Non-Americans: How do you view us?

SeeIn2D

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ravensheart18 said:
SeeIn2D said:
So after reading the "what if 9/11 happened to another country?" thread, it seems quite a few people think that us 'mericans suck. I think I read one saying that we would laugh at them. And I am saddened by that. So I wonder: How do you view the U.S.A as a whole?
Agreed. I do agree that we should kind of let the event die in our minds unless its on the actual day when we SHOULD pay respects. However I don't think people internationally should be reacting by saying "We laugh at the US for 9/11". That's the same thing as someone saying "I laugh at the Jews when they talk about the Holocaust".
While I don't think people should laugh at 9/11, that is a HORRIBLE comparison. While 3000 deaths are tragic, that represents 0.00098% of residents of the United States. The Shoah represented the death of about 67% (or more by some estimates) of the death of Jews outside of the Americas. When a terrorist takes out 200million Americans it woudl be comparable.
Well obviously the scale is massively different, but it's the same concept. Laughing at the deaths of innocent civilians. And I think it's a good comparison because its not like its "more okay" to laugh at 9/11 than the holocaust. It's never okay to laugh at the deaths of innocent people on any scale.
 

mrhappy1489

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Valkyr71 said:
The US Fought in North africa starting direct military assistance in North Africa on 11 May 1942 along side good ole monty. This is where the rivalry between patton and monty was born.
Okay I know I have already written a large segment on you but this is particularly frustrating, Australia and Britain had been in North Africa for years before you and the main reason that it survived was because the Australians (The Rats of Tobruk) prevent Erwin Rommel from progressing any farther than he did. Then the British with help from India finished them off. This was the turning point of the war and it occurred without US intervention so while you were there you didn't do much that already been done by commonwealth nations, and if you look at all battles in North Africa your country isn't mentioned, so I fail to see how what you said was useful in the slightest.
 

Warforger

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9Darksoul6 said:
Warforger said:
9Darksoul6 said:
IMO (which shouldn't offend anyone, since the OP is directly asking) you're bunch of childish, ignorant and illiterate idiots, and the main responsibles for the cultural fallbacks in our civilization.

Hey that's not true, we're not illiterate!
Do you know what quadratic equations are or how to solve them?
What the fuck? Yah if you have a primary school education of course. They're equations that create a semi oval or circle when graphed whose ends go on forever.

9Darksoul6 said:
Can you explain me what an equinox is, without googling it?
It's the days in the year when the amount of daylight is equal to the amount of nightime.

9Darksoul6 said:
Have you ever heard of Franz Kafka, Victor Hugo, Jorge Luis Borges; Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, Rene Magritte; Voltaire, Nietzsche, Kant?
Voltaire and Nietzsche, have you heard of John Locke, Thomas Hobbs, Hegel or Fredrick Engels?

Believe me I've read a book of Karl Marx readings and that was probably the most difficult reading I've done because it's so complex and I got through it understanding what he was saying.

9Darksoul6 said:
Do you know 'evolution' is not an equivalent for 'neodarwinism'?
No shit. I fucking hate all those Christian retards who take their religion too seriously. I'm an Athiest since I can't think of any logical chance that any god exists.

9Darksoul6 said:
Have you ever heard the therm 'body mass index'?
Anyone whose gone through 8th grade does. It's simply a system to measure if you possess healthy weight.

On a side note America isn't fat because Americans are lazy, they're fat because their jobs are much tougher than in Europe and have far less vacation days thus they have little to no time to go out exercising.

9Darksoul6 said:
Do you know what the Quran is?
The holy book of Islam.

9Darksoul6 said:
Can you name five African countries (again, no google).
I'm probably not the one to go to for this since I've freakin' memorized most of the world map but I'll go with every one I know.

