Those Stupid Americans…
I was reminded the other day of how hated we Americans are. An admittedly stupid website was reporting that Pippi Longstocking is a Satanic character, and the visiting Swedes (Sweden being the country of Pippi’s origin) let their opinions fly:
- Another stupid American; the world is full of them!
- You’re probably a stupid American áššhølë!
- I wipe my ášš with the American flag and spit in your face.
Being an American myself, I was curious as the sentiment of others. So I decided to find some additional opinions by searching the Internet with Google, spelling (or lack thereof) intact:
- “The only thing Americans can teach is how to corrupt countries and take their money. All Americans are is greety báštárdš.” - I think countries have been corrupting themselves for centuries without the help of the United States. Also, most people worldwide work hard to better themselves and provide as much as possible for their families. Americans included.
- “[The] US is the laughing stock of the world. American cars suck, American people are stupid, fat and ignorant, your technology sucks.” - Yes, spoken out of prejudice and ignorance, Americans can be conceived as being the laughing stock of the world. So would whichever country happens to be in the economic and military lead at the time. Some American cars do suck, but the Yugo hasn’t won too many awards that I’m aware of. Oddly, the fantasy car of choice when I lived in Germany as a child was a Pontiac. Yes, some Americans are stupid, fat and ignorant. So are some members of any other country in the world. If Microsoft products are a measurement of our technology, then, yes, it sucks. But I haven’t seen any other countries that provide the number of major innovations that have stemmed from America in the last hundred years.
- “Americans are full of šhìt. ignorant, yet stuppied people. they are bvery norrow minded and veyr materiolistic.” - I already agreed that sum Amurikanz ar bvery stuppied. But not all — the first spell checking software was invented at UC Berkeley in 1972 by an American.
- “You have a handful of smart and educated people who drive the country, and then you have this humongous blob of utterly clueless people who are hardly able to make a living.” - Can’t really argue with that. But the same can be said for just about every other nation in the world.
- “You are all non-sensical inbred morons.” - Actually I don’t personally know anyone who can be accused of resulting from inbreeding, although it may be common in certain areas of the country such as Tennessee (pronounced “Ken-tuck-ee”, if you’re from Tennesee). You think inbreeding didn’t occur within the European and Asian royals of the past?
- “Americans are generally loud and stupid.” - Yeah, I hate American tourists, too. Again, I’d qualify that as “some”, rather than generalizing the population as a whole.
- “U.S.A is the biggest šhìt hole.” - Seems that lots of people on the Internet are calling every other country on the planet the “biggest šhìt hole”, too, based on results from Google. I say we just all take a vote and decide once and for all. After all, that is the democratic way.
- “I thank God that I’m not a stupid ášš-fûçkìng American.” - I’m glad I’m not a stupid ášš-fûçkìng American, too! I’m just a plain American of average intelligence, eking out a living, trying to live my dreams.
I’d rather be considered a stupid American than have to resort to pointless name-calling in a vain attempt to gain national stature. I am hardly a Bible-toting born-again Christian, but I find it difficult to disagree with: “The proud and haughty man, ’scoffer’ is his name; He works in the arrogance of pride… When pride comes, then comes shame, But with humility comes wisdom.”
Dyslexia is not an excuse to ignore the entire point of the conversation, and yet you persist… - RDL
It’s kind of funny that foreign people would say stuff like that when we, the Americans, migrated over here from Europe about three hundred years ago, maybe less (I was never good in History). So if that’s what they have to say about us, they better take a very close look at themselves, because guess what, WE CAME FROM EUROPE! The Natives were here first for god sakes. It’s amazing how ignorant and naive some people can be. What I’m saying is, all over the world, every country has their crazies.
People emmigrated 300 years ago. That’s 9 generations, alot of time for people to change attitudes. America is a very wealthy country and this has gone to the population’s head. Arrogance, in terms of how you visage the rest of the world, is a major problem in America.
Americans are brill. They give us great movies and great fashion so stop slagging, Emma.
Whoa, Emma! Listen, what I am saying is EVERYWHERE you go, there is Arrogance. I understand why people in other countries are saying those things about us. I never said I hated them for it! As a matter of fact, I love Europeans a lot more than I do Americans. The fact is, some people need to see it’s not the people, but in fact the government. Then again, people make the government, but the leaders in the government make the devistation (my spelling’s bad). There are Americans around who would rather live elsewhere.
