...and so on and so fourth....

I don't know if you people in America have noticed but you have the priviledge of being the only nation on the planet that people can adopt an attitute towards which involves racism and dramatic stereotypes without anyone else batting an eyelid... No matter what the current climate of the world may be, it seems a little depraved that so many people have such an attitude towards 300 million people without thinking twice about it.

I see it in the media every day and in discussions between all sorts of groups of people, saying things that simply would not be tolerated if it were said about any other nation or group of people on the planet.

Anyone have any insight to add?

anyone gonna fly off the handle without reading the content of the message thanks to the title of the thread (it'll probablys be attention grabbing, hopefully not insulting).

On another note, one English tabloid(the daily star i think) had the headline "How can 59,000,000 people be so dumb?"... this is what got me thinking initially, could a newspaper get away with saying this about a large slice of any other countries population?

...just a few thoughts.... seems that everyone who makes these comments are just being hypocritical to me.

Americans ARE stupid.

And I live in America. I'm allowed to say it.

its all about freedom of speech. it measn you can say anything at all, and no one can do a thing about it (except say something back).

I think America is getting stupid, but I don't link it to politics. I'm making this judgement based on the everyday actions of people.

Reverse discrimination.

America is such a superpower right now, nothing anybody says can touch it. Also, with the amount of diversity there, and the amount that American culture is imposed on the rest of us, there will be atleast something that will piss everyone off.

I'm a bit confused: are you saying that Americans are allowed to be racist and stereotypical but scoff at people doing the same to them, or vice versa?

i'm saying that people get away with being racist and stereotypical about americans but cannot get away with doing it to any other nation.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, it's pretty much the reason why poor people can spit on CEOs but CEOs can't spit on poor people: CEOs have a lot of power and money, and there are some people with less power and money who feel that the only way they can be as well-off as the CEO is to insult them. The typical bully mannerisms -- pull others down to feel better about yourself.

i don't blame other people for being upset about our decisons because those decisions indeed are very influenial to the whole world.

thank god the yanks dont take our abusing them too seriously, otherwise they may bomb us / stamp out any terrorists in our country :p

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

There's a difference between, "It was wrong to invade Iraq; I think Bush should be brought up on war criminal charges," and, "All Americans are fat, backward lazy slobs who elected a doofus so lacking in brains that he can't even figure out we have one internet. I hate Americans -- I hope they all die and burn in ****ing Hell for the rest of their miserable God-damned lives."

When are people are going to realize that ALL OF HUMANITY is stupid. Then again, maybe they're too stupid realize that.

¨

Yeah. America is such a hotspot of attention in the world that all kinds of things American are all the time in the news and under scrutiny and discussion. When you analyze any nation long and deep enough, you can gather a huge amount of not-so-perfect things to criticize. And I think people rather criticize than praise unfamiliar things. When everybody is doing it anyway, it's easy to join the jolly good bunch, and voila, you have the whole world criticizing America.

The americans are just as guilty of doing that as any other nation, particularly when it comes to Australians. I know a few people who have gone over to the US and without fail, every single one them has stories about how often they were complimented on their ability to speak english and pestered about how often they saw kangaroos.

At risk of doing some stereotyping of my own, I'm not surprised to hear you complain that Americans are being misjudged, whilst neatly forgetting that Americans are just as bad as everyone else. Generally speaking, America is a very insular, self-absorbed nation. This is not a criticism, more of an observation of cultural quirks. The average American has less knowledge of other countries than any other individual from another nation (yes I know this is a gross generalisation, so sue me, isn't that what the yanks are good at? :p).

Besides, everyone stereotypes everyone else. A lot of the world stereotypes Aussies as crocodile hunter wannabes who wrangle snakes, swear profusely and drink excessively. Likewise, Aussies will stereotype other nations as well:

English: grey, rainy country filled with whingeing bloody poms who can't play cricket.
Kiwis: sheep obsessed pervets with funny accents; "Cun I get suhm fush and chups to go along with mah sux cartons of mulk?"
Americans: Jerry Spinger guest with no abilty to take a joke and a raging case of zealous patriotism that leaves them blind to the rest of the world.
Swedes: hilly country filled with buxom blonde women who have a thing for Aussie men

Wow, that went for longer than I thought. Anyways, the point was that the world doesn't pick on America, eveyone picks on everyone else. America just doesn't notice

Disclaimer: this is not an anti-US post.

Okidokee, stupid.

hmm...it sounds like you're suggesting that the rest of the world is jealous of Americans, which just isn't true. Your second post is a tad ridiculous too, I mean you're obviously (I certainly hope) exaggerating, but the fact is, everyone I know that dislikes America has family and friends who live there that they love and respect. I personally have nothing against Americans, it's just that as a nation there seems to be a somewhat off attitude.

Personally (and I know there will be non-Americans who disagree with this too) I dislike the entire ethos that you have going on. Each man for himself and all that, I just don't think it's a nice way to go about creating a society, but that's just me. I can deal with it by never moving to the US, simple. It's when the things I disagree with start being imposed on me that I get angry.


If I cared at all about cricket I'd be really pissed of with that! The rest...well I can't really argue!! :p

Americans cuss up the French just as indiscriminately.

Hey, if you don't like the weather in england, wait half an hour and it will be different.

The truth has been spoken. America is a very selfish nation.

I believe that many people in other countries dislike America because they see us as arrogant and don't like the fact that we're policing the world. There are valid points to be made against American policies, but sadly, many tend to do this in an ignorant way (including many Americans). People become so full of hate that they're unable to make a decent argument, and as someone stated above, it eventually becomes a sort of mob mentality. It's sad really, that many Americans must feel that the world hates them, as if we're all just alike.