Morocco(Western Sahara as well), Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Burkino Faso, Central African Republic, Rwanda, Uganda, Somalia (made up of Somaliland and Puntland, they're basically independent though), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Angola, Namibia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leon, Gambia, Senegal, Benin, Ghana, Togo, Cote'de'vore, Nigeria, Cameroon, Madagascar, Niger, Guinea, North Sudan, South Sudan and Mali.

I'm probably forgetting some but you'll probably find out.

...

9Darksoul6 said:
9Darksoul6 said:
Also, you're arrogant enough see yourselves as a global authority, and therefore as having the right to police the world.
Erm what? Aside from being the only super power left and being the only nation in NATO that actually does anything worthwhile the only thing that could be thought of otherwise would be the UN I guess? The only thing that limits America tends to be China and America's economy.
Where have you been living this past decade?[/quote]

Watching as America comprises most of the NATO forces especially command wise, watching as how British and French forces in Libya report they can't take a year of a no-fly zone, watching as intervention in Sudan was blocked by China due to China's oil contracts with the Sudanese government, watching as America maintains its bases all around the world, watching as America manipulates governments etc. etc. or was that all some facade?
 

Zwilorg

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just by viewing movies you guys rock! are on top form physichally and most of the women on your country are not smarter than a rock... in a iron box... in the middle of space... going straight forward against the sun... and still talking about how their air looks...

just by viewing the news you guys...don´t rock as much! everytime someone talks about fatness you are the 1st to be called on the class, bad economic decisions in the last decade likewise! about wars i don´t know why but America is always on the middle of the news... and you sound like very very dumb on some topics... most of the employers on google,apple etc... are foreigners and your public schools are way to retarded...teaching stuff like the theorem pythagoras when you are 14/15 years old OR later is just asking to be called dumb by everyone...

aside from that i have had some talks with americans so i don´t base my opinion on the movies or news... i know they are terribly biased...

But that there are alot of stuff that you need to get fixed to sustain the "top of the world" position is true. If you ppl don´t start getting producing more "in-country" instead of importing everything from dippers to microchips and start to block ppl from getting the top jobs at your companies... it is predictable that in 10 years you will be the new ex-main country in the world.

And then China will eat everything and everyone in the world.
 

Nukacola

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Jun 4, 2009
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Valkyr71 said:
WOW......Im amazed at the short memory of peoples in other countries. How much american blood has been spilled since the 1940's for the liberation of nations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the middle east. We were asked because we were the only ones who could help or had the power to. When the world asks you to be the cops, or cries upon you to say you have the power therefore you have the responsibility to help dont ***** when we do take action because were not helping your favorite cause. Step up and take charge yourself or sit down and shut up.
Where I am from very few people are US American friendly, it is a general distaste for your foreign policies.

The World Police is a title claimed, not a title given or bestowed.

I am one of the few to defend the United States of America, because I believe in the founding principles of the colonies. And I try to remind people that The United States of America was a place of Liberty and Democracy. I like what the United States of America used to stand for, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it was the first free society in the world. Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers were amazing human beings. But today's United States of America is nothing like that. It's a real shame really, because I'd love to live in a country like that.

Why is the United States of America a war hungry nation when it used to stand for freedom and peace?
 

infohippie

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Americans are mostly great people, most of them seem pretty friendly. America as an institution though - that's scary, dangerous, xenophobic and greedy.
 

Rabid Chipmunk

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9Darksoul6 said:
Warforger said:
9Darksoul6 said:
IMO (which shouldn't offend anyone, since the OP is directly asking) you're bunch of childish, ignorant and illiterate idiots, and the main responsibles for the cultural fallbacks in our civilization.

