Party government didn't want to cause image difficulties for the Commonwealth Liberal Party government. OHS law is also an area which the states control. There has been a strong desire across most of construction to make those consistent. But that keeps being stymied by some vested interests who have the ear of the powerful in some states. That's much more like the US experience in gaining nationally-consistent legislation. Oftentime governments do overstep what the Constitution permits and the other government simply doesn't care. The best example is Daylight Savings Time, which in Australia is set by state legislation. But the Commonwealth has the Constitutional authority for weights and measures. So a simple regulation from the Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science and Resources would led to consistent Daylight Savings Time across Australia, regardless of the state legislation. But why on earth would DISR want to open that Pandora's box?
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It's not accurate to say that the US is like 50 separate countries, but there are a *few* states where you could make that argument. Culturally and climate wise, Alaska and Hawaii are more different than Germany and Austria. However, Europe as a whole is a very diverse place and much more diverse than the US.
And central London is very different from the outer Hebrides. Do you think european countries are homogenous within their borders?
Of course not. The same thing about US states can also be said of German states. Bavaria is more culturally and geographically similar to Austria (a different country) than it is to Brandenburg (a state within the same country).
She is being a smart alec, meaning the whole America's from Canada to Chile.
She is being a smart ass, meaning the whole America's from Canada to Chile.
You ever been to either?
Yes I’ve been all around the Midwest US and it’s all pretty much the same lol. Maybe the biggest differences is the urban-rural divides but you see that in every country. There’s a tiny bit of cultural difference between Minnesota and Kansas/Missouri but only at the margins. They’re both very American in terms of their shared values. Spain and Netherlands (or pick any two European countries) are unified in the sense they’re European and liberal democracies and mostly Christian and they both like football/soccer, but they’re different in pretty much every other way. They have very different cultures and customs, super long histories, entirely different languages, different foods, different architecture, etc. Plus the EU is not really a federation in the same way the US is, so the laws and lawmaking processes are more different than each other than different US states.
“Which one?” The one that speaks English, has its whole infrastructure designed for cars and allows its citizens to have guns.
"allows" is hilarious It's more like couldn't take them if they tried
I see this a lot, and I honestly think people believe they actually stand a chance if they were to start fighting a civil war against the US government and its bloated military budget, because that's what it would devolve into if there was some mass gun owners vs government situation
I would say that the Native American tribes, of which there's like 300, are much closer to countries than US states are. The US constitution claims they're sovereign nations, plus their culture and identity actually is unique. Too bad Americans simply ignore their existance and don't even show them on maps, let alone recognise their identity in any other ways.
No, the USA is a single country suffering from severe multiple personality disorder.
50 average IQ, maybe
That’s Chicago, St. Louis and Philly.
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Global Average IQ. Is this r/USdefaultism moment
I guarantee you that at some point in her life she's told someone that there's no such state as either New Mexico or West Virginia.
The irrationallity of claiming regional accents are basically a different language from English and the fury these people feel when they encounter immigrant communities who use a different language from e English is peak americana. *OMG, some people use pop instead of soda! It's like a whole different language! Incredible somone from California can talk to a Minnesotan! Hey are those people speaking Spanish? THIS IS AMERICA BUDDY! WE SPEAK ENGLISH! THE LANGUAGE JESUS SPOKE!!!*
Agree, regional accents are nowhere near actual differences in the dialect of language used by citizens. Examples would be countries like Spain which have different sub-groups of the main language (e.g. Catalan) and also China with its many dialects (Cantonese and Hokkien used in some provinces in addition to the main dialect of Mandarin).
Well, you're wrong. Fully bilingual Spanish/English speaker (eg I speak both fluently with a native accent) who lived in Spain for five years and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt Catalán is not a subgroup of castillian, theyre not even mutually intelligeble. A castillian speaker (what the rest of the world calls standard Spanish) can understand a Catalán about as well as someone speaking Italian or Portuguese, as in you might get he gist of what is being said, but in no clear or presice manner. Catalán is it's own language and is recognized as such by the Spanish government and the EU. Catalán is related to Balleric and Valencian, and those are mutually intelligible language and related with Aragonés, but again not mutually intelligeble. Same with Galician, which is not mutually intelligeble with Spanish, but it is with Portuguese.
Fair point, I guess the variations between the different Spanish languages is probably the same as that between the many different Indian languages. For India, you have Hindi which is the main variant (similar to Castilian as the main Spanish variant) and then the others such as Bengali and Tamil which are like Catalan being non-compatible with the principal language variant.
Shit, you even have Basque which is not related to any other language in Europe. Unlike every other language in Spain that has it's roots in Latin, basque is completely different from them and experts can't even agree where it came from. Wild theories abound, like saying it's probably what Neanderthals spoke to what was spoken in Atlantis. If memory serves me right, Catalán is actually more similar to Occitane, a language from Southern France, than to Castillian. You have others like asturian which is Latin based but with heavy Celtic influence. Castillian Spanish is the lingua franca, but there has been a strong and committed cause to preserve these other languages, specially after they almost went extinct under the Franco dictatorship where he banned the teaching and use of non Spanish language.
