Why are Americans so disliked worldwide?

Great Debates
81

Well, like Sentinel said, I think it was him, whenever any nation in the world gets into a jam, they call the US. When any nation starts starving, they call the US.

I HAVE met many people here from other nations who came here willingly to get away from their own native lands and are damn glad to be here. These lands include: India, South America, Africa, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Russia, China, Mexico, Poland, Italy, Turkey, Hungry, Libya, Egypt, Cuba, Argentina, and Indonesia. There’s more, but I can’t recall.

I have a philosophy. If you don’t like the States, then leave! A friend of mine went to England and managed to get into a bit of an argument with some guy in London over America but found it hard to take him seriously because he was wearing Levi jeans, American Cowboy boots, sipping a whiskey mixed with COKE, and had a Harley Davidson belt buckle.

I once got into a discussion with an Egyptian pen pal concerning dessert storm, and she pointed out that many of the Middle Easterners were pissed at our actions because we attacked during the Holy Days and that so many people were already starving in Iraq. She seemed totally unconcerned about the fact that Sadaam had invaded Kuwait then blew up the oil wells in his hasty retreat creating environmental pollution on a scale never seen before.

It has been said many times before by others that people in other countries do not think like we do. I guess that pretty well sums it all up. Most nations do not think like each other. Get religion involved and it gets messier and combine that with people forced into the 20th Century too fast to get over tribal beliefs and it gets even worse.

Like the Spanish bullfights would not be allowed here or in the UK because of animal laws, but over there, they see nothing but sport in it. Soccer riots would not take place here in the States because we do not place the fanatical importance on them like the UK and French do. We execute people here for murder while in some other nations they subject them to life in prison under inhumane and concentration camp conditions where they will probably be killed by the other inmates anyhow and feel that is just. In some countries social assistance for the poor is nil, while here we have a system set up to help. Other places have socialized medicine, and bitch bitterly about long waits for treatment or hospitalization or the ‘assigned’ doctors while here we have individual medical care which is expensive.

It just depends on where you live and how you think. I’ve not traveled that much but Sentinel sounds like he has and TomH sounds like he’s had some experience also so my information is limited to what I read, see and learn from other people.

Still, I LIKE the US.

(Did I mention that France, the so called cultural center of the world, REFUSED to pay back its war debt to America?)

By the way, people, we’ll be sure to wave when we get to Mars, like we did when we landed on the moon. :smiley: :cool:

What? Me worry?’

82

To Sentinel, Rainbowcsr, and Nightgirl:

Yes - the US is a great nation, and there is much we deserve to be proud of. But there is no prize awarded to the biggest braggart in the world except that others try to steer clear of you. Comparing foreign aid, scientific discoveries, cultural wealth, Olympic medals, social ills, etc. has little potential for helping you understand how it is that life in a foreign country leads to those differences.

Yes, American companies have far-flung foreign operations. But how many of us drive cars made in American factories owned by German or Japanese auto manufacturers? Drive on tires made in Ardmore, Oklahoma by Michelin, with some of the managers coming from France? Have furniture in our homes from IKEA, a Swedish (?Danish) company?

The point here is not to put down America, or things American. The point is to discuss things done by Americans that cause others to conclude we are all ill-mannered loud-mouthed pushy idiots/braggarts/brats. Why do this? Because if these behaviors are identified, perhaps they can be eliminated, or least toned down.

I have seen Americans walk into a small shop in Germany where there were 2 or 3 workers helping other people, and loudly demand “Any of y’all speak English?” When no anwered immediately, they stomped out after muttering loudly that they guessed no one there wants their dollars.

Most Americans have heard that Germans all learn English in school. True, but - there are two different kinds of high school in Germany - academic & vocational. Students in a vocational high school program learn much less English than those in academic programs - or about as much as American high school teach in 1-2 years of foreign language. Older Germans (Over 50 or so) may have had no English in school at all. Germans culturally dislike doing what they do not do well, and are very sensitive to criticism. Yet I cannot count how many times I saw Americans treat a non-English speaking German in Germany as if they were some kind of uneducated moron because they didn’t speak English as well as the American expected. And then wondered why so many Germans just shake their head “no” when asked if they speak English.
But I can tell you of the couple who run the train station in Gemunden who we spoke with one day. They were in their 60’s and spoke little English. We were trying to figure out how to get into the older part of the town, and where to park. She showed us maps, pointed, and explained several times, but there was some important part of the directions that we couldn’t understand. She got her husband, spoke a few words, and the next thing we knew, he had gotten into his car and was leading us to the place we wanted to go. He refused any money, and just said something to the effect of Americans are good people, & helped his family.
OTOH, in the small town of 50 families where we lived for 3 years, there was one family who actively avoided us. After we lived there for a year, we learned that their 20 year old daughter had a young child, half-black. The father had returned to the US at the end of his assignment without so much as a goodbye, despite knowing the mother was 6 months pregnant.

