:lol: Of course I knew you meant that... flibert was the first to have a nut named afterhim... even Canadians know that... :icare:

I think most people here (Norway) like the US, although the past years we mostly talk about the evil Bush and his henchmen. After 9/11 you had all our symphaty, and widespread support to go into Afghanistan. The Iraq war quickly changed that.

Your politics is very different from ours, and that's fair enough. Even our right-wing parties would probably pass as socialist in the US so I won't go there. One things that puzzles me though is how easy you are on politicians, especially the president. Why don't we ever see Bush, Dick or Rove on a live studio debate where they have to answer for their actions? All we see is Bush on his Texas ranch, lecturing reporters like they were kids about good guys and bad guys. We saw the same thing when Arnold toured California. The guy never faced any debates or even tough questions. No wonder we think Bush and Arnold are morons when we never see them disproving it.

Other than that, we share a lot of the views mentioned before; that Americans are loud, obnoxious and selfish, but I would add sociable and friendly as well. You guys are easy to get to know, and you're polite and helpful to strangers. At least outside New York.

LBJ, Truman, and TR all were elected in their later terms. And I think Ford is the only one not elected whatsoever, since he was appointed VP by Nixon. I think Fillmore was at least elected in as a VP (but I'm not sure on that).

Sorry - I was wrong about the handguns. I stand corrected.

I just love that old "they're gonna get them anyway" argument. Every country in the world where there is free access to guns has a gun crime problem, and every country that makes gun ownership illegal (or heavily restricted) finds that gun crime falls.

In England it was legal to have handguns until the early 20th Century. Once it was outlawed rates of gun crime started to fall. Admittedly recently gun crime has started to rise again, but you know what? Most of the illegal guns in the UK were smuggled in from countries where they were easy to buy (like the US).

I accept the constitutional right to bear arms in case a militia needs to be formed, but you know what? I think that the government could outlaw everything except bolt action 0.303" rifles and make possession of anything else an arrestable offence with a mandatory 10 year sentence.

The 303 rifle was good enough to kill millions in the world wars, and would be quite capable of setting up a militia. The good news is that it would mean that in event of civil insurrection, everyone would have the same ammo, and everyone would need the same spare parts.

Obviously, because it's hard to hide a rifle in your pants pocket, concealed weapons would be harder to use in crime.

Hardly a shock that some non-Americans dislike some Americans. :hmm:

"They keep taking our money" - what do you think the US government (and armed forces) would do if any of your major trading partners (like China) decided to dump all of their US$ reserves? Or refused to trade with you anymore? If you thought the 30s were bad, you'd better PRAY that it never happens. The Chinese national bank PWNS the US economy. If they dumped their dollars you would see double digit inflation in the US for a generation.

English is first language for about 1/3 of the people in the world - for the same reason it's the language in the US. The clue is in the name of the language ;)

India
Australia
Half of Africa
Canada
England
The US.

India is the worlds largest democracy, by the way. And the worlds fastest growing IT based economy. And home to a billion people.

---

TRANSLATION (from a European's perspective) = We's rich. We's powerful. We's gonna shit in your water, and fart in your air. If you disagree that we are entitled to do this we's gunna bomb your asses into the stone age.

Just remember, America, that all the goods you take for granted are made by the people that you shit on every day. One day they will tell you to fuck off, and your economy will be toast.

If you don't believe me, ask the Romans, The Mongols, The Great British Empire, The Soviets.

History does not repeat itself, but it certainly RHYMES. :D

I think this whole point is basically like arguing over why people use Microsoft products. Fact is, Britain conquered a shitload of the world, at the right time, people in very different parts of the world adopted at least some use of English, and now it's the international standard for science and business, because we don't do so well speaking in binary or heiroglyphics. Shit, you've got to have something.

Well, let's not forget China...I know they don't speak English, but economic growth of 9% annually for a while now. Them bitches are taking off...so many people, they've got to start hardcore regulation of births? Pretty soon we might be having to learn some Mandarin and get real good with chopsticks...

Since 1855?

The US has invaded several countries - even discounting the ones where they got invites.

Who did the Swiss invade?
Or Poland?

Portugal?

Australia?

Algeria?

Tibet?

Nepal?

Etc. etc. etc. :lol: :icare:

Excuse me while I soil myself laughing.

