Did the people who make up Brazil come "from a multitude of different cultures and backgrounds and then had to forge out a new life in a new environment."

?

When you become the world's policeman, wars are easy to find.

But I guess the 'roaring twenties' were quite a peaceful time.

Very much so and it was one of the huge immigration hotspots of the 20th century and also one of the largest. Huge amounts of people from Portugal, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, much of Eastern Europe and also quite a few people from the Arab states most notably from the Lebanon. You don't get a population of 194 million people without taking in quite a few immigrants! and then of course they had to adapt to their new and strange environment.

Funny you say that because until recently Europe was violent and/or war-like as well. Britain was the other half of the American War of Independence. France had a bloodier revolution. Germany was fractured into minor states & political entities and no sooner did Bismark diplomatcally unified them into a single nation, Germany found itself in war. America fought in the both World Wars, but it happened in Europe, so how are European countries exempt from being violent?

Forgive me if I don't quite understand what you are getting at, what is difference between the people who came to America prior to the Revolutionary War and the immigrants that came to America after The Civil War?

Firstly, I DID mention that European wars had been spread out over a much longer time period whilst those in the USA were over a much more relatively shorter period, meaning that those in the USA have had a greater impact on more recent generations and the development of the country. In Western Europe there have been no principal conflicts since 1945 barring the odd colonial skirmish, the Falklands which was a joke and the recent Gulf and Afghan conflicts and these have hardly had an impact on society here. Wars only have a major impact on a society, when the nation gears it's economy up for war and its sons start coming home in body bags or start coming back in droves with traumatic stress.

You're forgiven but I didn't address this at all but you seemed to have quoted me so I'll respond. In some ways I would say there is a difference. The early settlers are the real pioneers and are those venturing into the unknown, later immigrants have it just as hard and often face resentment from earlier settlers, but they had the advantage of knowing what to expect, along with usually having their own ethnic group getting/being established there, mass immigration into the USA has been a highly documeted, whilst that of other countries less so but I'd say the same principal applies to most countries that have high immigration.

I'm not taking sides on this debate, but I just have to point out that our nation hasn't really geared it's economy up for war and relatively few of our sons are coming home in body bags, at least compared to other conflicts. I live in Hampton Roads, which is home to the world's largest naval base and a seriously military town. But I only know one guy who has gone to Iraq or Afghanistan and nobody who has died over there. I don't think our society is really being affected all that much by these conflicts. Again, compared to past conflicts.

That's because the USA doesn't have to gear its economy up for war, its economy has been able to absorb modern conflicts. Also I call the total 211,000 dead and wounded from the Vietnam War no small number either and this is a significant amount to actually affect a nation. Modern warfare is far better documented now than it has ever been, so the modern horrors of war are evident to everybody.

I wouldn't actually call the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as affecting your nation, as the soldiers that fight there are professionals and not conscripts and these are extremely limited campaigns.

The point I'm putting across, is that the USA has had a large number of conflicts in its short period of existence, it's just an angle to try and shed some light on why your society is probably the most violent of the developed world. We know much of this violence is connected to 'gun crime' but we also know that guns don't pull their own triggers and thus need a person of a particular mindset to pull those triggers. A formal scientific approach could be used here, but as formal sciences are not exactly my strong point, I prefer to use social sciences based on empirical observation, using my knowledge of history and sociology on why the USA has these current ills.

I find the subject very interesting and complex and open to all kinds of approaches and opinion. As the question here, is what makes somebody like Adam Lanza go into a school and kill a load of people and why don't these crimes happen on the same frequency in other countries in the developed world?

Exactly my point. I don't even know if we've had a tenth of the losses in the current wars.

Again, that sort of proves my point.

As opposed to the seemingly constant wars that European nations have been engaged in in the last few hundred (or thousand) years? As opposed to the two bloodiest wars in human history that were started by Europeans, not to mention the Seven Years War? It seems that the Europeans have thought nothing of putting the entire world at war for the sake of imperialism in the past. If we're engaged in a few more wars in the past half century, it's just because we've been the world police while Europe has been playing second fiddle. I'm not saying that the US is any better, but pretty much all of the human race is a violent, brutish lot.

Two things: 1. America may not have been at war with other countries at that time, but we had prohibition then and domestically it was a ****ing nightmare.

2: Going to Brazil to hide out from the retribution of the world for your imperialist/fascist crimes is not equatable to people immigrating to the US because there was less of a class structure and more economic opportunity.

As you say these European wars have been fought over a very long time period, in the USA these wars have been fought over just a 230 year time period in a relatively new nation. Just think of it as the difference between how a child and an adult would deal with adversity and trauma in life.

WWI was based around imperialism, but WWII was just about a dictator who had been given too much slack and then it was too late to stop him. Western Europe finally matured after WWII with the forming of the EEC in the 1950s and since then Western Europe has been war free an amazing feat considering its history. Whilst the USA at this time, had developed an unhealthy fear of communism and then became involved in two bloody conflicts connected to this, whilst trying to be 'the worlds's policeman' and performing a balancing act in the Cold War, which at anytime could've evolved into another world war. These historical events, usually create a mindset within the society that is involved.

I won't argue with that one, but it must've been a bummer for drinkers.

You've got this totally wrong here. Most of the people that were emigrating to Brazil were doing it for the same reasons as those that were emigrating to the USA, which was to get away from their miserable lives and improve themselves. In the middle part of the 20th century the country was undergoing its industrialisation process and it needed people. The country should've been one of the major economic success stories of the 20th century but due to rampant corruption and dictatorships it wasn't, but it seems to be getting there now.

A few escaping Nazis must've been a drop in the ocean, because at the time the country was taking in around 35,000 people a year.