It’s a message board run by an American company, based off a column started in an American newspaper, where a probable majority of the posters are American, and the official language is English. Get over yourself.
True Americans don’t have time to figure out riddles or apologize! It’s always go-go-go!
I hate to break this to the OP, who possibly has never left this country and spent a significant time in another country talking to people (and no, a 1-week vacation or a Carnival Cruise doesn’t count), but folks in other countries have just as much, if not more, ignorance of what happens in the US. I’ve been told things about US government operations by educated French people that any intelligent 5th-grader or highly trained US gibbon could have refuted. I’ve been told things about the US economy by intelligent Spanish people which are entirely false. Same with Poland, same with Italy, same with South American countries, etc. And I’ve spent…good grief, I don’t know how long, trying to refute legends and made-up “facts” about the US in the United Kingdom.
I remember during the Bush/Gore post-election drama being told authoritatively by French people while I was in France that “the United States has no President! They will have to re-write their Constitution or have a revolution now!” I was actually asked in seriousness if my passport would still be “good” to return home. I was also told that Florida was going to “secede” from the United States, an act made easier by the fact it was an island… 
In Poland, I was told that “more than 90% of the population of the United States lives in New York or California.” And when I ask them what they know about Kansas - a piece of land about the size of England and Wale combined - the average Briton is hard-pressed to know anything other than “Wizard of Oz!” (as a sidebar, it’s still disheartening when a tornado flattens a trailer park in Georgia and Fierra’s mother sees it on the BBC and calls her to know if she’s “alright.” “Yes mother,” she says sarcastically, “it was only 2,000 kilometers away from us, so things were pretty dicey!”)
It’s the same situation - they don’t know jack shit about this country, but by God they want to have their say.
You funny. 真好笑.
The “I’m so smart/cultured/whatever and you’re all knuckle-dragging assholes” circle-jerk is played out on this message board, fwiw.
In fairness, we know more about your politics (generally) than you know about ours. I can’t think of anyone I know who would think Florida was an island (it is, after all, America’s wang), or that the presidential election would cause a revolution, but the Kansas thing is probably true (what else does Kansas do anyway? Or Missouri? There’s some States that seem to do nothing. All I know about Delaware is that someone crossed a river that is presumably nearby:o)).
We would have a fair idea of how things work over there at the higher levels, but which a huge ignorance of the lower levels of your government (you seem to elect judges in some places, which would seem a recipe for disaster to many of us), and you are seen as far more homogeneous than you really are.
Side note: It is only an American, who, after a trip around Europe, would enthuse about her trip to Rome by talking about the cool McDonald’s with waiters that was there, and not mention the Colosseum.
EDIT: The French have an opinion on everything - I wouldn’t pay much attention.
I think this is what the OP is taking about.
The commentators here are talking through their hats, applying American norms and memes to the ads of another country (the commentator eve refers to the black West Indians as ‘African Americans’:rolleyes:).
Anyone with a basic knowledge of Australian sports (which I don’t possess, but which I looked up), knows that this ad was not racist.
I gua-ran-fuckin’-tee you’ll find people that retarded in any country.
I’m not sure why you would be annoyed that a thread asking if anyone was worried about a eurozone meltdown would draw responses from the American perspective. As an American, such a meltdown doesn’t mean jack shit to me outside of its effect on the US economy.
From the second thread I linked to:
Well, that’s certainly annoying, but look at the respondents you’re dealing with.
Americans?
Let’s see: the vice-president was a senator from DE. DE it’s a paradise for financial companies due to their tax free and laisser-faire attitude if these companies do not do business withing DE, which means that a disproportionate number of companies are register there (I know firsthand). And well, comedians always ask themselves if such place exist. So I know three things.
What do you know about the lackluster parts of my country (you in general)? Of course we are small and fairly insignificant, but I am sure more people outside the US know more about the US than the other way around.
And men. All men are assholes.
They’re probably white too. All white people are obnoxious morons.
The Dominican Republic? Pshaw. Why, I happen to know that it is a nation on the island of Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries. Both by area and population, the Dominican Republic is the second largest Caribbean nation (after Cuba), with 48,442 square kilometres (18,704 sq mi) and an estimated 10 million people.
Inhabited by Taínos since the seventh century, the territory of the Dominican Republic was reached by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, namely Santo Domingo, the country’s capital and Spain’s first capital in the New World. In Santo Domingo stand, among other firsts in the Americas, the first university, cathedral, and castle, the latter two in the Ciudad Colonial area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
(Well, if you accept that Wikipedia is my second brain, I potentially know it.)
Riiight. I don’t buy this. If I went to a McDonald’s that had waiters, I would probably mention that, too; no shame in that. I don’t beleive your average American would go to Rome, visit the Collosseum and find that less noteworthy.
I’d have to agree with Una that there’s at least as much ignorance about America among non-Americans, sometimes frighteningly so given the level of obsession about the U.S. that prevails in some circles.
And when it comes to American Dopers drawing parallels between a foreign crisis and events in their own land, well whoop-de-doo. That’s extremely common among non-U.S. posters lending their wisdom to discussion of American events.
Thanks to stories in various domestic media in the last few weeks, I know far more about the Greek government and economy than I would’ve thought possible (or desirable). Hey EU! How about getting this shit worked out before the rest of my retirement investments go back into the dumper again?
I have seen the collosseum. Actually, I got arrested outside it at four in the morning with 8 others, wearing only a toga, but I digress.
If I was chatting with friends, they arent really interested in me slabbering about the big ruins in the middle of Rome. They have seen Gladiator, they dont care how well I describe it. And why would they, it wasnt them who got to see it.
A McDonalds though. They have all seen a McDonalds. And now you can tell them about one with asswiping waiters??? Blow me but thats a momentary diversion from the gloom of Irish life, thats the story I am telling.
Maybe its an Irish thing. A guy pontificating about the beauty of the Mona Lisa or Uluru, well thats a guy heading for a verbal smackdown. Over here our stories have to be odd, funny or interesting. Saying you seen something and liked just isnt enough.
So you want to not allow people to relate with something with which they are more familiar.
Guess, what Einstein? That’s how we learn! Every single bit of knowledge you have you learned by associating it with something else. Even rote memorization often requires mnemonics. We’re relational creatures. That’s what we do.
So while you have a facade of despising American ignorance, you are actually encouraging them to remain ignorant.
Great job.
But the US is only one country and the rest of the world is almost 200. It’s mildly irritating to me when I meet someone from say, the Netherlands, who gets up in arms that they know more about American politics than I know about Dutch politics. Look, I can’t be an expert on every country’s individual political situation. Give me a fucking break.
I know that what you’re getting at is that Americans tend to be insular and ignorant of the world’s political situation at large, but in real life, that’s not how these conversations tend to play out.