England was the world's only superpower a century ago, and we got our asses kicked by all maner of "weaker" countries.

The US would win against China?

That's crazy talk, Mr Smithee. You are getting your asses kicked in Iraq by a bunch of terrorists.

You got kicked in the 'nads by Vietnam all those years ago.

There is no conceivable way that the US could win a foreign war agaist China. They can bankrupt you. They outnumber you. They don't have to worry about the government beig called to account for the massive death toll of their people.

You know why Napoleon couldn't take Russia? It was largely down to support at hme evaporating.

You know why Germany lost the first world war? At the time of the armistice not a square inch or German soil had been taken by military force. However the gvernment was collapsing because peopleno longer supported the war.

How many flag draped coffins would it take for the government to be overturned?

1,000?

10,000?

Even if you had a kill rate of 200:1 (better than Iraq, and China is stronger than Iraq), they have BILLIONS of people. To kill 5% of their population would cost you over 1,000,000 dead.

Totally agree. :thumbsup:

No, please do. I'm curious as well to find out what foreigners think.

You won't hurt my feelings.

Different situation. The British Empire was spread out across the world, and were usually greatly outnumbered where they had outposts. they didn't have concentrated forces.

Wrong. We won the war, we are losing the police action. The Iraqi army was routed. And I think their body count is significantly higher than ours.

We failed our objective. But considering that war a "loss" is a bit extreme. THe body count would show us quite on the plus side. Also, the military was never authorized to go into N. Vietnam. Had we gone there, things would've been much different.

This is blatantly false. They coudn't bankrupt us. And them outnumbering us is meaningless. All that means is that they can get more chumps armed with pitchforks to die. If they were to attempt to fight anything resembling a conventional war (where there is actual identifiable armies) they would be greatly outgunned. The onlly thing in that section that would be relevant is the fact that the Chinese gov't wouldn't be called to task for death toll or war crimes. That would be their only advantage.

Napoleon didn't take Russia because he tried to go into Russia too late, so that winter hit and greatly sapped the morale and fighting ability of the French troops. Also, in Russia he was too reliant on non-native fighters.

They opened up two fronts, and their fighting ability was sapped. Also, America arrived to bolster the Allied forces. The writing was on the wall, the surrender was to conserve the inevitable loss of life that having an occupying force invade would do. In WWI, the public was actually very supportive of the war.

You assume that the entirety of their population would have to be killed. I was not assuming that the US could just causually march into China and take them over. I am saying that in an outside field, the US would win. (And I think it would be hard, but I think enough causalties could be caused in mainland china to force surrender or greatly hurt the gov't. China would have approx. zero chance of doing the same to the US because their navy isn't any where near as advanced as is the US's).

I do see China as the biggest threat to the US. They have taken capitalistic economic principles but applied them to a totalitarian government. The thing that I think might be their undoing is the fact that despite their growth, their population in general isn't feeling the effects. They are able to get the large growth by essentially screwing over their people in the world labor pool. I liken this attitude to the similar views that were said about Japan in the 1970-80's.

I have nothing against america or americans, hell I have an american girlfriend and we're planning on going over there for thanksgiving. That being said, I don't like Bush and his policies in most cases, but I'm not so stupid (Unlike some of my "friends") that I'll take out my disliking for one man over an entire country.

I assume no such thing Alan. I actually explicitly said that to take 5% of their population would cost too many US dead.

I accept that you have very strongly held beliefs. I have equally strongly held, diametrically opposed ones, and neither of us will convince the other, so there's no point arguing.

The one point I would still like to make is that you (perhaps accidentally) misrepresented my argument to strengthen yours - that is unfortunate and reflects badly on you.

I extended your line of thinking to it's logical conclusion. I took your mentioning population to assume that you expected a conflict to only end when one side was totally wiped out. You attached no significance toward the 5% number being anything more than an arbitrary point supposedly showing how ineffective the American military would be against China. that's not the case, then I misread what you said. Although I did reread that section, and notice you exaggerated a bit. China does have BILLIONS, 1.2 BILLIONS to be exact. And using the ratio you provided (200:1), 1,000,000 would kill around 18% not 5%. I think your use of hyperbole and incorrect facts is unfortunate and reflects badly on you.

