@tster said:
Not even the US government can come close to the level of corruption in the UN.
Corruption which is more often than not originating from the US representatives themselves, who don't mind using every tool possible to sway the UN decisions their way.
@tster said:
Another thing:
The United States has really gotten a bad wrap on the internet.
Could it be that the US (as an entity relating to other similar entities in the world) deserves it? (no, it couldn't be, could it?)
@tster said:
Every internet forum I visit has tons of posts by people just like you, that make stupid claims just like yours. The truth is, George Bush is actually a smart guy.
Well, he got me there then. His impersonation of a complete moron incapable of a single meaningful sentence without a horde of advisers helping him is pretty good I must say.
@tster said:
I have noticed a heightened level of US bashing in the last couple weeks here, and it's really kind of annoying. Rarely do I see on a forum an American going around making blanket statements about Europeans or the people of another country.
Some people seem to have quite a selective vision it would seem. When I read people uttering blanket statements about people of other countries, they are usually Americans. Europeans usually add disclaimers or make it clear they are talking about specific groups (like the US government itself). YMMV.
@tster said:
However, the stereotype of the "stupid American" who doesn't know anything outside the United States is pretty common.
In my experience, this view is also held by most Americans who do have a clue about what's happening outside the US. I'd expect they know what they are talking about.
@tster said:
For one thing, most people on the planet don't know as much about foreign culture as they do their own culture. Secondly, if the United States is so filled with knuckle dragging, Neanderthal-like morons, then why is our higher education system undeniably the best in the world?
"Undeniable"? Your higher education system is far from the best in the world. And even if it was, it's so difficult of access for people without rich parents that it would still be irrelevant.
@tster said:
How come that system and our society produces more Nobel prize winners (in science) than the rest of the world combined (note, a lot of them are not from the US originally, but came here because there was more opportunity here than anywhere else)?
somebody else already replied to that, so I have nothing to add here, except that the only reason highly educated people still move to the USA is the aggressive immigration policy the US use for those people. When you're promised complete freedom of work, gargantuan budgets, and salaries to go with them, you usually don't think twice. Also, those are people who are already successful in their original country, and would probably have received a Nobel Prize anyway, wherever they went.
@tster said:
If our culture is so shitty, then why does it attract more than twice as many tourism dollars than the next highest country (which is Spain BTW)?
It's easy to go to, it does have nice landscapes and varied climates, it's slightly less dangerous than a lot of other holiday destinations, and it's big. It doesn't have anything to do with how great the country is.
@tster said:
Another thing I hear a lot is the "lazy American." Yet for some reason our GDP/capita is the 10th highest in the world. That's quiet impressive considering our size, which makes us by far the largest economy in the world (as measured by GDP (and yes, I know that there are some problems with GDP, but it's a pretty good measurement non-the-less)). The GDP of the United States is roughly equal to the GDP of the entire European Union, which has 66% more people.
Except that the repartition of wealth is so skewed in the USA that it looks like a 3rd world country in that respect, and that the US economy drives on only thanks to all its debts to the rest of the world.
@tster said:
Why did I write that tirade? Because I wanted to let some of you know that some people in the United States are actually smart enough to read these forums, and to many of us, it is both annoying and pathetic that many people on internet forums bash the United States relentlessly. In some ways it looks like jealousy (like a little brother jealous of his big brother), in other ways it looks like spiteful vitriol. In both cases it is fairly ignorant since the average American is no more stupid, lazy or ignorant than the average citizen of any other country.
Oh, I'm pretty sure that the "average" (whatever that means) American is a nice, decent, relatively well-educated person (so is the "average" Moslim, by the way, unlike what the media of the world and especially the American media would like us to believe). The thing is, that decent American is nowhere to be seen outside of the USA, has absolutely no political power (no, your leaders are not nice, decent people, not by any stretch of the word), and is never heard anywhere. The American people we hear are mostly religious bigots, heartless neocons, violent rednecks or moronic puppets. They may be a minority, but they are a vocal minority, and they get to set the course of the US policy. They are the ones giving your country a bad name. So take care of them first, or be prepared for the US image in the world to get even worse with time.