Ahh! I see that Byzantine has addressed this issue in the Pit:
http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000648.html
I still think its a group, not a single poster–but what a group!
Tom~
God Bless AOL, eh? Grin
The U.S. is our ally, our trading partner, our neighbour and our friend, and sometimes we’d like to give them such a smack.
-Rick Mercer
Loose screws rattle around every nation; only here do they command a platoon’s worth of firepower to unleash on five-year-olds.
-Harold Meyerson
The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing.
-Gamal Abdel Nasser
The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to everybody and still nobody likes him.
-Jim Samuels
United States: … A nation given either to unjustified over-enthusiasms or infantile furies.
-John Ralston Saul, “United States”, The Doubter’s Companion
[T]hree of [Newt Gingrich’s] “Five Principles of American Civilization” deal with business, technology, and organization - all characteristics of work. There is no mention of liberty or equality or, for that matter, of democracy.
-John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization
America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair.
-Arnold Toynbee
The great P.J. O’Rourke addressed this after being subjected to incessant anti-Americanism from people who should know better, the Europeans. In “Holidays From Hell”, he told his tormentor that you could roll Germany, France and Spain together and it wouldn’t give us enough room to park our cars, that we have American Express card credit limits higher than their pis-ant metric numbers go, that the reason nobody ever invaded the US is because no needle-dicked foreigners have the guts to try, that we buy more things than you know the names of, that he would rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than than the king or queen of all you europeans. His tormentor then gave PJ a shabby, superior eurpean smile. At which, PJ observed “don’t these people have dentists”.
I think P.J. O’Rourke is a gas and I also think that when he wants to be serious, as in “All the Trouble in the World” and “Eat the Rich”, he has some very valid points. But let me point out that in his anti-European diatribe in “Holidays in Hell”, he was kidding. Joking. Not being serious. He was pissed off at the Europeans over their reaction to the US bombing of Libya in 1986 and gave them hell, which they pretty much deserved for their general wimpiness regarding terrorism. On the other hand, it’s tough to blame the Europeans for being afraid of terrorism when it was something happening in their back yard rather than in ours. And, of course, P.J. is a satirist, so you can’t say he really meant to condemn the Europeans, any more than you can say he meant to condemn the Americans in the several pointed pieces he directed at the US in “Holidays in Hell”, not to mention the torch job he did on our political system in “Parliament of Whores”.
Looking back, P.J. probably really did mean to slam all of us, Americans and Europeans, big-time in everything he wrote. Well, he’s an equal-opportunity slammer, then.
This belongs in the pit thread, but I wanted to point out that it’s quite interesting that the MarkSerlin conglomerate has been quite silent the past few days. Maybe he went back on his meds.
To get back to the OP:
I have done some travelling in Ecuador, Western Europe, and the Near East. I have found that locals tend to react to the way you act. If you’re a jerk, you’re treated as such, just as in the US. Cultural differences might amplify this.
Given that the Olympics are winding down I’d like to see how the Australians feel about Americans versus other tourists during the games. Better? Worse? What you expected? Specific examples would be appreciated.
Just a question. How can this thread have more post than views?
What, you think people actually look at a thread before they post to it? ::tsk:: How naive. 
Actually, this thread is so old that it’s been around since before we converted to Vbb, and the old system didn’t track “views”, or if it does they don’t convert over. Opengrave has an appropriate name, since he unearthed this thread over six months after its last post.
This thread is ridiculous, so naturally, I had to reply.
Americans are so disliked because we perceive ourselves to be the Big Man on Campus. Hell, so do I. I’m reasonably aware of world history and current events, and more so of American history and current events. Some posters seem to think this is wrong, but frankly, I think I should know more about the American Constitution than its parallel in Sweden. It’s more relevant to me and my situation. Should I travel to Sweden, I suspect I shall bone up on general knowledge about Sweden.
Truly, regional pride is purely arbitrary. I love Chicago - don’t want to live anywhere else - and could rattle off a long list of reasons why. If I was born/raised in Fargo, I’m sure I would be able to provide a similar list. Why am I a Cubs fan? Obviously not because of their stellar performance, but because I was raised to be. I’ve often wondered why Texans seem to think Texas is such hot shit – been there, was underwhelmed – and many (namely, my boyfriend) can’t really say why it’s BETTER than anyplace else, they’re just convinced of its greatness. Same with America – sure, I could give Europeans and Asians and Africans list of why we’re such hot shit, but it would mean nothing to you, because those things aren’t important to you. It’s a matter of loving what’s familiar. I’m fascinated with other countries, other cultures, and respect them, but I feel at home here. And that’s why it’s so great for me. That’s why I still get teary-eyed at ballgames when the anthem plays – my country, my home.
Does this remind anyone of Douglas Adams and the dolphins? Man always considered themselves the most intelligent species on Earth because of wars, New York and such. Dolphins considered themselves the most intelligent for exactly the same reasons.
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- Americans are disliked elsewhere because we rule, and every piss-ant towel-head wobbly goblin knows it. And they bitch about it, until they get a US visa and they come here and make more money here pulling 3rd shift at 7-11 than they ever did back home. - MC
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Thanks guadere for the answer and yes I am naive. You should at least peek at all the stuff before you post.
Individual americans seem O.K. (with exceptions, of course),
but get them in a group of 3 or more and they dumb down, really down, to the level of their exported TV garbage.
What is this compulsion, to shout stupid things at each other(as per sienfelt, jim carey et al).
A lot of people world wide get sick of a country that says its the gratest, but has absurd gunlaws, the death penalty(how primative, yuk) and panders to fundamentalists.
P,S, You have lots of people who believe in creationism, so your education system can’t be that hot.
And Europe has a number of scientists who keep rejecting Darwin while failing to come up with enough evidence to actually support any alternative theories. Creationism is based on belief (either religious belief or a failure to accept that random variations can produce meaningful changes); it is not a sytmptom of educational problems.
Gaudere, David? Could we kill this thread? If the spiteful Yank-bashers or the mindless America-firsters want to go at it, let them do it in a new thread. The reasonable people already had a go at this months ago.
The mind boggles!!!
Nearly all crtetionism stuff comes straight from the states
And you wonder why americans are thought to be dumb.
This thread was a pain the first time around. Ans already, I see new name-callers posting to it.
Mods, will you help it out of our misery ?
S. Norman
This thread was a pain the first time around. And already, I see new name-callers posting to it.
Mods, will you help it out of our misery ?
S. Norman
On an Olympic tangent, I found this article interesting about the behavior of American atheletes and how they’re perceived by everybody else:
I’ve always been fortunate because I’m usually confused for Italian, Greek, Latin-American, Middle Eastern, etc. in appearance, so when I’m in Europe, I’m not treated with the same level of contempt I sometimes see toward my fellow Americans (though I will admit my distinctly non-“American” behavior helps).
I think its funny amid all this mud slinging that no one has mentioned that much of this sentiment could be created/antagonized by the foreign press.
In France stories of how Lance Armstrong’s use of performance enhancing drugs sold like hot cakes.
So, of course, do stories of how all the British soccer fans are so violent.
The media needs to sell stories. I’m sure that plays at the very least a small role.