So all that matters is killing as much as possible?
no wonder you lost those "police actions"

The same thing happened in Vietnam and we all know what happened there.


As for what I think of the US, I've been there to play hockey quite a bit, the people were nice enough, like any other place some are nice some are assholes, some were ignorant some weren't, I can't hate the whole of the people because of a few assholes.

As for the government of the US, thats where my hatred comes into play, but this isn't about the administration so I won't comment on that.

I'll take a stab at this one. I think that it is not the 'system' of government, but the somewhat Orwellian nature that can take place during certain administrations. For example, currently there is a 'if you aren't with us, you're against us' sentiment afloat, which reminds me of Animal Farm ( by Orwell).

This was also evident during the Moral majority era, and the McCarthy era. To me, this is the scary part, that is not liked. Dissent, which is the very cornerstone of the nation, is seen as un-patriotic.

As for the system of government, it is different, but ultimately democratic, as much as any other democracy...

so...ummm...are you....with us....or

AGAINST

us?

:)

Aren't we all?

you'd best watch out buster. them there could be considered some kind of fancy fightin' words..

Fair enough, I got the population wrong. According to the CIA (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/.../2119rank.html) the population of China is 1,306,313,812 - so you're out by 100 million - but what the hey that's only the same as the population of Mexico (and that's the ERROR in your figure, not the tally).

I postulate that no democracy can win a war of attrition against a dictatorship.

It's sad this thread has strayed so far, and in such a negative way, from its original intent/topic/question. I consider it quite rude, really.

well since this thread no longer has anything to do with the original intended purpose lets keep going with this China-US military discussion.

Daniel_,
Now you bring up total population into question for the military conflict. Dunno why you guys have done that because it is meaningless what you should look at is availability of manpower, which the Worldfactbook does list by the way.

so we have:
china: males age 18-49: 342,956,265 (2005 est.)
US: males age 18-49: 67,742,879 (2005 est.)
( I take it we are assuming total war for this and assuming that the US wasn't commited to any other military engagements ie Iraq )

We have a ratio of 1 US soldier for : 5 Chinese soldiers.

Now we have to take a look at the ability to mobilize an army to strike the other while discounting any nukes cuz that would be MAD therefore a loss for both sides. For a very good look at the capabilities of US's moder military abilities I suggest looking at "Nova PBS - Battle Plan Under Fire". If you are familiar I am sure you are aware that US's fighting ability is superior enough to "many many many people with a rifle and 15 bullets" that you seem to think is China's advantage, certainly I think that 1:5 is very possible. We could also take into consideration that the US has allies in the area with bases near China allowing the US immediate strikes on Chinese soil while China would have to travel the ocean first before being able to strike at US soil.
One also has to account for the fact that US's current military is a proffesional army while China's current army is moslt made up of "compulsory military service, with 24-month service obligation" dont know if you have seen any people from compulsory military duty ( they are no better really than militia really ) and this makes a big difference for an army because when you start calling up regular people you can distribute the trained personel and bolster the entire army so that each company at least has a certain amount of people that know how to do things.

Any comparison with the current situation in Iraq or guerilla warfare are misplaced. The reason they are different is because the US supposedly was to liberate Iraq from Saddam's rule not just destroy the military power of the country. This means that the US has maintain control of the country with military forces until it was reformed except that some people ( Rumsfeld most notably ) wholly underprepared for this and did not commit enough troops for this goal.
In the imaginary US-China conflict this would not be the case it would be more of an attack at the China's military instalations. No need to secure and hold terrritory to then turn it into a democracy ( remember that this is scenario is around the pretense of total war ).

Now I am not predicting a victory one way or the other because that is kinda stupid, but arguments that China would win because it has so many people are flawed. It only works in extremly massive numbers and 5 to 1 isnt it. So china could overwhelm the US if it had 1/10th the available manpower ( I belive a 1 to 50 ratio there ) and nobody came to aid the US. By your argument it would mean that a country like Brazil could win over Canada ( Ratio of 1:5.5). To me it seems obvious that numbers is not all that counts.

That's it... make the thread worse... :rolleyes:

Can someone just start a new thread for discussing China vs. the US and get it over with.

Yeah, I honestly feel badk for having partaken in it instead of just reading...now I wish I'd started a thread on how Americans view themselves, or how we view how others view us or something - but I thought it might be a pain to cross reference. It's too bad the thread slowly got throttled. mea culpa for my part. maybe we get it cleaned up?