And arrogance enables you to stereotype the entire population of a nation the size of Europe to simple, single adjectives like “homicidal”… One of this generation’s Jamaicans was the homicidal sniper on the East coast. Should I classify Jamaicans as homicidal? And the Young Offenders Institution in West London has suggested a link between dyslexia and crime, that offenders were more likely to be dyslexic than the rest of the population. Should I classify all dyslexic Brits as criminals? As I’ve mentioned umpteen times, I do not believe such classification is justifiable. - RDL
There are alot of very stupid people around the world. The majority wallow in their stupidity believing they are in some way superior. In the former Yugoslavia they have been slaughtering people on the basis of ethnicity for centuries. How sad and sick and depraved are they ? Saddam killed Kurds, so did the Turks. Israel has such a simple thing to do to avoid bloodshed ie withdraw from the occupied territories, but they dont. How stupid. Men of religion use their perverted sense of religion to go and wage war and wreak havoc all over the world. The problem is that the most powerful country in the world seems to be mixed up in so many of those scenarios. When a warlord was refining Heroin for shipment to the US, his whole business was aided by the CIA because he ‘held off the communist threat’. So loads of US civilians died horrible addicts deaths as a result. When Iran was fighting Iraq, the US backed Iraq (Saddam) and then sold weapons to the Iranians in contrvention of the law, and used that money to back a dictatorship in South America. A large number of american citizens dont realise what goes on in the world. They have no idea of even where these countries are. So many people say ‘kill the ragheads’ and then go and attack any brown face they see. Racism is part of the fabric of society in America. Italians, Irish, Poles, Koreans, Jews, Chinese, French, and black, they all hate each other, and take up any excuse to persecute or abuse in order to aquire a sense of superiority. There must be a national sense of insecurity in a country that is always trying to find a new reason to say ‘we are the best’. I mean Chilli dogs and hersheys chocolate ? Baseball ? American Football (where blokes play rugby with cushions on)? There are thousands of people alive and well in the US who were stringing up black men ad raping black women, who told the authorities that they suspected their neighbours we communist sympathisers and lost them their livelihood (very stalinist by the way). There is no body of humanity so large and so powerful in the world that believes what they read in the newspaper. With so many resources, how many people are living in poverty. The biggest industrialised nation in the world that refuses to sign a treaty on the rights of children. And the citizens are largely ‘dont know, dont wanna know’. That is why they give the impression of stupidity. But anyone who thinks they are superior should check themselves, because stupidity and apathy is not restricted to the US. Its a global problem.
Phew, I shold write speeches.
As you say, Paul, stupidity and apathy are not restricted to the U.S. Too many people point fingers at U.S. policy (and it deserves to get pointed at) but decline to point the fingers inward at the residual damage left in the world from their own countries’ histories of “foibles” (if the historical misery inflicted on the peoples of the world by the British Empire, the Australian treatment of aboriginal peoples, and the constant and ever-present African religious and tribal ethnic cleansing, etc., etc., ad infinitum, can be referred to as “foibles”). The human propensity for both great evil and great good knows no national boundaries.
Fingerpointing gets nothing done. If ALL the people in the industrialized world used even half the time they normally spend blamestorming, b*tching and moaning, to volunteer a bit and help make little improvements, the world would be a better place (and a quieter one).
That American citizens are largely “don’t know, don’t want to know” on child poverty is a little unfair. There are certainly such people (and many of them call themselves “Christians,” much to my disgust) and in no small numbers, but on the flip side there are a great deal of us who care passionately.
Child poverty is an ugly stain on all modernized nations (Scotland leads the numbers in Europe, Canada has alarming rates of it).
On a brigher note, looks like Senator John Kerry (Democrat, Massachusetts) is stirring for a 2004 presidential bid. Keep your fingers crossed that we can correct the present untenable situation in a mere two years.
Homo sapiens, the modern product of the family Hominidae. How ironic that the term sapiens is Latin for wise, rational. Finding wisdom or rationality in modern society is akin to finding a fart in a bubble bath.
