Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "America Is Not Europe" video.

I agree with that, we share a lot more in common than is different but we are also different in so many areas, most modern and many developing countries seem to be adopting the European system when it comes to the social system, government system, laws, taxes and so on, the US out of all the modern countries is the odd one out and in a sense, you could say the Europeans are winning the hearts and minds of the rest of the world. As for EU-US relations, I think they are going to have to become a lot closer in the coming decades and not because of Russia because I don't really see them as a threat, China is the real threat that I don't think the EU or US on their own can contain but together with all the friends, they likely can, but I also think the EU will need to speak more with one voice in many areas, especially on the international stage if they want to stay relevant and for the most part, they already do on economic matters but they don't on political matters and the US, Russia China and others take advantage of that weakness.
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@Keichwoud357 The irony is that Russia does see the EU as a far bigger threat because of the EU expanding into Eastern Europe, Russia seems to have this backwards mentality that they own all those eastern European countries, the truth is, the reason Russia is losing and the EU is winning is because Russia offers threats whereas the EU offers a better quality of life and it's easy to see which appeals to most of those people and that will get worse for Russia as those eastern EU members modernize, other eastern European countries will want the same, basically, Russia sees what's going on and it's getting desperate because it doesn't have the economic power or trust to modernize these countries when they can't even modernize their own country even thought they have a massive advantage of having a lot of oil, gas and other natural resources. As for America's influence, there is some of that with some members but the EU and many of it's countries butt heads with the US a lot of the times, especially on trade.
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@Keichwoud357 I don't really see Russia as a threat, they remind me of that kid on the corner that's crying out for attention, basically, they are still living in the old days and want to be the centre of attention, but as a threat, no, their economy is around the same size as Spain, if Russia was to ever push their luck too far, western EU countries and the US have far more capacity to rearm by turning it's manufacturing base towards arms, in the end, the economy is the real power as it can be used in many different ways.
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@Mineralsss Thats nothing to do with American influence and more to do with racism existing in Europe as well, so basically both of them have the same problem so the BLM movement was bound to jump on that in Europe. Beside, there are a lot of things the EU countries don't take from the US, especially on the social system.
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Is that really true about kids under 14-15 feel unsafe in the US going outside on their own? That would feel so strange whereas when I was a kid in the UK, I used to go out and about on my own when I was around 10 and never really felt unsafe, parents never worried about me unless I got home really late lol, but anyway, the culture is so different that we don't really feel like any danger is going to come to our kids by going out on their own. It also feels like that would be quite a restrictive lifestyle for a kid which are some of the best years of their lives in exploring the world or more accurately, the area they live. To give you an idea, I used to go to school on my own which was about a mile away and that was when I was about 10, when I was a little older, around 12-13, I used to catch the bus to secondary school which was around 3 miles away, it wasn't considered strange or anything and I felt perfectly safe, most other kids at the school did the same thing and all I can put that down to is that the US must feel far less safe compared to Europe for parents to feel like that.
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@honkhonk8009 Yeah I suspect it does depend in what part of the US you live in, still, it does seem like it plays on a lot of parents minds and the media can only show the people so much fear unless the parents start to see incidents happening around where they live.
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