I like some americans, and some american things, but on the whole it feels like the states is the obnoxious, arrogant teenager with the sling shot and a pocket full of cash.

Also, it's English, not american English, just English. Buy a dictionary.

*end rant*

Now, not to pick on you again but I am tired people bringing this whole Empire collapsing thing that seems to be so popular...
You have just listed the most ofted listed "empires" that have withered.

Now, the roman empire as you can recall had many stages of development does that mean that while Rome was a republic it was withering to be forgoten for all time? Should we count the Empire period as seperate? What I am trying to illustrte here is that there are many times a country/empire/allot of things will have a period of decline but will then spring back up or they just slowly fade away its kinda silly to imply that the later is what is happening when nobody can really predict the future. The US could end being the world's superpower or it could continue as it has for many decades or it could again be in competition with another superpower and have a real drive or it could lets say merge with Canada and Mexico forming the ultrapower of the North American Aliance... can you really say?...( people think that is crazy but in a century look at what has happened to Europe )
Why dont we look at other empires for a change. What about the Chinese empire?... I know it goes under a different name now but essentialy it is the same thing as before only under a different organization. Did it collapse?... It was pretty much controlled by western powers for a good while there but now it is booming and seems to be becoming a superpower.... Does this count?..
Oh and speaking of which, by mongols did you mean the ones that swept through Europe only to veer off and blend with the local population or the ones that took over china ( Marco Polo did in fact deal with Mongol ruled China ) Does that count as an empire fading?

I hope we all can see that things change, bar none. People seem to love to compare the US to the roman empire for some reason though... and I know you said RHYMES, but that still is too big an oversimplification. I see this too often in forums that sometimes its like hearing Bush's speeches, one phrase repeated over and over until it looses meaning and people accept it ( Sorry if you find the comparison ufavorable ).

Anyways...

Guess I ought to apologize for the continued threadjack. This thread, to me, seems to be used by people to just gripe both ways (against the US or against how others view the US).

Maybe you were joking, but except for maybe the first four (and that's being generous) are nations with major economic or military influence in the world. Combine that with the fact that Poland was taken over multiple times in between then and now, and Switzerland didn't even directly participate in WWII (and has an army with corkscrews on their knives), and you don't have much of a force. Russia was not only somewhat genocidal, they invaded multiple countries. The major European nations (Britain, France, ect.) all participated in imperialism. The fact remains that most nations with the ability have invaded other countries.

I don't want it going any further than that. So, most of the opinions here seem to be from Canadians and Brits. What about the rest of the world???

As far as the general topic goes, I always get a kick out of people denigrating the US. The generalizations are extreme and overblown and if you made generalizations toward the denegrator's nation, they flip out. I assume its tough to generalize a small nation of people not to mention one of the larger nations. But, the US is king of the hill and an easy target.

Great topic. Thanks to the poster – it’s nice that the TFP wants to hear something from the non-US TFP-ers. I’ve spent some time in the US, and was educated in a number of American school in various places around the world, my country included. I’ve also gotten to know a lot of Americans. I’ll be as honest as possible here.

I think all my colleagues admire the US in one way or another. Mainly, as a place where hard work will guarantee a proper standard of living. Whether that is true in another thing. Admire the US for the technological advancements it made possible. A lot of people in Poland admire the US for it’s anti-soviet stance after WW II.

However, when Americans visit our country, or Europe for that matter, you can be sure they’ll act in a certain way. More often than not, they’re terribly obnoxious, loud, insensitive and downright ignorant. They have absolutely no respect for the way people live, for their ways and their cultures, and as cliché as it may sound, they act as if they would want a McDonalds on every street corner. You’re most likely to find US tourists in McDonalds and US-styled malls, BTW.

Also, there’s this common perception about a laughable level of education in the US. Polish jokes may be popular in the US, but I’m sure you’ll find it interesting that Polish people tend to share anecdotes about the US – mainly pointing out the terrible ignorance. A lot of people engage in an interesting hobby – they enter chat rooms and talk with Americans, telling them, that it’s true what they heard about Poland – that we live in wooden huts, have no media, and spend the day lying on cow pastures. When asked how come they’re on the internet, the common answer is that we have coal-run computers. Sound bad? 7 out of 10 people fall for it. It’s shocking.