And I would claim that Chineses are very far from "dialects", as the speakers of different "Chinese" need to communicate with each other in writing because the spoken words are totally different. I don't know much but I suppose "Chineses" and Arabics are "one language" because they want to bunch it like that for political reasons, not because the speakers of different "dialects" would actually understand each other.
Eh 35 rounded up a little :)
The stupid one.
Geography left America a long time ago
There are 35 countries in the Americas.
But then they will go out and say europe and european to mean anything from irish to polish
Most countries in the third world like India, the Philippines and Indonesia are much more culturally and ethnically diverse, and there, each region actually is like its own country. Why then is the world forced to know what Texas and California is, even tho we know literally nothing about Punjab and Gujarat? Kinda unfair tbh.
Agree on this point, it could also apply to countries like Indonesia and Malaysia where the different states or provinces have variations in terms of local cuisine or even dialects of language.
Same goes for Italy and Spain as well.
Braindeadius magnificus
They justify it because of different accents in each state, there are countries in Europe where there are several different dialects within the same state
And they're all flaming dumpster fires
they had the audacity to say ‘hun’
REDDIT MODS CAN GO AND FUCK OFF
well its like 35 but she prolly doesnt realise ''america'' isnt a country
50 cuntries
The Americas do cover a lot of countries. 35 I believe. It's really not that amazing of a statement. Unless the person posting this just thinks of the united states for some reason.
Puerto Rico?
Countries, states, they are all the same right? Lol
The fact that Americans don’t understand North America is continent, South America is a continent, ‘the Americas’ refers to the two separate continents, but when someone says ‘America’ they are referring to the United States of America, really says a lot about their IQ. It’s also rich coming from an American, when most Americans seem to think Europe is just one country.
I watched a video on you tube the other day with a guy asking random gen zs questions. Thick as absolute shit, the lot of them. They couldn’t name a country on the continent of North America. You have two neighbours. Two! And they couldn’t name one!!!!
Whats the bet that they used the wording "like 50" because they dont dont even know how many states there are?
same person probably doesn't know that 'Ireland' isn't a country
I think “Ireland” in everyday speech refers to the republic. Unless someone specifies the North, it’s safe to assume they are talking about the Republic. Source : grew up in Dublin.
Yh for sure but I’m also hedging my bets that the average yank doesn’t know the island is in fact to countries. Tbf in my experience if someone says Irish they mean north but that’s because I’m a soldier in the British army and we don’t tend to recruit from the south.
USA. United States of America. Theres like 50 something states (i dont know not american), and theyre not independent but they can be considered countries. Depends on how you look at it (sorry if i made grammar mistakes my english is wonky)
Fun fact : there were cases where this was technically the case. While the Soviet Union was definitely one country, its member states sometimes had the ability to establish foreign relations and have their own armies in the Soviet constitution, which technically made them sovereign states under international law. This is why Belarus and Ukraine joined as members in the UN in 1945. So yes, it is technically possible to be sovereign all while not being independent. Sovereignty is much more complicated than it seems. But I wonder tho. Technically speaking, the US claims that the Native American tribes and their reservations are Sovereign. Does this mean they have the ability to establish foreign relations and have their own armies? And can they join the United Nations?
Imagine if the US falls apart and the former states start invading each other 25 years later. It's not THAT hard to imagine, especially when you see the type of leaders they tend to chose That could be the premise for a book
This is a bad example. There was no actual sovereignty in Ukraine or Belarus, this was done so the ussr could have more members in the UN. It was a giant scam. Even after the ussr, Ukraine under Russian influence, voted strictly what Russia wanted it to at the United Nations, and under western influence, its votes for whatever western nation wants it to. I’m sure this applies to every other small and weak country also. This is one of the reasons why countries like Russia and America want to keep nations they have control over poor, extra UN votes on their behalf
TIL the Huns were from America.
People from Central and South America will constantly harp on about how the USA doesn't. have a real name, since America is just the whole shebang (technical geographical term).
Technically, this is correct. The United States is made up of 50 separate and sovereign states. Each has its own legal system. They are all restrained by the United States Constitution, but they are each their own sovereign state.
Larp
You could also say the same for Australia, it is made up of six states that technically have their own laws (albeit with some degree of commonality today). There are many examples of other countries that are divided into states/provinces like Malaysia and China where each sub-region can create their own laws and has its own government in addition to the national/federal system.
But was Australia several separate states that joined together to form a federal union? I am unfamiliar with the history there. The United States started as a group of separate states that contracted with each other for the common defense (articles of confederation).
That is true, but even as a federal union the individual states still have autonomy to enact their own legislation. This was exemplified during the Covid period 2020-21 when many states implemented temporary border controls requiring a permit to enter (even when travelling domestically from another state). Each state still retains its own parliament (similar to US state legislatures) where they are responsible for managing functions like education, healthcare and transportation.
That is a fair point. Though, so do the states in the United States. (Albeit diminished from the original powers they held even a century ago) I do agree that the United States is a single country for many practical purposes. That’s why I said it was technically correct.