16 Apr 08
Originally posted by Brother EdwinThis video has been posted and debated for months ... making you less informed I guess. But really, we can go to your neighborhood and videotape a bunch of people and then only show the stupid ones and leave out the educated ones. Then we can say that people where you live are ignorant.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=04f2UJOPJfQ&feature=related
16 Apr 08
Originally posted by DraxusPresident Raygun couldn'y point Vietnam out on the map.
Every group has people who are less intelligent and people who are more intelligent.
Americans are just as informed as any other culture.
The top US ambassador to France doesn't speak French.
Although only examples, they are matters which don't generally happen in developed countries.
16 Apr 08
1 edit
Originally posted by DraxusOn my travels I have found (for instance) Cubans and Nicaraguans to be far better informed about, say, U.S. foreign policy, than Americans themselves. More generally speaking, I have long felt that Americans' tendency towards self-absorption and their assumption that they are exceptional and morally superior interferes with their ability to separate myth from reality, analysis from spin and propaganda, and their righteous and benevolent self-image from the reprehensible acts committed in their name for the purposes of subsidizing their economy. Non Americans, by and large can see this. Americans, by and large, cannot. So, in reply to your assertion that Americans are just as informed as any other culture I would suggest that, in very broad terms, there isn't another 'culture' in the developed world that is as parochial and as misinformed as America. And, indeed, I've met quite a lot of well-informed Americans who concur.
Every group has people who are less intelligent and people who are more intelligent. Americans are just as informed as any other culture.
16 Apr 08
Originally posted by FMFWhy don't you just say it: You hate Americans.
On my travels I have found (for instance) Cubans and Nicaraguans to be far better informed about, say, U.S. foreign policy, than Americans themselves. More generally speaking, I have long felt that Americans' tendency towards self-absorption and their assumption that they are exceptional and morally superior interferes with their ability to separate myth from re ...[text shortened]... formed as America. And, indeed, I've met quite a lot of well-informed Americans who concur.
16 Apr 08
Originally posted by FMFYou probably have met several americans who concur because it is very popular to think that Americans are stupid.
On my travels I have found (for instance) Cubans and Nicaraguans to be far better informed about, say, U.S. foreign policy, than Americans themselves. More generally speaking, I have long felt that Americans' tendency towards self-absorption and their assumption that they are exceptional and morally superior interferes with their ability to separate myth from re ...[text shortened]... formed as America. And, indeed, I've met quite a lot of well-informed Americans who concur.
You are right, Americans don't know about their foreign policy. In my travels I have also found that most people in their own countries don't understand their own foreign policies either. Most Mexicans don't know that their immigration laws are harsher than the United States, but it doesn't stop them from knowing about who NAFTA really harms.
Costa Rica is very much the same. They are very anti CAFTA, but they have no idea what their government does outside of the country.
Besides that, anybody who stereotypes, or who blindly believes a stereotype, is ignorant. Every culture has the tendency towards moral superiority, at least every culture that I have ever lived in. Perhaps our life experiences are different, but I am no less travelled than you.
16 Apr 08
Originally posted by smw6869An upside down flag? Don't know really. Never given it much thought. Presumably it would be a political gesture. Any suggestion that it was an expression of hatred for a group of people would be plain daft, of course. Like those who criticize Israel being immediately branded as [/i]anti-semetic.[/i] That, and braying You hate Americans! You hate Americans!, are both designed to stifle free expression and reveal profoundly authoritarian and intolerant instincts. You want to talk about feeling hatred for whole groups of people, talk to der schwarze Ritter, not me. He likes to list them. And he's not in the least bit ashamed of doing so.
May i ask what Flying the American Flag Upside down means to you?
GRANNY.
16 Apr 08
Originally posted by FMFI talk about people's actions, not the color of their skin. And why are you so hung up on me? Don't you have anything original to contribute here or am I just that scintillating to you?
An upside down flag? Don't know really. Never given it much thought. Presumably it would be a political gesture. Any suggestion that it was an expression of hatred for [b]a group of people would be plain daft, of course. Like those who criticize Israel being immediately branded as [/i]anti-semetic.[/i] That, and braying [i]You hate Americans! You hate ...[text shortened]... arze Ritter, not me. He likes to list them. And he's not in the least bit ashamed of doing so.[/b]