Also, as far as arrogance goes, I think much of it has to do with the fact that the average American doesn't care too much about what goes on in other countries. We're so far away from much of the world, and at times it's simply difficult for us to relate to things that go on elsewhere. In a sense, I think this makes us seem arrogant.

most of you are missing the point.

imagine this conversation.

"i hate people from [insert random country] they're all smelly bastards with no brains, dirty habits and disgusting ideals."

if i said that, someone would kick off and get pissed at me being racist.

if i said

"i hate people from america, they're all smelly bastards with no brains, dirty habits and disgusting ideals"

everyone would either agree, laugh or just ignore it... dont care about how other nations react, dont care about superpower status... the fact is that people dismiss blatant racism towards this country for no reason other than a reputation that is equally baseless in comparison to all the other stereotypes people base racism on from other countries.

seems somewhat shocking to me.

Must ... kill ... evil ... stereo-types ... :p

Honestly though, when I went to England in the summer, it didn't rain a single day the two weeks we were there except for a very light sprinkle on one afternoon. London was not a bit foggy.

And guess what? As soon as my family and I went outside of Charlotte Airport in North Carolina for the journey home, it started raining. -_-

Hehe. You got a point there.

I concur.

The AVERAGE American is stupid...

I don't find it shocking, just unfortunate, and illogical.

yeah, thats what i meant... dialect barrier i'm afraid.

shocking is a slang word used to that kind of effect around here... guess i just let it slip.

I said "some people" because not everyone has as immature an attitude about the U.S. Yes, I am exaggerating on my second post -- I don't think anyone I've met has said that. But for every American who jumps into line to knock France for its lack of support in Iraq, there's a non-American knocking the U.S. with the same zeal and immaturity.

As for the off attitude...well, I can't really speak for that. I'm not sure what you mean by the "every man for himself" bit. Can you list some examples?

Oh, and good job using ethos -- some high culture brought into this thread.

To be honest, Cricket is the most boring game i've ever had the misfortune to play or watch and everyone i've met from the US, Canada or Australia has been utterly shocked at just how green England is :p

I think there's a large difference between casually making remarks about America and doing so in the press, I know that when I make remarks I don't really mean it, but when the tabloids (which a LOT of people read) start doing it, I find it somewhat distasteful.

We have winner!

Unfortunately, we Americans are fat too.

(except me)

That's ok Detty. There are plenty of other sports that England are bad at that I can make fun of

Am I losing it, or wasnt this thread closed an hour ago, and spe was banned

Um, no, not that i remember. the only recent thread locks were Obi's about the flames and 'Be right back'. i don't think anyone's gotten banned recently....

yeah most americans are stupid. But that's becasue they prolly didn't watch sesame street and mr roger's neighborhood at a young age.

Who are these people anyway?

Brits are stupid too, they just try to disguise it by talking funny.

Firstly, I know, I'm just that good!!

But yeah, I can't really quote examples per se, it's something I notice alot with the way Americans talk, around here mostly. In all the gun debate threads (pleasepleasepleasenobodystartonehere!) someone on the pro-gun side will say something about protecting their family and stuff, not putting their safety in the hand of the police.
I think it's an attitude that seems to be derived from the Constitution (or Declaration of Independence, not like I've studied them). Each American seems to have something instilled in them that they personally have the right to have everything they want (which in itself, isn't a bad thing) but it seems to have given rise to a very selfish kind of capitalism and a patriotism that I've never seen in any other nation. People everywhere are very dedicated to their religions, or their culture (or in my case, my football team! :p), but only in America have I seen the kind of dogged loyalty to your country and president (despite all the huge debates, and even when it did seem that most of the nation disagreed with Bush, nothing more than whining seemed to be happening to change it), and from my chair over here, it seems a little strange.

Ok, I've gone so far off topic it's silly, but that's kind of what I was getting at before.

Spe, I think maybe you're missing the point! For a start, I don't think anyone could get away with calling everyone in America stupid, fat and deserving to die, but if there's less uproar about it, I'm pretty sure that it does come down to the superpower bit. And the fact is, even if you don't consider stereotypes to be true, everyone gets them from somewhere.
Brits having bad teeth and the 'pea soup' fog in London - I don't know anyone with brown, rotting, gappy teeth, but we don't have a culture of compulsive whitening, and I don't think as many teenagers get braces either, so yeah, I think generally we have more 'natural' looking teeth than Americans!! The fog was due to heavy industry and coal fires in the early 20th Century. Since this seems to be the image of London that Americans hold on to (it certainly seems to be where you all get your 'cockney' accents from!!) it doesn't really surprise me that some people still expect it!
Americans being stupid and fat - plenty of people here have seen those statistics showing that 50% or 80% or however many American students couldn't find Iraq on a map, coupled with a president with a ... strange ... grasp of English, you can understand why someone who didn't personally know Americans might think you were all a bit dumb. The national obesity rates over there are frightening, I can't really see how you could deny the fat thing. And what's scary is that it's happening here right now and nobody's stopping it!!

Wow, I've been rambling for hours! I'm just gonna stop now, I can't even remember what I was getting at.

That's because anytime you try to implement somesort of mesure to help kids in schools get more used to healthy diets and exercise, they'll bring up something about how it's their god-given constitutional right to eat double cheeseburgers with bacon and three kinds of cheese.

I remember when I went to McDonald's as a reward when I was nice during the week. It should go back to that.