Anti-American sentiment in SL forums

You have culture in France? Oh yeah... silly me, the blue bits in the cheese ...

I've lived overseas a few times. The perspective you see of the U.S. from the outside, vs. the inside is radically different.

Quite often I prefer to say "I'm Californian" rather than admit to being American. Thanks to left-leaning not-wild-about-Bush Hollywood... it does tend to get more of a chuckle out of the people I speak with.

Anyway. I think it would help if more of 'us' got out more, and away from the umbrella of pre-fab mass-marketed similarity.

The U.S. has a culture, which embraces brand names and making every place safe and the same. Standard quota of popular coffee stands, restaurants, identical gas stations. The trees and humidity may vary... (as do the smoking/non-smoking ordinances) but the rest is looking more and more the same.

Sure SOME Americans are stupid, self-centered bores. Same goes for SOME people of any country. The difference is other countries have a little more difficulty getting away with the same "we're number one!" self-blinding arrogance that we can.

It's a small world, we're all citizens of it, regardless of which country gets our taxes.

--
Jopsy

While I do somewhat see what you're getting at, I am not sure what would be a better term?

United Statesians? Americans of the United States? Humans shorten things to make them less cumbersome for everyday speech. That in no way reflects arrogance, to me.

I don't think the term "American" is disrespectful. It's simply taking the one unique identifier *America* out of *The United States of America*, and using it to tell people where we hail from - those states in the New World (America) which are united. I also don't think that it is the intention of Americans to exclude anyone else that lives in the Americas.

I might agree if the term was an indigenous word, but all signs point to both North and South America being named for Amerigo Vespucci (which you probably know), an Italian.

I wouldn't bat an eyelash if people of other nations in the Americas called themselves Americans, even though the word doesn't appear in the name of their countries.

While I do agree that there are too many nationalistic Americans, this line of reasoning that Americans are pompous for calling themseves Americans, seems to be to be reaching a bit. Actually more than a bit.

The rest of your post, I agree with, in it's entirety.

Now bring me some Sliders damn it!

yeah ! ... and don't forget the whine errr wine !

How could I? I drink enough of the stuff

I like the French.
Long live the Auld Alliance.
Damien, lets declare war on the English like back in the good old days, eh?

Sounds like a laudable plan... By the way... Who're you calling English?

Not you, youre a celt.

NO way ... the water's too cold lately ... or well ... it's true that with the tunnel we don't risk another trafalgar .... so le't go for it ! ... UK invasion by eurostar

Glad to see you're watching!

I know I'm shouting into vaccum, but nevertheless... here goes.

Americans pay very little for gasoline compared to the rest of the world. When I lived in Belize last year I paid $8 gallon for gas. Europeans have always paid much more than we have. The only countries that pay less do so for one of two reasons... government subsidies in oil producing nations, (e.g. Kuwait) and countries which don't care if their environment goes to hell (e.g. Mexico).

Europeans have always paid more because the taxes applied are expected to cover the REAL cost of gasoline use to the infrastructure. That includes roads, environmental cleanup, etc. Although American gasoline taxes go somewhat to highway and road building & maintenance ... those taxes don't cover the environmental costs of the pollution cars and refineries produce, or even all the infrastructure costs.

I know you think everything should be free, but since this is not a fantasy world, someone gets to pay. Where do you think the money to pay wages comes from if not from people paying for goods and services. Where do you think the government gets the money to pay subsidies and entitlements (like welfare, social security, disability, etc.) if not from taxes.

Besides high priced gasoline may be the saving of us. Incentive to move away from a resource which has never been sustainable and towards less polluting, sustainable energy sources. We need to stop burning petrochemicals and keep them for plastics, pharmaceuticals, etc.

Oh my god. Really? Don't we have better things to worry about?

Well, it's still on the same level as the 'USA' (United States vs. European Union). The USA has 'states', the EU has 'countries'.

If you did want to compare with a country from Europe, only a comparison with a US state would be proper, because that's on the same level. In the future, even more close integration is expected. In fact, many common directives are passed on the EU level (which apply to all states), the EU laws override (most of?) the local ones, there's ONE currency in most of the EU (and soon in all countries), etc.

So if you want to compare, compare USA with the EU, not USA with a fraction of the EU.

but the BIG difference is that USA is a country with a president at its head, europe will never ever be a countgry but a union of countries as the name clearly states.

of course if you speak in size terms then yes US should be compared to EU as USA covers more or less 80% of a continent.

Topics like this understandably tend to elicit heated reactions--just a gentle reminder to keep the discussion going productively without violations of the forum Guidelines, showing respect for each other no matter where you are in the world.

The whole point is, they ARE, as countries, smaller than us. Our "states" are not equivilant to independent countries.

Of course they aren't the same size. That was kind of the point.

Well, yes, it will always be countries vs. states, but otherwise, there will be more and more similarities between the two structures.

The EU doesn't have a constitution, because it was voted down, but it will probably have a constitution soon (5-20 years?). It will probably have one military, opposed to the per-nation militaries today (est. 20-50 years). I think the constitution would also specifiy a common, consistent foreign policy, instead of the current per-nation ones. While the movement of the workforce is not totally free between all states, it's getting there.

Most countries don't have border stations, I mean, not the 'passport checking' types, it's more like the 'just slow down with your car a bit then drive on through the border without stopping'.

You don't need a passport to move inside the EU anymore.

And I could go on and on...

So, different? Yes. But getting more and more integrated, and while nations and cultures will always remain (thankfully), it'll be more and more EU to the outside world.

While independent, those countries are not anymore as 'independent' as you'd think. EU laws/directives already can override local ones. Etc. (see my previous post).

BTW, the EU also specifies that countries cannot have their normal VAT/Sales tax rate lower than 15%, and only some special items can fall under one or two lower tax rates. So how's that for independent?

This from the country that gave us Benny Hill, Blackadder, the abysmal Faulty Towers, the East Enders, and who can forget that quintessential tag line "loads a money!"

But the poster I was replying to was comparing the US with, specifically, France. And the US does have a lot more people than France. I wasn't doing a wholesale comparison. You took my statements out of context and then continued along those lines. I'm sure, when you put together the whole of Europe and the whole of the US that there are equal numbers of xenophoic assholes.

Yeah, I still can't believe you guys fell for that one.

You say that like there is something wrong with Blackadder... -.-

I was just about to say that. That show was a hoot.

There's definite truth to that. Whenever something gets really big it becomes fashionable to "hate" it/them. Look at Anshe, Microsoft, etc. I think it's human nature.



I think those are oversimplified generalizations, just like the ones the thread is about. I don't really know any self-hating Americans. I know plenty who find aspects of our culture frustrating, disappointing, or embarassing. It's just not natural to love everything about anything, and I'm sure you'll find people in every country who find fault with their own government/people/culture. I think very rarely does it mean they actually hate themselves or their country.

People are much too quick to throw the word bigotry around. If someone hates me as an individual without knowing me at all simply because I'm from the US that would be bigotry. If, on the other hand, someone just has strong negative opinions about US culture or foreign policy or whatever, that just makes them someone with strong opinions. The accuracy of the opinions doesn't really matter. It might be ignorance or insight, but it's not bigotry in my opinion.

Nice to see this has gone back to slagging off europe again.

Does the title of the topic proud.