> You are missing a very important point which is that the US is a country of immigration and of different states the US is a very very very big country.
And yet not even the biggest country in North America, an entire continent of immigration; the only difference between the people in what is now the USA and what is now Canada was the degree of loyalism to the British.
> America IS the land of opportunity and I would challenge you to find any other country which provides better opportunity and still protect your rights as well.
For that not to be just an empty slogan you'd have to explain what you mean by "opportunity" and "rights", to which races and genders those opportunities and rights have historically applied to in actuality, and how you think every other country suppresses or represses those rights or opportunities.
> So the country is build on tough women and men.
The USA was "built" (leaving aside how) by, among others, Danes, Dutch and Germans. I don't understand how they suddenly became tougher, just by stepping on a boat.
Edit: and there goes the autodownvote bot, within not even enough time to read this post.
>I don't understand how they suddenly became tougher, just by stepping on a boat.
Stepping on that boat was risk taking. I think they'd teach their children those same values.
But I think the bigger difference in US v. European culture is that inside America there was no landed gentry. The Northeast had some "society," but for long streches of American history anyone could go buy land for cheap and farm.
Without an intrenched gentry and an intrenched lower class, American class has always been more mobile. There were certainly rich and poor, but poor enterprising people could get land much cheaper by moving west.
Industrialization changed that, but by that time American culture was already distinct. Plus, America was richer than than Europe during the 20th century. Our middle class had it pretty good.
Canada is more like American culture than British.
Besides there living like 10x the amount of people than in the US and besides Canada actually has a very strict immigration politics compared to the US then sure.
I was responding to the "American Dream" by the OP. You find any other country where immigrants are running many of the countries most successful companies and where you have so much opportunity to establish a company in a great market. I am not talking about how fast you can set up an LLC or a C-Corp I am talking about how big your opportunity to create something in the US is no matter who you are and where you are from compared to other places.
The US is far ahead.
The tough people were the ones who endured what it meant to live in the US in the beginning. There weren't tough when they went on a boat but they soon became just as their children and their children.
> I am talking about how big your opportunity to create something in the US is no matter who you are and where you are from compared to other places.
What does this even mean?
Please give a specific, concrete explanation of how and why it's easier for someone to "create something" (create what?) in the USA than in the EU or Canada.
> Canada actually has a very strict immigration politics compared to the US then sure.
And yet apparently accepts around three times as many new immigrants per year than the USA, as a percentage of population.
> The tough people were the ones who endured what it meant to live in the US in the beginning. There weren't tough when they went on a boat but they soon became just as their children and their children.
So is the USA the land of opportunity or the land of greater hardship and toughness?
People don't typically leave the country they know and love for another land, unless enduring hardship already. OTOH, while they may believe (at least in part due to propaganda[1]) another land will provide greater opportunity, that doesn't mean it does.
[1] The UK government notoriously considered an ad campaign a few years back about how bad life was in the UK, to deter immigration.
It means that if you come to the US from more or less any country you can get started working and building up a good business and end up on the top in fact you are expected to. There is no social welfare system for you. You go to Europe and you point to how many places that happens.
In the US almost half of all Fortune 500 companies are founded by foreigners. Let me know where that happens in Europe.
And yet apparently accepts around three times as many new immigrants per year than the USA, as a percentage of population.
But a fraction of what the US have of illegal immigrants (approx 100K vs. 11mio). Furthermore the IRS and Immigration actually doesn't communicate about illegal immigrants because of the US Privacy Act which means you can actually pay taxes even though you are here illegally.
The US is many times more flexible for anyone who wants to stay here.
Even the fact that Dreamers are even discussed shows how different the US is form Europe.
So is the USA the land of opportunity or the land of greater hardship and toughness?
What part is it you don't understand?
The US is the land of opportunity, the US sentiment isn't like the european where equality is a goal in itself because of the US history and how it was founded.
With regards to your [1] Denmark did that, it helped but what does that have to do with anything?
11mio illegal immigrants in the US plus all the legal immigration and add to that the last 200 years and it's pretty obvious that the US is based on very very different principles than EU.
> I don't understand how they suddenly became tougher, just by stepping on a boat.
I don't understand the OP's point, but "selection bias" is why many immigrant populations out-perform their counterparts back home. The folks who are willing to strike out are necessarily more intrepid.
And yet not even the biggest country in North America, an entire continent of immigration; the only difference between the people in what is now the USA and what is now Canada was the degree of loyalism to the British.
> America IS the land of opportunity and I would challenge you to find any other country which provides better opportunity and still protect your rights as well.
For that not to be just an empty slogan you'd have to explain what you mean by "opportunity" and "rights", to which races and genders those opportunities and rights have historically applied to in actuality, and how you think every other country suppresses or represses those rights or opportunities.
> So the country is build on tough women and men.
The USA was "built" (leaving aside how) by, among others, Danes, Dutch and Germans. I don't understand how they suddenly became tougher, just by stepping on a boat.
Edit: and there goes the autodownvote bot, within not even enough time to read this post.