"I'd rather live in America"

"I'd rather live in America" definitly not a phrase I hear very often, so naturally when I do I get curious.

I was in the library yesterday working on some homework with one of my friends, somehow the conversation turned to where we would rather be living, She said that she'd rather live in America then in England. Every time I say I would rather live somewhere other then the US people ask me why, and I'm never sure how to answer that without writing them a book, so I decided it would be fun to see what she said. Her answer to this question was that England was too 'politically correct'. She said that in England they welcome people from all over the world with open arms and don't care about really preserving their culture, they don't mind a culture blend. But in the US they don't do that, they don't let other cultures in, they have stricter immigration rules, and aren't so warm and friendly towards people of other nationalities that we forget are own culture. Now, I don't know if I've just been traveling to much but it seems to me that a country that is willing to embrace different cultures and make adjustments so people from all over can fit in, is a much happier and peaceful place then a country where they shut out people who are different. I also don't see this as being very true, maybe I'm just a naive American but I don't see the US as being such a culture centred country as she said it was, don't get me wrong I'm not saying its perfect either, but as a population I don't see it as being as closed off as she made it seem. Which brings me to my other concern, do most people view the US as this culture centred non welcoming place, because if so, I think we need to make some changes.

Sometimes I'm just not proud to be an American.

British English to American English Dictionary

A growing list of words whose definitions I didn't know:

Plasters- Bandages
Jab- Shot
Bobble- Hair Tye
quaver- 8th note
semi-quaver- 16th note
Rubbish- Garbage
Black Bag- Garbage Bag
Cheers- Thank you, your welcome, Thanks
Ta- Thank you
Tyre- Tire
Single- One Way
Return - Round trip
Ring- call
Purse- girls wallet
Handbag-purse
Rucksack- Back pack
Back pack- Really big back pack
Footpath- Sidewalk
Thick- Stupid
Full Stop- punctuation mark at the end of this sentence.