Does half the US have a personality disorder?

I don't know if they believe the Earth itself is only 6,000 years old but I know someone who believes in the Garden of Eden as the start of things.

I don't know why don't you tell me "cousin". Did we force you a contract about murikan behaviour and education standards in the past 200 years ? What was it about all that freedom you guys believe you have ?

You MUST and WILL understand that my liking of America which is honest is not above criticism. If you expecting me to tell you you are divine perfect and can do no wrong go get some poor fellow at Guantanamo after interrogation instead. No hugs for free from me.

You generelize all the time - your knowledge about the different EU countries is not very high and regarding Europe probably even lower.
Free medical care to the sick....does that include dentist? 'That is not free in every EU country.
Every country has a different system and people in that country do complain that their system can be very unfair or even bad.
You are the only one who thinks it is perfect and the same in every EU contry.

Oh boy now you are neat picking me. Yes I know that many including my own country, Portugal, for instance don't provide dentist care. I am speaking at large. More or less they abide by these principles some better some worse, its besides the point. The point is Europe is not free liberal capitalist like the US. Europe believes in state intervention and moderation of the economic system and provides its citizens with a cushion that ensures a minimum level of civilization among people, hence why we have far less hatred and noise in our social relations. In the US they think Religion is the problem...They can't even fathom where the true problem is...Its not a question of Europe being smarter and US being dumber...its just that we have acknowledge there needs be regulation or savage Darwinism will destroy the very foundations of society. America is just now starting to look at it. Now you don't need to be much informed about X or Y parameters distinguish A from B country in Europe to understand the fundamental differences with US....that's just messing up an honest talk on the matter, neat picking and raising strawmen !

(nitpicking is how it should read...frack this mess between oral and written English...Sorry)

Between 1900 and 2000 the US Americans lived without any war within their borders. Not always treating their population well.
Europe had during the same time 23 wars within our borders. Does that speak for Europeans?

Not the Euro zone no. Now you are the one stretching the actual focus of what Europe we talking about. Its tricky to speak of Europe like that. Europe is far from being a finished project but at least it is a project. Hopefully external pressure wont frack it up.

Someone from Europe (Portugal no less) worrying that some external "pressure" from an outside country might mess up their culture...

I love irony.

GB is going to vote for or against Brexit. Scotland is for and against GB but for EU.
Some people in Denmark would like to leave EU if GB leaves. And a lot of Danes are against EU and many against Merkel.
Do you realize that Netherlands and Sweden are the two countries who pay in most to EU. Germany always talk about they pay most - yes amount but not per capita.
It costs every Swede 273 Euro to be member and you in Portugal get 353 Euro per person. Every Hungarian gets 568 Euro because the EU membership.
How long do you think a couple of countries feel like paying for others?
It costs millions every month to move politicians from Brussels to Strassbourg.
Money throw out of the window. Money that oould be used for more needy than politicians spending four days a months in another city.

He probably means Turkey´s wish to be a member in EU.
Or Russia, according to some news Putin wants to break down EU.
Of course it could be Iceland....that is external too.

I am well aware that some poor souls lack long term vision and want to leave the EU...good for Russia, for China, and bad for America who will lose a structured ally...if EU fails it fails because most people are greedy and short sighted and can't help controlling their instinctive more immediate concerns and fears. The failure of the European project will be to my humble view the failure of the species at large. From there we will recede to Natural selection brute force Darwinism and economical chaos, probably even war. Russia and China ought to make a party, but in the end they to will be dragged down by recession and stupidity worldwide. As for debt good luck anyone paying it. If people are going to piss on each other's face they might as well start by pissing on the debt first. Smart...

America has its structured ally - Nato
EU has only existed since 1993 and the size it has now from 15 to 25 members since may 2004. After that another 3 was added. Out of 28 states 19 have the Euro.
With exeption of the Roman Empire most unions fell apart after an average of 30 years

**** yer dumb...allies are made of actions not old treaties...Nato is a joke and UN a bigger joke. Europe NEEDS to stick together.
Patience is needed. They have done half a miracle in 30 years with the Southern neolithic countries...if they have vision and can hang another thirty southern cultures will catch up to EU standards. We have already come a long way.

By the way I hope the imbecil Brits vote out. Go get protection under US wing. I am fed up with a poorly educated working class in Britain. The average Portuguese teen has 10x better general knoweledge then the common street brit hoolligan. I lived in London for a couple of years so I can testify that for what is worth.

If anything the trend and pattern I see when comparing my country with some other countries is that we have a lousy leadership and administration eternally in power feeding itself up from the State to avoid bankruptcy by being unable to compete with foreign corporations but with good education in middle and low staff, while the opposite is true for some of the Northern Countries specially Britain...terrible education for the masses, but top grade excellent leadership. We need another generation to defeat bad leadership in the south.

We must move in different circles.
The last 20 years I have been visiting GB regularly and have been with relatives and Brits and I never met any common street holigans.
The ones I know are/were well educated, well behaving, friendly and nice to be with.

Yes and we pumpe in so much money in southern Europe that we up north might have to lower our standards. Then we are on the same level everywhere in Europe.

Look take it as you want...not here to lecture no one. Time will tell if letting Europe go down the drain was clever...I don't have any doubts, but to each its own.

So the northern European countries are not well educated.
Here are the resutlt in reading according to PISA
I am only showing the European countries
United Kingdom is better than Portugal
6. Finland
7. Ireland
8. Taiwan
10. Poland
11. Estonia
12. Liechtenstein
15. Netherlands
16. Belgium
17. Switzerland
21. France
22. Norway
23. United Kingdom
25. Denmark
26. Czech Republic
27. Italy
28. Austria
29. Latvia
30. Hungary
31. Spain
32. Luxembourg
33. Portugal
35. Croatia
36. Sweden
37. Iceland
38. Slovenia
39. Lithuania
40. Greece

Maths top 40 and again United Kingdom was better than Portugal
8. Liechtenstein
9. Switzerland
10. Netherlands
11. Estonia
12. Finland
14. Poland
15. Belgium
16. Germany
18. Austria
20. Ireland
21. Slovenia
22. Denmark
24. Czech Republic
25. France
26. United Kingdom
27. Iceland
28 Latvia
29. Luxembourg
30. Norway
31. Portugal
32. Italy
33. Spain
34. Russian Federation
35. Slovak Republic
36. United States
37. Lithuania
38. Sweden
39. Hungary
40. Croatia

I literally meant general knowledge and all I have for evidence is anecdotal first hand experience with working class in London, that knows nothing else aside Kylie Minogue boobs and celebrity tabloid reading. Yes Portugal has improve a great deal in education but it still has a long way ahead...specially in maths.

I do wonder a little how much all these rankings really mean in the real world. Seems to me most First World and former Soviet satellites which have broken away are bunched at the top-I wonder how much real difference there is between country #5 and country #50.

The difference is probably to a certain extent the teaching.
I think too the inviroment the children live in. In a family where the other members can read and write and can help of course helps the child.
Where do they do their homework? At school? At home in a quiet place with help of books or grown ups? Or in a hut with lots of noice no books and required to help a lot and where the homework comes as the last on the list.