Ask Lemmy

americans who try to tell you you're "not allowed" to talk about america are stupid.

there are a lot of them. tell them to fuck off and eat shit

No American. Why not? Everyone is discussing everything. Such is life. Discuss whatever you want.

Sure. America has its slimy tendrils in everyone else's business, so it's only fair that you have a say.

America influences the world quite a bit. Feels fair for the world to have an opinion on it.

Swede here, I don't require permission to discuss foreign politics or events, nor do I need to grant permission to the relevant foreign person wanting to discuss Swedish politics.

Am I allowed to talk about Russia and Ukraine? Israel and Palestine? Great Britain and Ireland? Australia and some birds?

If something is happening it’s fair game to talk about. We may not be able to fix / change anything, but we can express our opinions on the subject.

I feel like as long as your country has one of our military bases in it, and the chances are unfortunately pretty high that you do, you've got about as much right to criticize the U.S. as anyone else. The U.S. falling to fascism would have global repercussions, so don't let anyone ever tell you that you don't have skin in the game too.

Canadian here, if you take away complaining about Americans, we'd have nothing else to talk about

I'm French and I'm never mad when I hear outside opinions on the shitshow currently happening in my country. Second Thought made a good video on the subject, I don't think you should be bound to only discussing the politics of where you are a citizen.

https://youtu.be/T_TheRdobu8

Do you think it is ok for people who don't have a stake in USA future to discuss USA events and politics?

To a degree. But we have enough uneducated opinions coming from inside the house that I'm hesitant to invite any more in. I follow UK and EU politics on a superficial level, but I don't inject my opinion into it because I don't have a horse in that race.

It's fine to discuss, not okay to pretend to have inside perspective

If American's didn't want people to talk about American politics perhaps they should stay out of everyone else's politics?

Anyone anywhere should be able to discuss anything about anything within reason.

It's alright for anyone to discuss and have opinions on anything.

I'm a citizen of the United States.

I give you the pass.

Edit: in fact, talk more - specifically to other U.S. citizens about it. Exposure to other countries ways of doing things can only be a good thing, and if they tell you to fuck off - whatever, that's their right.

As an American, almost none of us would care. Except xenophobes, maybe. Even nationalists would love to to have their nation be the focus of everyone else.

I question why anyone would have a monopole or exclusive right to a topic of conversation :)

But I actually disagree due to another fundamental point: USA politics are in fact involving and impacting the rest of the world. The USA leads NATO and has previously threatened to drop it, as well as the WHO, they get involved (sometimes violently) in foreign affairs (afghanistan). They are a huge economic market to which many foreign companies try to sell or get funding. They are the biggest stock exchange (still today I guess).

The influence of the USA exceeds its borders since quite a while now. It is only normal for people to feel involved, despite not being from the USA. Same with Russia, same with China.

Our shit can often affect a lot of the rest of the world, so it makes sense for our business to be relevant to people outside the US.

Always ok dude.

I (US citizen living abroad) still have to file income tax every year. I cannot contribute to the tax-advantaged retirement plans (iDECO and NISA) in Japan because the IRS considers basically anything they have to offer as a PFIC. I can't put money into my old US retirement accounts for other legal reasons (and the yen is shit against the dollar right now). You'd better believe if I have to deal with all that bullshit, I'm going to both talk about events and vote.

Edit: to head it off, I'm an only child and need to be there for my parents in case anything happens without any visa paperwork or restrictive periods of stay so renouncing is not currently an option.

It absolutely should be talked about. All events in all of the world should be talked about as long as it involves factual information, which can sometimes be hard to come by these days . It's only extremists trying to create false narratives who would say otherwise. And mostly only because they don't want you telling the people they control the truth or they're so dependent using the lie to their advantage that even they don't want to know the truth.

As long as they use "Leader of the Free World" for their President without giving me a vote and the fact that American Policy is also very influential in my Country means that I don't have a vote but I sure as hell have an opinion, and a more educated one than many Americans. I follow American Politics and Policy daily.

ngl, I love hearing the rest of the world, it gives perspective into what we're doing well, what we're doing poorly, and what's downright fucked up

On the one hand I believe that as a global power, most countries actually have stakes in US politics.

On the other hand, I hear one more "Cheeseburgers per school shooting instead of metric" joke, and I'm gonna go full Jane Doe with a Market Gardner and air strike over it.

Hell yes! We Americans are raised believing that we’re exceptional. That led to Trump. (It’s being used to propagate lies/misinformation.)

Dig into any discussion you want. Be prepared to learn, but call out lies when to see them. Thanks!

Who's going to stop you?

Anyway, US politics affects the whole world. I hate a lot of the commentary coming from particular regions (Western Europe, Australia, Canada) but it still affects them.

Why wouldn't it be? The only thing would be misrepresenting yourself as American, or suggesting you yourself will be voting or similar. We all live on the same rock

Absolutely. The only time I see an issue with this is when someone only spams "America bad". Yes, the government is bad, but that ignores a lot of the nuance of the situation. Similarly, people who only want to talk about how China, Russia, other colonizing power, etc is bad and refuse to understand that it isn't the people of those places as a whole.

Free speach baby. They dont like it they can go complain to their government about the first amendment.

If the us is going influence everyone else in the world we at least have the godamn right to talk about it.

No country exists in isolation. Why wouldn't it be fine to discuss events in another country even if you don't have a direct stake in it?

Of course. Although I sometimes think the obsession with US politics goes above and beyond what is practical. It’s probably more important to focus on your local politics where you can actually have an influence.