Personally, I think the US should be more humble. The hurricane in NO has showed the world that the richest country can become a third world state very quickly. Knowing the US, though, I don’t think any lessons will be learned. The “we shall overcome, under God” rhetoric will silence the critics and no lesson will be learned. A lot of people I know feel in a similar way about the us – history likes to repeat itself, and the US will cave in on itself, and will take a lot of other countries with it.

So there. This is the opinion of most of the people that I know – 20-30 year olds from western and central Europe.

I'm wondering what it is about Americans visiting other places that seems to make them seem so obnoxious, rude, etc.? For those who have travelled in the states, do they notice it there as well, or is it different? Is it cultural misunderstanding, or are Americans just generally boors overseas? And what behaviors specifically (if there is any that can be pinpointed) cause this obnoxious impression? I'm thinking of taking an extended trip overseas (Japan) when I'm finished getting my degree, and would like to avoid looking like some buffoonish American. I generally think I'm well-mannered but it could be something that Americans don't even notice that gives them the bad impression around the world.

Hell, I'm an American and I'll take a stab at this.

1. Switch your money to the local currency. You might think "how obvious," but I've seen countless times where Americans seem to think everyone is dying to get ahold of dollars. Might be true in some remote parts of the world, but don't assume.

2. Try to speak some of the local language.

3. Everything you would do if you were at Disney world, try not to do when interacting with regular old local people. They live there.

edit alan, you also might want to stay away from calling them sychophantic whores lapping at the American trough of trade :thumbsup:

America the past few years has been like a train wreck. Horrible, but I can't stop watching.

LBJ was elected in '64. Harry Truman in '48. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became President in 1901 when President Wm. McKinley was shot and killed. TR was elected President for the first time in '04.
TR was a great President. More than that, he was a great man.

Bodyhammer, can you provide a source that says minorities in the US cause the most crimes?

Also, the Chinese DO speak English. In fact, more Chinese speak English than Americans. Same in India, the most Emglish speakers are there.

Alansmithee, I strongly encourage you to go abroad. I think you would get a lot from the experience. Have you considered travel study or travel abroad? Those would be great options.

Japan is...interesting. As a black man, you will see first hand the strange phenomenon of "black worship" as well as 'extreme' racism (the Japanese have rather racist tendencies [generalization]). Go check out your schools career center or study abroad center - they'll have lots of info on the best ways to travle and stuff. You could teach English in Japan ($30,000 per year plus expenses), anyways, tons of opportunity.

Or you could do the obligatory tour of Europe. Or Mediteranean: Spain, North Africa, Italy, Greece etc.....

Shit, now I'm getting the itch and I just got back from Greece and Turkey (talk about scary - I was in both places in Turkey that were bombed). Well, Alan, I may just go with you if you want a travel partner :)

By the way, anyone see "Burn Hollywood Burn"?

Oh yeah, the post:

I have found throughout my travels that most of the time I find non-Americans actually like Americans (especially once they get to know them) but don't like our politics or our leaders. They manage to separate the two (fine by me).

Disdian for Americans is usually attributed to experience of rude, boorish behavior: EX - impatience, not trying to understand local customs, loudness (obnoxiously so), perceived disrespect etc.

When I was in the Military (Navy) I had the chance to travel abroad. I visited Singapore, Thailand, Dubai, Hong Kong and a few other smaller places. I have also had the benefit of friends on the internet and at work.

While I do not claim to be educated, I do try to keep up on news. and truthfully, there isnt much that reaches me unless i go digging for it.

The most common argument i have heard agains teh US and its people is that we blindly allow our government and its leaders to do all these stupid things , and on a regular basis.

I am nto sure how to react, as I, as an individual, have just about as much of an impact on the government as you do from over seas. If i vote, and the leaderships does somethig dumb, I'm to blame... If i Don't vote, then i'm blamed for apathy.. sounds like a no win sutuation.

I do sometimes wish that I could look at myself from forieng eyes and see what the problems really are, because as I see it, There is not a whole lot I could do personally to resolve ANY of the issues we are facing on an international front.