When an American individual travels overseas, to some extent, they stop being just an individual, and become an American, representing all Americans. Whatever impression you leave with the people you encounter will be generalized to Americans as a group, for better or worse. Be proud of being an American. Show that pride, however, not by bragging about how great things are here, not by comparing everything you encounter to things in the US, but by being the kind of person you think of when you think of an American - warm, generous, polite, fun-loving, non-littering, and good world citizens.

Sue from El Paso

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.

83

Great. Thirty years on, and we’re still dealing with “hardhat” mentalities. I’ve got a philosophy, too. If you don’t like the States, then either work to change it, shut up, or leave.

Jeeze, I hope ya took cover from the meringue barrage . . .

You make that sound like a good thing. I won’t waste time arguing the fallacies/barbarities of the capital punishment as it is practiced here in the US, but just direct your attention to the appropriate alternate thread.

So, what is it? You want to punish convicted murderers severely, or what?

Which is better than nothing, certainly, but often feckless and self-defeating in the long run.

Me, too, kiddo! I like to think, however, that I don’t delude myself unduly about how close to being a perfect society we are.

No, but so what? The woman I loaned $250 almost two years ago hasn’t paid me back a penny and studiously avoids me. Besides, we saved France because it was necessary as part of saving ourselves by defeating Germany – enlightened self-interest.

Oh, yeah. Someone asked about what civil rights we have that they don’t. Again, I don’t want to get off-topic, since there is at least one thread already going on the topic, but the one civil right we have here is the right to keep and bear arms, which backs up and guarantees all the rest.

84

Regarding “America”, most foreigners recognize a political/economic entity, but not a cultural one (gringos believe they have both).

Americans generally recognize a cultural entity in others - in a quaint, Disney kinda way - but not much of a political entity…

BTW, a much earlier post about LatAm ? the US is liked and hated the way Valley Kids love/hate the mall. Got stuff I want, but wouldn’t want to live there. Heck, even Cuban-Americans who left Havana at age 2 “dream” of going back once Fidel’s gone and their 401K’s grow enough to cover the purchase of a casino or estancia…

85

TomH, I have to agree with everything you’ve said. Thanks for saving me from having to make the same points.

I never touched him, ref, honest!

86

Thanks for your support, everybody.

Spoke is right about our libel laws: they are too plaintiff-friendly. IIRC, Liberace sued someone successfully in the English courts for suggesting that he was gay. Basically, if you say something defamatory about somebody you have to be able to prove, on the balance of probability, that it’s true, which means that a whole lot of perfectly reasonable speculation doesn’t get printed. Also, libel awards are way too large. The satirical magazine Private Eye was nearly driven out of business on two occasions in the 80s & 90s: once when Sonia Sutcliffe (the wife of a convicted serial killer) successfully sued over the suggestion that she had sold her story to a nwespaper (she had) and once when Robert Maxwell sued over suggestions that he was stealing money from his company’s pension funds (he was). On both occasions, the verdicts were wrong and the awards excessive.

Having said that, laws to protect the individual from defamation are not the same as state censorship. If any of us were defamed, we’d want some kind fo legal remedy, right?

George Papoon, in addition to the excellent “meringue barrage” joke, said, in answer to my question about civil rights,

When I asked the question, I was expecting somebody to come up with that answer, and it is a good one. Like you, I don’t want to get into a gun control debate, but I should say that, as far as I know, the USA is the only country in which the right to bear arms is seen as being so important. Most people in Europe do not have the same right to bear arms as Americans and don’t see it as a problem.

87

TomH responded, in regard to my point about Amendment Dieux:

Which might have been the problem back in the '30s when certain people tried to make sure only they would have the right. And would continue to be a problem today, should similar conditions arise.

But, that’s another thread . . .

88

He may have been right. My friend from France says that blacks in France have been assimilated into the general culture much better than in North America. There it’s arabs that are more likely to live in ghettos and go into a career of crime. On the other hand, here in Canada at least, arabs seem to be pretty successful.

89

I think Rainbowcsr and Sentinel just answered the question of where people get bad opinions of Americans from.

Morons.

90

I can’t believe that this thread has gone on this long.

