# Irrational dislike off Americans **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 8, 2006, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888 "2006-09-08T08:05:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/61 "2006-09-08T17:32:40Z")
By the way, the US is the only country in the world that is a net CO2 sink; that is, its forest fix carbon faster than CO2 is produced. This can mainly be attributed to the regrowth of forest in the eastern US. ---
**Author:** ![Freelancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@Freelancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freelancer)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/62 "2006-09-08T17:34:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Glad that Freelancer changed his mind about us, or at least decided to give us a second chance. I’m glad I changed my mind as well. lol > [@](#): > > There are perfectly legitimate things you can criticize Americans about; I’m not an apologist for the place. But I do get sick of some Europeans (not just pointing at you, Freelancer) who think they know the US inside and out and have our number before ever so much as stepping foot in our country. Yeah I figured out by now that people are not talking to me about this anymore. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/63 "2006-09-08T17:35:11Z")
[QUOTE=Freelancer] Ok now you two lost me. Explain. 😉 [/QUOTE] It’s a joke about what America is all about…Mom, Apple Pie, and Baseball. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/64 "2006-09-08T17:39:52Z")
Why do people always think that people who are better off than them are irredeemably materialistic? Germans think Americans are materialistic; Italians think Germans are materialistic; North Africans think Italians are materialistic; and so on. And in all these cases, the poorer one thinks they alone have found the right mix of material comfort and humanity – _we_ value human life; _we_ think happiness can’t be bought, unlike _those_ rich bastards… [QUOTE=costanze] It was a half-joke, because many Americans seem to have never left the suburbs and don’t know how the poor and minorities in their own country live, let alone people in other countries. [/QUOTE] This is laughable coming from a German. Ever hear of the Turkish ghettoes in your own country? I have an African-American friend who has lived in several countries, and said he never felt more discriminated against than when he was in Germany – and that _includes_ his time living in a small town in rural Japan, which you would have expected would have been much more racist. I think there’s something in your eye, friend. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/65 "2006-09-08T17:45:27Z")
[QUOTE=Rodgers01] Why do people always think that people who are better off than them are irredeemably materialistic? [/QUOTE] I think that’s wealth envy. ---
**Author:** ![Einmon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Einmon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Einmon)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/66 "2006-09-08T17:46:41Z")
It’s a common perception: Our media usually portrays the “American Dream” as an endless pursuit of material goals while waylaying gazillions of people in trailer parks with no savings, living off raccoons they shoot in the wilderness (all Americans being heavily armed) etc. Then again, they portray everything as being really bleak - German media does not allow for much optimism. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/67 "2006-09-08T17:54:57Z")
[QUOTE=Einmon] I think **constanze** might be of the female persuasion… [/QUOTE] Ah, so she looks like the St. Pauli girl, then? Sehr gut! ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/68 "2006-09-08T17:57:40Z")
[QUOTE=Einmon] It’s a common perception: Our media usually portrays the “American Dream” as an endless pursuit of material goals while waylaying gazillions of people in trailer parks with no savings, living off raccoons they shoot in the wilderness (all Americans being heavily armed) etc. Then again, they portray everything as being really bleak - German media does not allow for much optimism. [/QUOTE] The media slant can reach proportions that are laughable when it comes to particular aspects of American life, or particular places. _Der Spiegel_, years ago, had a special issue which compared city life in numerous places around the world; in the U.S., IIRC, only San Francisco and New York were barely tolerable. About my fair city of L.A. they had: (1) The section was titled, Pistol In Your Stocking. 'Nuff said. (2) In the first paragraph, a little girl is able to recognize a photograph of animal brain–because she’s seen real, human brains splattered on the concrete. (3) Smog…a man walks out of a house with a surgical mask over his lower face–Only, he happened to be a construction worker who needed the mask for occupational reasons. We don’t normally wear masks. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/69 "2006-09-08T18:26:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Again, I assume you’re just jerking our chains. Africa is entirely, one hundred percent EUROPE’S fault. Europe colonized Africa, Europe killed Africans by the zillions, and Europe pulled out in the post-war period and left famine and tyranny in their wake. Apart from Liberia! And the breakup of empire was an American foreign policy objective for much of the twentieth century! So it’s still all your fault! 😉 I’ve only been to Orlando and New York. NYC is an amazing city, Orlando not so much. I suppose neither is entirely typical though… ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/70 "2006-09-08T18:28:41Z")
Actually I’ve been to San Francisco and Houston too, but those visits only proved to me that airports, conference centres and hotel chain rooms are the same the world over. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/71 "2006-09-08T18:28:59Z")
It is wrong to stereotype Americans. Or Israelis. Or Iranians. Or Arabs. Or the French. The Dutch, though-- those guys are all alike. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/72 "2006-09-08T18:33:24Z")
[QUOTE=Struan] , Orlando not so much. [/QUOTE] Hey! How dare you! What the hell is wrong with Orlando? We have Disney, and we’re close to the beach, and the traffic isn’t bad if you’re driving at 2am… Okay…you may have a point. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/73 "2006-09-08T18:47:12Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] It is wrong to stereotype Americans. Or Israelis. Or Iranians. Or Arabs. Or the French. [/QUOTE] It’s wrong to stereotype any nationality. That’s what they do in Russia! ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/74 "2006-09-08T18:47:47Z")
