[untenured]

And if I tell people I would like to live in the US, they look at me as if I were suicidal!

Do these conversations go on long enough for you to learn why?

I once had a student who had moved here from Sweden. He said he liked living in a country where he got to keep a decent fraction of what he earned rather than having it taken form him and given to someone else, and his friends back home just couldn't understand that.

I wonder what it is about the States that most terrifies or appalls the average European of the sort you mention.

[Centurion2000]

I wonder what it is about the States that most terrifies or appalls the average European of the sort you mention

The possibility of abject failures and wild successes above and below mere mediocrity scares many.

[knighthawk]

They think that all of the US is like the worst part of cities like LA (crime and so on). And the other part is like Texas: there they punish criminals and have guns and self defence. Those things are unheard of in Europe.

Gee, I wonder why people in the Netherlands and France voted en masse for parties promising more safety on the streets.

They also think Americans are superficial and dumb too. When I say how it happens that most important inventions and discoveries are made in the US, they worm their way out of it.

They never met a real American, but still they think the image that the media holds about the people in the US is fully accurate.