Hey that's not true, we're not illiterate!
Do you know what quadratic equations are or how to solve them?
Can you explain me what an equinox is, without googling it?
Have you ever heard of Franz Kafka, Victor Hugo, Jorge Luis Borges; Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, Rene Magritte; Voltaire, Nietzsche, Kant?
Do you know 'evolution' is not an equivalent for 'neodarwinism'?
Have you ever heard the therm 'body mass index'?
Do you know what the Quran is?
Can you name five African countries (again, no google).
...
1. Don't know exactly how to explain quadratic equations, but I know it's solved using the formula ax^2+bx+c=0. Learned that in Algrebra.
2. The equinox (Latin for "equal night," right?) refers to the two times of year when days and nights are the same length, which happens on the first day of spring and the first day of autumn.
3.Franz Kafka was a poet, if I remember correctly. I've heard of Victor Hugo, but I don't remember what he did. Voltaire was a famous French philosopher during the French Revolution (he's also a hilarious song-writer), and Nietzsche is a famous German philosopher who coined the phrase "God is dead, and we have killed him." Can't say I've heard of the other ones though. :(
4. I've never heard of "Neodarwinism," but I know I subscribe to the theory of evolution whole-heartedly.
5: As a matter of fact, I have heard of BMI. Mine is 22 :D
6: The Quran is the collection of writings at the heart of Islam, and it's essentially their equivalent of the Bible to Christian religions.
7. Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Sudan, and Egypt. I'm gonna throw out The Republic of Congo, Chad, and Angola just for extra credit.

Yes, I'm American. I don't know what point you were trying to make with those trivia questions, but I'm fairly certain I disproved it, or at least until the next round of questions.

EDIT: I played fair and didn't look up my answers until after I posted. Kafka was a novelist, not a poet. D: So fuck me, I guess. Still think I did pretty good though.
 

guitarsniper

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Mar 5, 2011
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Interesting to note: American politics are exceptionally skewed (Screwed too, but that's neither here nor there). I read somewhere that the American Democratic Party-the "liberal" one-espouses views that in, for example, Britain, would be coming from the Conservative Party. Therefore, the Republican Party is just off the fucking deep end when it comes to conservatism. So imagine where America's "Moderates" are.

I'm from America, and not especially proud of that fact. I am, however, exceedingly proud of the particular city I'm from--namely, Oakland, CA. One has to remember that America is very regionally divided. Again, not necessarily the most familiar with domestic affairs in other nations, so maybe shouldn't be talking comparatively here, but there's a lot of difference between someone in Oakland, someone in Los Angeles, someone in New York, someone in Atlanta, Georgia, someone in Texas, etc. The difference is that the one from Oakland is the best :p
 

jvsulliv

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Apr 26, 2010
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on the note of if it happened to another country you'd laugh, trust me you would. the way the american media carries on after ten years I laugh at you sure it was a sad event but don't complain for a decade and start an endless occupation of a foreign country move on for god sakes.
 

Aerodyamic

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I have some American friends that I see 2-3 times a year, and I really like spending the limited amount of time I get to with them.

What I don't like is that there are some people in the US that are convinced that socialized medicine is a harbinger of the end times, and that communism will sweep civilzation under in a storm of free abortions and collectivized industry.
 

Baresark

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This thread is just stupid. I'm American, but I don't care what other people think of me, no matter what country they are from (especially America).

As a serious question to the OP: Do you want to hear a bunch of people who are ignorant of America say how much they hate it, or worse yet, a bunch of ignorant American's defending comments from those people?

I'll tell you what is wrong with America. We have a huge military industrial complex and a government that uses it's monopoly on violence to push everyone around, even Americans. And there is a massive sector of society that loves to tell other people how to live and spend their hard earned money. The government caters to the black plague that is collective bargaining on all levels. Here you have people telling you how to live, how to eat, how to speak, how long to sleep, how much to exercise, how much not to exercise, what medications you NEED to be taking, what vitamins you need to be taking, what you shouldn't be eating, how long you are allowed to work, that you don't even have to work if you hurt your little finger at work, to go to the hospital for every little thing.... I could go on forever.

That being said, most countries around the world have the same problems. The only one that is exclusive to us is the massive military. Which we all would love to see an end to, at least it's size.