It's not that I don't care, it's that I can't do anything. Am i suppoed to starve my family to sendmoney to antoher one outside the US? would that solve all the problems? I dont know. I agree that I am selfish, in the respect that I want money, food, shelter, and happiness, which are common needs/wants no matter whta culture you live in.

Most non-US people i've met are awesome, and hae always treated me with respect, as I have treated them. The only time this breaks down is when one of us proves that they are not worth of that respect.

I refuse to let a small sampling of people affect my outlook on any group of people, and hope that Any foriegn people would not see Bush, or any other public figure and make bad assumptions about me and my family.

Again, I wish that i had a different point of view, but I can't imagine how to change it.

Silver Tiger.

jorgelito, the point I was making was, when you have several different cultures, races, ethnicities, and so on clashing together (which is what the US is known for, being a melting pot and all), problems will arise. Sorry if I misworded my post.

Don't blame crime on minorities.
Canada has more minorities than the US, and less crime.

the US Department of Justice maintains statistics that seem to point to that... 67% of prison inmates belong to a minority group with such groups composing less than 25% of the general population. Even more striking, Americans with black skin make up 12.3% of the general population while representing 40% of prison inmates.


Sources:

US Department of Justice

US Census Bureau

Of course, that's assuming that everything else in the criminal justice system is fair and equitable between the races... from law enforcement, to sentencing.

Have Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling yet spent a single night in prison?

of course drawing firm conclusions from prison populations would assume many things. but i think, on a macro scale, the US justice system is generally fair on issues of race... even though i'm sure there are plenty of specific cases to point to that show discrepencies.

i'd post more on this... but i don't want to threadjack. :)

How many specific cases would it take to convince you of the existence of larger problems? The United States legal system is rife with problems. I don't think they all necessarily have to do with race, but there are systemic problems.

I think you're too late. This thread was bashed in the head and thrown off a bridge long ago.

I suppose you have a source for this claim? and I wasn't blaming crime on minorities, I said that when you have those races, ethnicities, cultures, etc. clashing together, problems (such as hate groups, gangs, and so forth) will arise. So please stop twisting my words and let's not derail this thread any further, ok?

/end threadjack

Just out of curiousity, exactly how am I twisting your words by saying Canada has more minorities than the States? I didn't say anything derogatory, and it's the truth. Ever see "Bowling for Columbine"? Michael Moore touches upon it there. As well, there are many immigrants who choose to come to Canada for reasons such as them being from countries that have French as a primary language (Ethiopia, Haiti, Morocco, etc), as well as for others.

For the love of......you were twisting my words by saying that I was blaming crime on minorities, which I wasn't. And please don't use "bowling for columbine" as a source, because many claims in that movie (including the one about Canada supposedly having more minorities than the US) have been debunked.
www.bowlingfortruth.com
www.moorewatch.com
www.moorexposed.com

I responded the way I did because Daniel was implying that crime in the US is high because "you can buy handguns at wal mart" which is bullshit because I've never seen handguns being sold at a wal mart, and listed many possible factors as to why crime is higher in the US, and to prevent the thread from being completely derailed into a discussion about gun control, American society, and so on.

Now that we're done here, can we please drop the subject already and move on with the actual topic here?

Well, I'll jump in and through in my 2 cents. A little story that happened to me in Japan. I was on a ship that pulled intoa port in northern Japan. No US ship had pulled in there in somethin like 40 years or such. Anyway, it was a pretty big deal. When we pulled in their was lots of media coverage, a couple of local goverment figures there to meet us, and a couple hundred Japaness protesters right behind them with anti-US military signs all over the place. Very calm and orginzed, I should point out. They just stood here and chanted a bit, then packed up and quitely went home. very civil in their protest. Anyway, me and some buddies when out to a coupel bars after we got off ship to sit and relax. This Japaness guy starts talking to us, and thorugh the course of the converstaion it came out he was one of the protesters (This is after he had bought us all a round of beers, BTW). He went out of his way to let us know it wasn't us as Americans that he had a problem with, just the big gray thing covered in guns we showed up on. I can dig this point of view. I understand fully why some people don't like us, haveing seen what happens when you have a bar full of American dumb asses overseas. Many, many times I watched these people and was embaressed to be fromt he same counrty as them. Given a choise, there is no place else I would rather be from (Well, maybe Japan. I miss Japan), but I think one of the big problems right now is the American view of "bringing democricy to the world". I love it, think it is a great sytem, but some places, it just not needed or wanted. I think we need to be a little less forcfull in pushing or vews, MUCH more forceful in kicking the crap out of anyone that screws with us, and EXTREAMLY forceful in just helping countries that are really fucked up and need our help in nonmiltary fasions. building a school or a hospital has a longer lastin effect then buildign a bomb, and costs a lot less.