If the humans of the world want to use “identity” as a qualitative measurement for biological value, then let us more closely examine this process. It is important to establish that the human species can not truly be defined by nationality whereas geography has little impact on genetic structure outside of natural selection. Whether a homo sapien was conceived in Europe or on the hood of a 1979 Cadillac with expired Arizona plates, the product will in fact be Homo sapien. All Homo sapiens can be characterized not only by physiological traits, but also by behavioral traits forgivingly classified as “human nature.” However, human nature is merely a euphemism for violence, fear and intolerance. It is my belief that all humans share a desire to exist above violence and are prepared to use force to achieve it. They might eagerly embrace a society free of fear, but are afraid it is not possible. They might even choose to eradicate intolerance if it were not for those with differing opinions on the subject. Yes, humans are indeed indistinguishable regardless of geography.
Throughout history, it is nigh impossible to find a civilization free from the traits people of one nationality use to dámn the other. They have all participated in war, selfishness, religious intolerance, and deceit. However, it is worth noting that I failed to produce any real evidence of major Eskimo participation in global decay, but there were nasty rumors of whale skin lingerie and unbridled envy breeding much nonsense and commotion.
So let us not forget, no matter what the “nationality,” the common link is there and all have contributed something to the soured soil from which modern society sprang. Japanese expansion is Southeast Asia, Russia’s Iron Curtain, British Imperialism, African genocide, Middle Eastern violence, Europe’s Third Reich, South American guerrillas or North America’s economic expansion and the resulting greed are all key ingredients to the biological delicacy called Homo Sapiens.
Despite some of the more glaring inaccuracies, I have enjoyed reading this discussion. I take issue at the US gaining its “superpower” status after the American Spanish conflict - regardless that this analysis may come from the University of Queensland, but agree that WWII is overstated as the historical point at which the US departed from the ‘isolationism’ that was a purported hallmark of US foreign policy up to circa 1940 (Central America and Southeast Asia would rightly argue that there was no US isolationism). I think that a lot of the arguments here have been at crossed purposes. I do not like the ‘nation’ of USA, but cannot comment on each American citizen. It is indisputable that successive US governments have sought to impose the US ideology upon other nations with little regard as to whether these nations desired such an imposition. Of course this is not unique to the US, but they are the most persistent offenders of late, and it has to be said that as a nation the US is a little out of control. I think it slightly strange that American citizens should persist in excusing the actions of their leaders when it is patently obvious that the US government, like most governments, is morally bankrupt and extremely dangerous. I think it is this refusal to be critical that rankles with Europeans and non-westerners (sorry Oz, but I kind of bundled you in with Europeans). There are many Americans who are saying, without qualification, that US foreign policy is wrong and dangerous and that the US has expansionist designs (Chomsky, Moore, Biafra, Schiller, Zinn, etc.). Your government has done more to pollute, starve, oppress, exploit and kill (in great numbers) than any other nation in the past 50 or so years. As has been pointed out the rest of the world’s nations have also had a pop at the killing, starving, oppressing game, but the US is currently the world leader and so it is to the US that our attention is turned. Obviously there are caring and compassionate Americans, as there are Syrians, Palestinians, etc. I don’t understand why so many Americans feel the need to defend the indefensible actions of your government. The US government is the moral equivalent of a serial killer, and, yes, the US public is partly responsible for its continued actions. This does not mean that the UK government is on some moral high-ground: Blair is complicit in the barbarism, and the UK public must share that responsibility. Bottom line is most of the world DOES NOT want to be American or live in America and would rather not have to endure the cultural, militaristic and economic US imperialism.
As for the constant, and often erroneous, references to history, both US and European, I suggest that people take a harder look at both histories before sweeping statements are derived from them. As for Americans being stupid? Yes, any American who defends their government is stupid for they refuse to think about what they are defending and that is stupid. The same is true in any nation, but it is the US that is bringing the world to the edge of global war and so the anger and hatred will be more potent when directed against the US. It’s not personal, many people just want the US to go back home and sort out its own considerable problems, rather than spying, starving, bombing, torturing and buying the rest of the world. P.S. I wonder why Americans have so much faith in their military ’solutions’ when the history of America’s “wars” (whether on drugs or peasants in Nicaragua and Vietnam) are marked by a signal lack of success and an appallingly high body count…