You know what was wrong with the 9/11 attack? That the message it was meant to spread was unheard by just about everyone. So, there will be more messages such as this, all over the world (speculation of course, but pretty obvious).

PS. The message was to mind your own business and stop intervening on shit that you have no personal stake in. That goes to all the NATO nations as well. Just so everyone is clear that there is more than just America involved.

Edit: As a side note, it's clearly time we moved on from 9/11. Let the dead lie and let people move on for god's sake. I have so little sympathy for a lot of people because we all need to get over it. My mother died in February, do I think about her every day? You bet I do. Do I let those thoughts keep me from living my life? No I do not.
 

Boba Frag

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I think if the American media wasn't so fucking vapid and shallow (Fox News, I'm looking at YOU!) and if the Republicans stop making foreign policy decisions that are formulated by asshole Neo-Cons & outright fucking psychotics like the Tea Party, and also, if people like Palin and Bachmann are not listened to the way they are now, I think America can just about start looking a little better.

But that's all wind, really, because most Americans I've met have been fantastic.
I'm actually Irish but I dated an American girl for over a year so while I have a conflicted view of America as a country, I've got more of an insight and understanding of daily life for Americans than some of my peers.

Mostly,I think y'all are just fine. I prefer to judge people on a face to face basis.

America dominates my own cultural landscape-- Hell, if I don't love America for creating Batman and some wonderful games I've experienced throughout the years.

On a more personal note- your President visited my country in May, literally on the heels of the visit by the English Queen- an occasion which is of immense historic significance, but I'll get into that later.

He gave a speech at the site of the Easter Rising which started the drive for Irish people to break away from the British Empire and rule ourselves in a Republic.

Sound familiar? Without the example that another people, wishing to rule themselves independently could succeed, we wouldn't have dared as confidently as we did.

Obama's speech gave us renewed hope in ourselves; he picked us up with those words.

Partisan politics aside- America's usually been pretty good to Ireland as regards always showing our country the respect we deserve, and we've always been more than happy to return the courtesy.

Living in a super power that you think you've little to no say in isn't easy. Governments make decisions without consulting their people every day. I know our bunch of fools don't.

America the federal state only represents the American people to a limited degree in my eyes.
So long as you don't ask me if I knew your great grandaddy's goldfish's mother, I think I'd happily have a drink with most Americans.
 

David Devine

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May 11, 2011
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To me, as a Canadian, America seems full of promise and possibility ... that keeps on tripping over itself and failing to live up to those dreams. I mean you guys went to the freaking Moon ... but you can't stomach the 'stitch in time saves nine' idea of Health Care ... and you've got electronic voting machines, but can't wrap your minds around the widely accepted idea that anything but first past the post is 'voting twice'.

Television shows like Jersey Shore and the constant stream of Reality TV, because that's apparently what Americans like to watch, gives you a bad look to the world ... you appear to be disinterested in literature, good story telling, or what happens in other parts of the world (compare the BBC to CNN).

And don't get me started on the whole Jesus thing. I mean for a nation that was founded by people who were fleeing religious persecution, who made a Constitution that had strong walls between Church and State, and then let your religious leaders run rampant to the point where they can skim billions of dollars off of people and no one wants to malign that scheme ... is horrible.

You seem to value the American Dream (where people can live happy and free of concerns) over the American people.

You are a nation filled with heroes ... and people willing and capable of abusing those heroes to their own ends (see how the 9/11 first responders have been pointed to as heroes, then left to rot). You are the centre of the world for scientific endeavour, having produced marvels such as the Hubble Space Telescope ... and yet you have so many people running around saying the world is 6000 years old or that you never went to the Moon or that Germ Theory is 'just a Theory' (it wouldn't be so bad, but you give them so much time and space to say what they should only be screaming from a soap box in the public square, like anyone who chooses to rant and rave). You topple some dictators that deserve to be toppled ... but then stick around and become hated by those you were liberating ... and you refuse to be held to the same standard as other nations, by refusing to be part of the International Human Rights court ... and you prop up dictators that abuse their people.

