[Primus]

And didn't know that Star Wars was based on a true story.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=7962124216164013157&hl=en-GB

[Unknown Target]

Lmao

Those people are just too stupid to make me feel bad about being American

[Blue Lion]

I can't even watch clips like those. It's too painful.

[Unknown Target]

You notice the one guy who was quizzed about Al Queda talked in some sort of accent...one that sounded like it's in that region. You'd think he'd know that stuff

[BlackDove]

That's the beauty of America really. Because everyone's a well fed cattle, they're exempt from knowing anything about the world. Why should they anyway? They eat, they sleep, they ****, both for fun and procreation. They're never going to amount to anything higher than that so... what's the point of knowing anyway? All of you who know the answers are in the same soup anyway, taking it up the ass from people who've decided that they're going to butt **** you.

Mooooooooooooooo.

God bless America (and all other countries sporting the copy systems too - US may be prevalent in things like this, but it sure as hell isn't the only one with stupid, powerless citizens).

[bfobar]

That's the beauty of America really. Because everyone's a well fed cattle, they're exempt from knowing anything about the world. Why should they anyway? They eat, they sleep, they ****, both for fun and procreation. They're never going to amount to anything higher than that so... what's the point of knowing anyway? All of you who know the answers are in the same soup anyway, taking it up the ass from people who've decided that they're going to butt **** you.

Mooooooooooooooo.

God bless America (and all other countries sporting the copy systems too - US may be prevalent in things like this, but it sure as hell isn't the only one with stupid, powerless citizens).

But there are idiots everywhere. I could send a camera crew to any part of the globe, stand on a street corner in a big city, and get enough stupid answers to these questions to make a segment that makes them look stupid.

[IceFire]

I don't know bfobar...a Canadian comedian (Rick Mercer) went down to the States and did exactly the same thing there except that he made a 1 hour special of it.  His list included people such as G.W. Bush on the election trail.  Quizzed people about things in Canada and the results were hilarious...there were so many people that he interviewed I was just scared.  Some of them you could see were catching on ...but some were totally oblivious.  He was feeding them stuff like how our parliament buildings are built out of ice and they are melting, that we just commissioned our first naval vessel (in 2000), and that our Prime Ministers name was Poutine.

And my own personal experience in the states when people ask us questions about Canada.  I keep a straight face and try and just be nice about it...but wow.  I find Americans in general to be very regional.  They don't know about whats going on in the next town or even how to get there.  But it is a large country and I haven't seen all of it yet and some places are very different (and much more aware) than others.

[Unknown Target]

While that's true, I'm kind of sick of the rampant American bashing. Americans typically are very friendly, and you hardly see any of them (especially on these forums) actively bashing other countries as actively as other ones attack them.

On top of that, go stand on a London street corner. Or a Berlin corner. Or anywhere. Like bfobar said, there are idiots everywhere, people just love to make fun of the US because, admitantly (spelling?) we assume to be better than everyone else (in some cases we are, in some we are not), so we sometimes deserve what's coming to us.

Still, it both makes me laugh and makes me angry when people bash on the US film companies for making films about American heros, or US politicians for servering US interests. Your country does the same thing, but America-bashing is the fad, so let's hate America and be hypocritical. Do you really expect America to make a WWII movie about some Norwegian hero that most Americans would know nothing about? No, because you target your home audience; Americans. Americans love to see heroic Americans, so stop *****ing when your country doesn't get featured. If you want your heroes put on the silver screen, make your own goddamn movie.


Sorry for that off-topic rant, but I've been dying to put it somewhere.

[Blue Lion]

You'd almost swear people didn't really mind all that much about other countries.

[Mars]

The only smart idiots are the ones who know they're idiots

[bfobar]

I don't know bfobar...a Canadian comedian (Rick Mercer) went down to the States and did exactly the same thing there except that he made a 1 hour special of it.  His list included people such as G.W. Bush on the election trail.  Quizzed people about things in Canada and the results were hilarious...there were so many people that he interviewed I was just scared.  Some of them you could see were catching on ...but some were totally oblivious.  He was feeding them stuff like how our parliament buildings are built out of ice and they are melting, that we just commissioned our first naval vessel (in 2000), and that our Prime Ministers name was Poutine.

And my own personal experience in the states when people ask us questions about Canada.  I keep a straight face and try and just be nice about it...but wow.  I find Americans in general to be very regional.  They don't know about whats going on in the next town or even how to get there.  But it is a large country and I haven't seen all of it yet and some places are very different (and much more aware) than others.

But I thought canadian parliment WAS held in an ice sculpture with candy cane columns, and the streets are cleaned at night by immigrant helper elves from the north pole!

I'm not saying that america isn't filled with a LOT of idiots, I'm just saying that if I were to send a comedian to Montreal, London, Moscow, or anywhere else, he'd find no shortage of material.

[Taristin]

I agree with bfobar. Its so easy to bash on the US, but Ive spoken with people online from various places in Europe who knew just as little, or less about their environments.
Threads like these are ****ing annoying.

Its not enough that you all drove away the V staff after the Columbia accident... Nico with the France attacks...
You sometimes make it hard for an american to want to stay here.

[IceFire]

While that's true, I'm kind of sick of the rampant American bashing. Americans typically are very friendly, and you hardly see any of them (especially on these forums) actively bashing other countries as actively as other ones attack them.

On top of that, go stand on a London street corner. Or a Berlin corner. Or anywhere. Like bfobar said, there are idiots everywhere, people just love to make fun of the US because, admitantly (spelling?) we assume to be better than everyone else (in some cases we are, in some we are not), so we sometimes deserve what's coming to us.

