Apple pie okay?
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
Ok now you two lost me. Explain. 
Apples just fine…errr will Mr Ivylass be home?
just asking is all
My ancestors, the ones I identify with, turned up before the USA was invented.
Should you or your ilk invade the UK - I would butcher you, without qualms and without difficulty.
We are an old nation, surrounded by other old nations, we really do not need degenerates like the chimp to tell us what to do.
As it happens, the future is mapped out, and the USA is rather peripheral.
Ok got it, I had the idea it was a joke about some weird cultural difference I had no idea of. Apparantly its 10x as simple. :smack:
Very cool. 
My question was aimed at constanze. If he could stop wearing his M16 helmet and liederhosen for five minutes (as all Germans do, invariably, at all times – hey, I saw it in The Producers), he could address the question.
Not that far from a cultural joke, actually. We have a saying that somesuch or other is “as American as apple pie, baseball, and mother.” Because as we all know, Europeans eat no apple pie, do not play baseball, and evidently have no mothers.
Or something like that.
Every culture has a dark side, because cultures are made up of people.
Part of the bad side of American culture is that you get a good number of greedy or materialistic people. But I could say bad things about any culture and be sort of right about some segment of the population.
The English are stuffy (or yobs, depending on whom you’re talking about).
The French want success without the work.
The Italians are corrupt.
The Dutch are druggies.
The Swedish are so polite they give in at the wrong times.
Etc.
How accurate are these? Only kinda, right? Are you comfortable being lumped in like that?
Right sometimes I think I might as well fry my brains because there not working properly…
Whoosh!
I’m not so sure. Is any former colonial power, and I certainly include the U.S. in this statement, completely free from responsibility when, after we leave the country to its own devices, things just go to hell there? Mugabe is admittedly not an example of this, but are we not normally implicated by leaving in place an exploitive overclass that cares little for the progress of the country as a whole?
Sorry, the “whoosh” was directed at FRDE.
Totally wrong, ya xenophobic bastard.
The English sit around in bowler hats sipping tea and saying “Cheerio, old chap.”
Same with the French, except substitute bourees, wine, and “Mon dieu!”
Italians talk with their hands and eat speecy spicy meatballs.
The Swedish, when they are not chefs (Bork bork bork!) are always trying to yump on someone’s yiminy.
Can’t argue with your assessment of the Dutch, however. 
I think constanze might be of the female persuasion…
Germans often view Americans with some suspicion because an American’s overt friendliness is often equalled to inherent shallowness. After all, you greet each other with “How are you?” and then DO NOT EXPECT TO HEAR AN HONEST ANSWER!!! I’ve had this conversation with German friends numerous times and tried to explain that this phrase basically means “Hi”. They started eyeing me with suspicion after that. Incidentally, none of them had ever been to America.
Sometimes I think they only gather their data by observing clueless American tourists. I then usually point out that clueless German tourists aren’t much better (why do they insist on wearing Birkenstocks with socks???) and it’s the “tourist” part that should clue you in as to their mental state. That doesn’t seem to go over well either.
BTW I can take all your prejudices against Germans in stride (after all, I own and occasionally wear a Dirndl, no M16 helmet, though) - but I draw the line at David Hasselhoff and his singing career. Don’t even go there.
I must agree with his assessment as well, everyone I know is on drugs.
Ps. Don’t forget to turn your sarcasm/humor sensors on.
As the old joke goes:
In heaven, you eat French cuisine, have an Italian lover, drive on roads run by British policemen, and are defended by the German army.
In hell, you eat English cuisine, have a German lover, drive on roads run by Italian policemen, and are defended by the French army.
Well, no, it’s fact. Europe left; tyranny remained. You can’t deny the timeline, nor can you deny that European powers had something to do with the social mess they left behind. The very borders of Africa are in large part a European invention and a serious problem.
Of course it’s true that Robert Mugabe is not the fault of anyone but Robert Mugabe and all that, but the previous poster, constanze, was blaming all this on THE UNITED STATES. Which is REALLY stupid, because the USA had nothing to do with colonizing Africa. At least Europe had something to do with it.
Where did you get this idea, and why do you assume that most Americans disrespect those with lower paying jobs? I think that’s quite an unfair generalization.
Funny that you speak of ones who don’t know how people live in other countries. But seriously, somebody mentioned earlier that these are your perceptions. Many Americans SEEM to yadda yadda yadda. During the World Cup, I read a few stories about how there are blatant acts of racism at soccer matches in Germany. Now it seems to me that there are a lot of racists in that country. Would I be correct in assuming that most Germans are racists?
You’re twisting Rick’s words around. He never stated that her sole success is monetary. He listed her accomplishments as attending college on scholarships, earning a Master’s degree, and, yes, owning a house. Ownership of a house doesn’t just equate to wealth. It means you have a stable place to live and/or raise a family, among other things.
Glad that Freelancer changed his mind about us, or at least decided to give us a second chance.
Not to pile on, but I have to re-emphasize what others said that the American Dream is not just about materialism. It’s about making a better life for yourself and your children, very often in an immigrant context. I know a family that moved here 20 years ago from South Korea with practically nothing; they worked hard, opened a laundry, and saved their money, and while they still live very humbly, their kids have gone on to have great educations, careers, and opportunities far beyond what their parents could have had. The point in that is not that their kids will be rich someday (one of their kids wants to become an academic, and will likely never be rich), but that they had greater opportunities than having to work in a laundry. I think that qualifies as the American Dream much more than the Long Island family with the huge house and the new Lexus. And even if one of their kids decides to take over the family laundry, and carves out a nice space for himself, that would qualify as the American Dream too, even if it meant he did the same work as his parents.
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.