You doggedly held onto slavery when most of the rest of the world had given it up ... and then slaughtered one another over it and disagreements about the power of the state vs the power of the union.

Your corporations laud the American worker, then ship jobs overseas ... using their American base as a place to operate on a Corporate level, but refusing to give jobs to Americans. And then not only do you not tax them, you give them tax breaks.

You built up an arsenal of weapons during the cold war against an enemy who was incapable of ever taking the fight to you ... while at the same time selling them wheat! You could have rid the world of nuclear weapons, but the blinders were on so tight that SDI would work, and the interference so great from those vested in the simple story that the Soviets are the devil in modern time, that you walked away from the bargaining table.

That military industrial complex drives you to make decisions that you cannot escape from ... invest in war goods or people lose jobs.

You have some of the best people in the world in all categories ... but can't seem to lose the bell curve of having some of the worst people in the world.

Every time I travel there I am afraid of being shot or mugged, unreasonably so. I'm concerned when I see my friends from the US proudly display their firearm collections ... whose primary purpose is not game hunting, but for the method of killing other people.

I watch your shows and wonder if that is the general state of being ... and your media seem to mostly look at a topic in the same light and from the same direction ... and while some of you point this out, and quite eloquently as well, it doesn't seem to change anything.

You are a nation of dreams and nightmares.
 

Warforger

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Rabid Chipmunk said:
7. Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Sudan, and Egypt. I'm gonna throw out The Republic of Congo, Chad, and Angola just for extra credit.
Sudan is not a country. Ever since July it has been North and South Sudan.
 

Fudd

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Nov 9, 2010
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America talks one way and acts in the opposite manner. "Dreams and nightmares" indeed :(
 

Rabid Chipmunk

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Warforger said:
Rabid Chipmunk said:
7. Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Sudan, and Egypt. I'm gonna throw out The Republic of Congo, Chad, and Angola just for extra credit.
Sudan is not a country. Ever since July it has been North and South Sudan.
Huh. I didn't know that. Thanks for the update then.
 

gallaetha_matt

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Feb 28, 2010
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I really like the Americans. I've been over a few times, some of my closest friends are from there and your women, oh God... your women.

I need a seperate thread just to discuss how awesome your women are. I've met my fair share of American women and almost to a one they are kind, strong, intelligent and romantic. And that accent... I don't care which state, they're all good.

Okay, I've gushed enough on there.

So I'm more than inclined to look on America kindly. You're good people.

However, you have awful news media. Fox in particular, although CNN seems to be just as bad. But I can't blame you for that. I'm English, we have a news media that's almost as xenophobic and irrational as yours. You tend to make bad political decisions (eight years with George Bush Jr, are you fucking kidding me?), however so do we (look who's running England right now, they're arguably just as bad). You have your fair share of religious nuts, but what country doesn't?

I'm almost saluting an American flag right now. However, I do have some problems. The pledge of allegiance seems too much like indocrination. It might be recited with the best of intentions, but it could potentially lead to either fanaticism (the sort of blind patriotic fervour that so dominates Fox news) or outright rejection (the sort of person who will grow up hating America because they were made to pledge allegience to it every day). It's dangerous and you need to sort that out.

The opposition towards sex education in schools is also pretty disheartening. Sex education isn't teaching children how to have sex as so many seem to believe, but it's there to offer proper advice on contraceptives, STDs and pregnancy. The earlier you can learn that, the better.

Then there's the teaching of creationism as a legitimate theory. It really isn't. It's a religious idea and nothing more.

Finally - free health care can only benefit you. Vote for it if you can!

So yeah, you have your problems, like any country. Most of these could be solved with a better system of education.

Hey, and you know what else? So could England. Any problem that I have with the USA can be applied just as easily to my own country.

Stones, glass houses and all that.

Anyway, it's four in the bloody morning over here. Sorry if I rambled on there. I'm tired.