[QUOTE=constanze] It was a half-joke, because many Americans seem to have never left the suburbs and don’t know how the poor and minorities in their own country live, let alone people in other countries. [/QUOTE] You have some extremely fundamental misunderstandings to the point of it being delusional. No one lives in a suburban area and rarely leaves it. That isn’t what suburbs even are. You have a house of your choice in the suburbs and then you leave it almost every day to explore the city and the greater world. That is why we have all those big cars remember? We all move around at will quite a lot starting at birth. We don’t have a class system and wealthy areas are next to poor ones all over the country. I don’t think you understand how much the average American moves around in the course of a day let alone their whole lives and how many people we interact with. We don’t worry about what subway tunnels connect to ours or what buses go where as a general rule. We just hop in our cars and go and for one person to travel more than 100 km a day and even twice that wouldn’t be unheard of as an average because your country is still isn’t the size of one of our larger states and we have 49 of them left over. We have a lot of room to move around in. It is impossible not to get to know people of every class and situation here. I am wondering what about your country leads you to believe this is possible in the U.S. We don’t always take a paternalistic attitude towards the poor. That is where the American Dream stuff comes into play. We expect able-bodied people to have both the will and the opportunity to move to better things so there is no need to label an able-bodied person as terminally poor when they may be your boss or landlord in 10 years. You are looking at the U.S. through some European kaleidoscope glasses and it sounds just plain odd. You might as well be describing the world of Narnia to us for the first time. ---
**Author:** ![Alistair\_McCello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/58956e/32.png) [@Alistair\_McCello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alistair_McCello)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/75 "2006-09-08T18:52:29Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > It’s wrong to stereotype any nationality. That’s what they do in Russia! In Soviet Russia American stereotypes you! ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/76 "2006-09-08T18:53:18Z")
In fact, isn’t ingrained classism more of a European thing? I don’t know enough about it, but I’d heard many times that the old class structure in Europe is very much alive and well. While we USAans don’t treat our poor all that great (and we resent the rich as well), we at least put on a facade of equality, and would find any true class discrimination to be pretty repugnant. I’m sensing some projection. ---
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/77 "2006-09-08T19:03:52Z")
- I wrote this two hours ago, then that stupid AMERICAN board gave up on me. Luckily, with my superiour EUROPEAN brain, I copied it, so here it is. 😃 \* [QUOTE=Freelancer] I think its partially because every action that America takes is talked about in the media to great lengths. [/QUOTE] Bingo. **Freelancer** and **Constanze** I was lucky enough to have actually _met_ a lot of Americans. With some I had difference of opinions. Just like I have with my fellow Dutch. ALL of them were [are] extremely kind\*, intelligent, generous and full of fun. You two ought to try them. They’re delicious. 😃 - By google searching the news, I often type in ‘Netherlands’, just to know what the world thinks of us. :dubious: Sometimes I get to read a local newspaper from a small town when the ‘Netherlands’ is there by coïncedence. [for example when someone’s family came from there] Some of these stories - like when a woman suddenly lost her husband and the whole town helped her with painting her house, collecting money for the funeral, baking applepies and lots of other NICE things - have me in tears, sometimes. Yes, I know that is probably a ‘small town’ thing, but still: WE don’t have that. Not even in small communities. Americans are KIND, goddamn it. Which is more than I can say about a lot of other peoples. Including the Dutch. Go read some of the small time papers, or go visit America. ---
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/78 "2006-09-08T19:07:11Z")
Hahahahaha. Read the Google ad about cussing. I think I need it. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/79 "2006-09-08T19:16:02Z")
[QUOTE=ivylass] Hey! How dare you! What the hell is wrong with Orlando? [/QUOTE] I’m sure that the natives are really nice, but I’m not sure that I met any that week! Tourist hell! But Disney world is really really great. I grinned like a loon for a week afterwards. But don’t tell my cool friends. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888/80 "2006-09-08T19:29:55Z")
I guess I just have a hard time imagining how a supposedly educated European could believe that a typical American was an obese racist materialistic warmongering fundamentalist christian who drives an SUV, lives in the suburbs, wears t-shirts, sweat pants and cowboy boots, eats nothing but McDonalds hamburgers, and whose job largely consists of shooting assault rifles at impoverished third world peasants. You could find obese americans, racist americans, materialistic americans, and on and on. But the picture is about as accurate as imaging a typical German is portly, beer-swilling, sausage-eating, lederhosen-wearing Prussian aristocrat with a monocle who lives in the black forest making Cuckoo clocks and listening to accordian music, all while blaming the Jews for stabbing the country in the back during WWI. Or a typical Frenchman is a cheese-eating, shower-hating, wine-sipping, existentialist mime who spends all day sitting in a cafe drinking cafe-au-lait because he’s on strike from his job at the Ministry of Bad Plumbing, complaining to the supercilious waiter that both his wife and his mistress are too bourgeouis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irrational-dislike-off-americans/371888.md?page=5)