I'm not trying to pick on splck here, just using this quote as an example...

Many of the Non-American responses here lead me to believe that most non-americans typically believe that the individual American citizen is ill informed or just ignorant of the problems around us.

I'd just like to ask a question...

Where are the Non-Americans getting their opinions from? The facts and figures that you are using? I would bet that your opinion is greatly influenced by those same sources that Americans just get "spoon fed" from. As far as the Americans you have met - certainly you can't judge an entire country - with a population of just under 296 million people - by the relatively few Americans you have met.

Granted, our textbooks and media sources likely are biased - but I think you would be very hard pressed to find any that aren't, at least in some particular area.

I struggle to put this eloquently... but, for those of you that have a Holier than Thou attitude towards Americans - especially because you believe Americans have the same attitude toward the rest of the world - are pretty much hypocrites.

I am not trying to defend everything America does - nor do I agree with it, but we are all a product of our environment. Simply because the average American doesn't seem too keen on world events doesn't necessarily mean that we think we are better than anyone else - it just means that world events have very, very little effect on everyday American life. Most wars or political conflicts pass by the average American without notice - if we do notice, it's typically just because of the extensive television coverage or a rise in gas prices. We don't see the war torn nations - or people - up front and personally, they are simply more statistics on top of an already ridiculously long list of tragic news.

Just figured I'd throw my two cents in...

Weeeeellll.... :rolleyes:

In the last hundred years Poland invaded Lithuania and the Czech Republic (twice). It's not like we don't do nasty shit.

As far as my earlier comment goes - I really tried not to generalize. I don't think all americans are like this. It's just that most of them I met outside the US were like that. Still, a great country and home to fine folks. Just.... not all of them.

America as a nation is well known for its crazy lawsuits, tasteless vulgarity*, lack of history and a corrupt military/economic/media/justice/political system that throws up such wonders as the Schivao case, a President being put on trial because of his sexual antics, Bhopal, 'Friendly' fire, another President who used the word 'Crusade' while trying to gain the support of Muslims, 40 years of paranoia during the Cold War and a blundering, blunt stick of a military that is more famous for its defeats (Pearl Harbour, Vietnam, Bin Ladin and in time, Iraq) than it is for its victories. Then there are the American people, overweight, ignorant, vacuous, conformist consumers of all the crap they are sold on TV. When they go abroad, they complain that there are not enough McDonaldses, or that the people don't speak good enough English, or that things just aren't big enough out here.

They have no real sense of history, so they pay money to go to Disney world where they get someone else's idea of what having a history and a culture might actually be like, but everything is fake and unreal and without substance.

Americans thrive on this fakery, and believe in things that people in other parts of the world would laugh at out of hand. Where else in the world might you meet people who have been abducted by, and now offer (for a small fee) to establish communications with aliens, or psychic pet therapists, or TV evangelicalists, or Scientologists or Moonies or the Branch Davidians or the Baptists who claim that God 'hates fags' or the KKK or Californians. Then there's Hollywood, the cult of celebrity (which unfortunately is catching on Worldwide), Schwarzenegger holding a position of governmental office, the Jackson trial, the OJ trial(s). Michael Jackson. Star Trek conventions, learning Klingon, inventing new races to gloss over the difficult issues with the ones already there. It's just crazy.


E Pluribus Unum my arse, more like Persevero Emo Vestri Somnium.




At the same time, there are lots of good things about America. For example many of the people there were originally British. ;)

*also, they are widely known for not understanding irony, or humour that otherwise employs words that say one thing while actually conveying something else - hence the requirement for me to add this note at this time to state that at this point my tongue is lodged firmly in my cheek. I actually love America, Americans and all (well OK, some) things American.

With respect to Canada v US minority wise, about 15% of the Canadian population is identified as a visible minority, somewhat less than the US. More Canadians are immigrants, however, AFAIK.