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Comment by curiousgeorgio | Hacker News Reader

As un-civilized and rotten as the news portrays things to be, for 99% of the rest of us Americans, this isn't really a common problem. That's not to say it isn't a problem for the few that do experience it (and that problem absolutely needs to be fixed), but just want to point out that what you see publicized is not representative of the country as a whole.

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It's more like it's a problem for the 30% or so of Americans who live in or near poverty, and the problem is amplified for that segment of the population that is also non-white because of the systemic racism problem we have.

That's one interpretation. Another is that a certain percentage of Americans live in areas where crime is not just more prevalent, but (unfortunately) it's also the only thing some people living there have ever known. Areas with higher crime rates also tend to have higher police involvement (and no, law enforcement doesn't solve crime, but it is necessary to respond and help victims of crime), and where you have more involvement, you'll have higher raw numbers of anything that follows a normal distribution (e.g., moral judgement of local law enforcement officers). We can do a lot to help skew that distribution toward better-trained, effective law enforcement, but it's still a distribution, and as much as it comes at the cost of real human lives, there will be outliers in every population.

I hope it's not for the sake of people of the USA. But Overall the picture drawn by media/people on different aspects of the society there, does not seem to be bright.

Worst of all, USA tries to render itself as a global heaven and better than every other country but still.

I left a country (Turkey) that's considered 3rd world by the rest of the West for Ireland a few years ago. But I wouldn't even consider exchange Turkey with USA.

That's how USA is seen from outside (at least by my perspective)

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