Still, it both makes me laugh and makes me angry when people bash on the US film companies for making films about American heros, or US politicians for servering US interests. Your country does the same thing, but America-bashing is the fad, so let's hate America and be hypocritical. Do you really expect America to make a WWII movie about some Norwegian hero that most Americans would know nothing about? No, because you target your home audience; Americans. Americans love to see heroic Americans, so stop *****ing when your country doesn't get featured. If you want your heroes put on the silver screen, make your own goddamn movie.


Sorry for that off-topic rant, but I've been dying to put it somewhere.

I do understand your point of view.  In light that I have a number of friends with American roots and of whom one I have even had much the same discussion with its true that there are idiots in any country and that American bashing is in.  Please don't take my comments as American bashing either (I'm not sure if you did or not) because that wasn't my intention.  There are plenty of friendly, helpful, well informed, and genuine individuals in the states.  In traveling the country in a fairly significant way (I've been to something like 16 different states and stayed in all sorts of places from Wisconsin to Florida and South Carolina to Vermont) I've met many of them.  But it seems like the idiots, for whatever technological/socio economic/societal/political reason seem to scream so much louder than any of our idiots up here.

And we've got idiots coming out of our ears up here.  But I don't know if we just marginalize them more (although we're supposed to be the country of tolerance) or if they just don't scream as loud.  I don't know.  The impression generated by the American public using American media outlets and non-American media outlets paints as "dumb, happy go lucky" impression that I think is picked up on.  Its a stereotype just as the French "are arrogant and surrender all the time" and Canadians "say eh and live in igloos" all the time or the British "have bad food and bad teeth".  Its all just as hurtful...but I guess we see more American TV and more things about the US than we do other countries.

Perhaps its just that exposure that breeds that opinion and if you spotlighted another country in the same way then the same impressions would be formed.  I don't know.

[bfobar]

Perhaps its just that exposure that breeds that opinion and if you spotlighted another country in the same way then the same impressions would be formed.  I don't know.

On the other side of that double edged sword, when I traveled overseas, I realized that most everyone could understand my accent with no problems because I assume that american media had paved the way. As an example, in Australia, no locals had any problems with me, but they did complain to me that they couldn't figure out WTF the Irish tourists were saying, ever.

I'm sure a lot of the flaming comes from the rest of the world looking at the US and wondering why the hell we're so special that we get the biggest GDP etc when we have so many outspoken idiots. I do agree with you that American idiots talk more and more loudly than other idiots I've met. I would like to trade other countries for some quiet foreign idiots.

[Prophet]

There are plenty of dumbasses in here, and the countries around here. But they mind their own business, and don't spread their stupidity around.

American assholes are loud. They are noticed around the world, because the media around the world thinks that any story from america interests people. US goverment does generally stupid things. Not that the goverments of other countries are too smart, but they don't get to be in worldwide news so often, because media thinks america is more interesting. All this causes the sane people of america to be buried beneath the idiocity. And when amazing stories from america are being fed to us 24/7, it gets pretty damn ****ing annoying.

So, most of the stuff we hear from america is of questionable sanity. And we hear it too often. Hence people tend to bash america. Because we heard from the hollywood movies that america is the greatest country in the world.

My suggestion to solve this: Please, the sane people of america. Will you be louder and start speakin for your country instead of letting the dumbasses to do it for you?

[Kosh]

Please don't take my comments as American bashing either (I'm not sure if you did or not) because that wasn't my intention.

Of course he did. Say anything that puts America in a negative light, and it is automatically called America bashing by Americans. Too many people in America believe their country does everything right, that is the problem.

[NGTM-1R]

My suggestion to solve this: Please, the sane people of america. Will you be louder and start speakin for your country instead of letting the dumbasses to do it for you?

Impossible.

There are more of them then there are of us; we'd have to shut a significant number of them up first, and we're legally prohibited from doing that. That's the problem: our dumbasses have discovered free speech. Yours haven't.

[Prophet]

Yours haven't.

Hey! Are you bashing our dumbasses? Stop it. Racist!

[Primus]

People who who gave correct answers didn't make it into the video. I bet this is the case with most of the interviews where the goal is to show stupidity of americans, or any other nation for that matter.

In most countries the majority of people think that their country is doing everything right, IMHO. But that's just generalizing (I don't if that's the right word).

[aldo_14]

While that's true, I'm kind of sick of the rampant American bashing. Americans typically are very friendly, and you hardly see any of them (especially on these forums) actively bashing other countries as actively as other ones attack them.

On top of that, go stand on a London street corner. Or a Berlin corner. Or anywhere. Like bfobar said, there are idiots everywhere, people just love to make fun of the US because, admitantly (spelling?) we assume to be better than everyone else (in some cases we are, in some we are not), so we sometimes deserve what's coming to us.

Still, it both makes me laugh and makes me angry when people bash on the US film companies for making films about American heros, or US politicians for servering US interests. Your country does the same thing, but America-bashing is the fad, so let's hate America and be hypocritical. Do you really expect America to make a WWII movie about some Norwegian hero that most Americans would know nothing about? No, because you target your home audience; Americans. Americans love to see heroic Americans, so stop *****ing when your country doesn't get featured. If you want your heroes put on the silver screen, make your own goddamn movie.


Sorry for that off-topic rant, but I've been dying to put it somewhere.

People 'bash' (although often this ends up just being pointing out problems) the US because the US has cultural hegemony; the US is on a pedestal, and things on a pedestal get shat on by pigeons more than the things below.