I’m an American, because I was born in the United States to people who were also born in the United States. I was raised in American culture, speaking American English. That’s what I’m used to, that’s what I’m comfortable with. However, that doesn’t make it the best. That makes it the best for me. I don’t expect people from other countries and cultures to want to move here; when they do, I’m always interested in their reasonings. Like TomH said, it usually has to do with making a lot of money.

Will I always live here? I don’t know. The US has plusses and minuses, like every other country. I sing along with the national anthem at ball games, but I feel that there is no reason for me to remain here forever. This “we are the greatest!” stuff is bizarre and insulting, to Americans and non-Americans alike. I could go on, but I find this whole conversation so weird and unrelated to anything in the real world that I’ll just stop now.

~Kyla

“Anger is what makes America great.”

91

Well, for one thing we don’t (and couldn’t) have an Official Secrets Act. Also, I am not prohibited from marrying the US Head
of State just because I’m Catholic.

On the other hand, British (nonpolitical) TV and film are less censored than ours, and gay adults can engage in consensual sex without risk of prosecution, a right that an
appalling number of US states deny them.

In the US we have the right to bear arms, something which means a lot to many Americans. Europeans, however, tend to feel just as strongly about their RIGHT to medical care, which we don’t recognize here.

I dont think it’s really possible to state that the US has more rights than any Western European nation. We have different rights (in some cases), to some extent because we have different values (in some cases). To say that that makes the US “better” than W.Europe nations is just ethnocentrism, nothing else.

92

To know everything you would ever want to know about how Europeans view American fast food, watch the first 10 minutes of Pulp Fiction.

[qoute]Royal with Cheese and Le Big Mac
[/quote]

93

oh my g*d…i almost want to become a religious man at this moment in time so i can pray that someone “up there” gives his “blessings” to america. you certainly need it.

i dont want to bother with quotes now, it would take to long. so ill simply assume you have read this thread and are able to put it in context with the following text.

first about my first post on this thread:
of course a reply to a rude post is bound to sound rude…perhaps you should utilize that ice box as a cooling mechanism for your brain so you can manage the process required to think about that for a moment…and since you are thinking, think about this:
there is one thing missing from this thread. do realize that you cant say that america or any other country in the world is the “best” country in the world. what you are able to do on the other hand is look at the bad things you know about your country and compare them to the bad things you know about other countries. but if you dont know whats “bad” in your country you are not capable of passing the judgement that [your]country is any better than [other]countries in the world.

example:
of all the bad things i know about [country name “x”] i can always find similar “worse” things in [country name “x”]. of all the good things i know about [country name “x”] i too can find similar “better” things in [country name “x”]. things[good/bad] i can find in [country name “x”] i cant find in [country name “x”] and vice versa.*

so if i say that america is a bad place that is because the “bad” things i find there are much worse than than the “bad” things i find here in iceland. and where i want to be is where there are fewer “bad” things. and when reviewing counries i could possibly imagine myself or my friends living in, america offers the highest number of “bad” things compared to every other country i would like to think about.
countries reviewed are countries with a similar cultural backround and “religious” beliefs. because some counries are so different from what i am used to, that it would be impossible to compare the style of life i live now to the style of life i would be living if i was in those countries.

bj0rn - an individual in a decent place

p.s. thank you for that comment papabear…

94

ruadh, You may be right about the Official Secrets Act, but you still have state secrets, don’t you? (Or is somebody going to post the Polaris launch codes?) I guess the difference is that, in the US, if you can find it out you can publish it, which certainly isn’t the case here. The point about a Roman Catholic not being able to marry the Head of State is well taken, though I have never felt it to weigh very heavily on my own personal liberties, some people attach great importance to it. FWIW, I suspect that it is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and might be open to successful challenge in the European Court of Human Rights.

Rabbi Sam, I think the opening sequence of Pulp Fiction tells you a lot more about some Americans’ attitudes to Europe than vice versa: it is only through the discussion of an American institution (McDonald’s) that Vincent is able to explain to Jules about his experiences in France and convey the idea of how “foreign” it is. BTW, it’s a Quarter Pounder in the UK.

bj0rn, I was mildly surprised by the reaction that your comments provoked. The three idiots (you know who I mean) have said some pretty rude and inaccurate things about virtually every other country in the world. NightGirl, you will recall, described African tribes fighting about who was “blackest” and Japan as a nation of potential paedophiles. This provoked a reasoned response from most people, but your comment about America being the sickest nation in the world seems to have touched a raw nerve.

I am not sure why, though I am sure than one of the American posters will be able to enlighten us. I can only assume that in American English, “sick” has a different resonance than in British English.

Or are Americans just more patriotic than Europeans? As Kyla pointed out, we don’t sing the national anthem at football games and we don’t pledge allegiance to the flag in school.

95

Sentinel writes:

I think you’re missing the point. The larger problem with guns in the US is NOT with someone who goes out to buy a gun with intent to commit a violent crime. The larger problem is from those individuals who have guns at their ready disposal and commit violence due to uncontrollable rage.

96

TomH,

You wrote:

You cannot be arrested for suspicion in the US. You can be brought in for questioning, but without evidence they have to let you go within a few hours. Not so in the UK. It’s arrest and they can hold you as long as they see fit. I remember one guy who spent two weeks in jail while the police tried to collect enough evidence to convict. In the end, they decided they didn’t have enough evidence and let him go… Here, you won’t spend one minute in jail without some evidence.

A week before the world cup, about a hundred “known hooligans” were arrested. They were only held for a day, I think, but the point of the arrest was to send a message that they had just better stay at home and watch the games on the TV. Not only were they not allowed to attend the games, they were also restricted from going to pubs where the games might be on TV.

I’m not saying this is wrong, necessarily. Since we don’t have this particular problem in the US, I’m not sure how we would handle it. Probably with some sort of restraining order and strong punishment for violation. Ironic, isn’t it, that in the US where we have a reputation for undirected violence - when it comes to sporting events, we seem to realize that “it’s just a game”.

I remember that case, but that’s not the one I was thinking of as striking me as particularly bothersome. In another case, about 6 or 7 years ago, I think it was in Scotland, a man was arrested because he refused to give his DNA sample voluntarily. The thinking was, “If he won’t volunteer, he must be hiding something.” The man spent several weeks in jail until he was required by the courts to comply and give a sample. The sample showed that he was completely innocent, but by then it was too late - the man had lost his job and was ostracised by his neighbors. This story was related to me by the man, himself. When I asked why on earth he refused to give up his DNA sample in the first place he said that he considered it a huge invasion of privacy and the sample procedure was humiliating.

97

TomH, some of the reaction to bj0rn is “family history” on the MB. bj0rn tends to pop up in any thread that discusses American culture, making rambling dismissive remarks. (His first post, here, was one of his most concise and pertinent posts in his whole time on the MB–his second is a bit more typical of his style.)

I think most people who bother to react to him generally overreact to him, but, as I said, there is precedent.
(BTW, in American parlance, in the construction

“sickest” would generally mean “mentally unbalanced and tending to perversions.” Since bj0rn has used similar constructions in the past, I would guess that any negative response he got to that comment would have been the one for which he was trolling.)

Tom~

98

Johnny L.A.

You asked:

You can. American tourism to Cuba is big business. What makes you think you can’t travel to Cuba?

and

Sometimes the criminals wear blue uniforms.

99

Thanks for the clarifications. JoeyBlades,

They can’t hold you for as long as they see fit. After some period of time (I’m not sure how long) they need the permission of a magistrate to hold you any longer. If the point you’re making is that the police here have more draconian powers to arrest and detain you than they do in the States, I’d have to agree.

As for

The law is as I described. The relevant Act is the Football (Offences and Disorder) Act 1999. Sounds to me like the police were being a little over-zealous if they were arresting people en masse in the run-up to the World Cup, unless they had reason to believe that these people were planning something. A lot of football-related violence is planned in advance by organised groups, and the police may have known that something was afoot.

I see what you mean: if he wouldn’t give a sample, he must have had something to hide, which itself constituted reasonable grounds on which to arrest him. But presumably they must have had some other grounds for suspicion in order to ask for a sample in the first place.

On the point about Cuba, I thought the Helms-Burton Act prohibited Americans from travelling to Cuba, or at least from spending any money while they’re there?

Tom~, Thanks, I hadn’t realised. Seeing the exchange out of context, I thought it was just over-reaction.

100

JoeyBlades,
What do you mean “American tourism to Cuba is big business”? I was speaking of “American” in terms of the United States. Yes, people can go there illegally, but United States Americans have been prohibited by the government from visiting Cuba since Kennedy was President.

You can go to a third country (I’d assume Canada, for example) and get to Cuba from there; but just TRY to book a flight there from Miami!

“Sometimes the criminals wear blue”. The incidents I alluded to were done, and continue to be done, as a matter of official policy.

Off on a tangent… If you think this is a free country, try to skydive off of a mountain in a national park. Or bungee off of a bridge.