What do people outside of the United States think of Americans?

Question

I would like to hear different points of view. If you would like to tell what country you are from, I would appreciate it, Thank You.

Answer 1

I strongly believe the US should start by cleaning its own house first?
Before you start criticizing other countries for their terrorism or human rights records, shouldn't the US government clean their own house first?
For example, over the past 50 years, the United States government:

1-Supported and actively organized coups d'etat against numerous third world countries, just to defend US bussiness interests and selfish geopolitical aims.
This includes many democratically-elected governments.
Some examples are Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, Argentina 1976, Iran (Persia) 1953, Haiti 1957, Brazil 1964, Zaire (congo) 1965, S.Korea 1979, Grenada 1983, Venezuela 2002 (failed attempt), and many more.
In my country, Argentina, 'black lists' with dissidents to be killed were actually written and given to our local death squads by the CIA, during the 1976-83 dictatorship.

2- Is known to practice 'low-intensity warfare', a set of war strategies that are actually very similar to terrorism itself in practice. This can be seen in the recent 1990's Sudan bombings, in recent bombings of civilian populations in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the support you gave to the Nicaraguan Contras to fight the gov. of said country, during the late 1980's. The 'contras' were an illegal guerrilla group, and were properly qualified as "terrorist" by the International Court of Justice.

3- Engaged in unfair economic blockades against countries that didn't bow to US bussiness interests. (example: Iraq, Cuba)
The excuse for doing this was 'dictatorship', but it's an hypocritical excuse, since other dictatorships enjoyed active US support during the same time frame.

4- Still supports numerous dictatorships around the world, specially if they are free-market and let themselves be puppeted by US policy.
Thsi includes S. Arabia, Pakistan, Qatar, Ethiopia, among others.

1 week ago
5- Mantains illegal "black prisions" with no right to trial and mild forms of torture, in many places in Europe and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

6- Has engaged in active industrial espionage over the past years, thanks to the Cold-war era Echelon network.

7- Has, as a country, poor democratic credentials itself, with only two parties that look very similar and a media that's comprised of mostly large corporations that usually don't dare to damage the interest of their partners.

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My country, of course, is not perfect either... but we are not trying to be world policemen.
We are all in this together, we should try to change things to make them more fair. I'm criticizing the US gov. simply because it's the world's only superpower, and with that comes a large responsability.
Other countries have their crimes too (The UK, France, China and Russia come to mind), and we should not forget about those either.

It just sickens me to my stomatch when I hear the US president talk about "democracy" and "promoting human rights", when they haven't even apologized for what they have done and are still doing, and people like Kissinger are allowed to walk the streets freely when they should be on trial for crimes against humanity

Answer 2

I know that alot of people outside the US have very strong feeling about the citizens of the US, but all I have to say is that their feelings , though partially justified, are just stereotypes. It is not all of our faults that Bush is our President. It isn't all of our fault that our government cares nothing for anyone not American and even less for people within the US who live in poverty. I am a fan of political and social change, but the media controls what people see and how they think. Most Americans are fat and lazy and refuse to look elsewhere for information, this much is true, but I hope that the people that hate or dislike America, understand that not all of us are happy with the way this country is going and are trying to be the voice of change.

Answer 3

This is in general - there are exceptions
Most americans for me are very ignorant,spoiled,materialistic with no morals.Very egoistic,selfish and with low IQ.There is no culture and the ones that claim to be christians or any other religion are the worst.By the way - I am from Bulgaria and I use to think very good of USA while I was back home.My opinion changed only after I lived in US

Answer 4

We think they tend to be grossly obese. Or the exact opposite and obsessed with exercise.
We think they are unknowledgable of anything that happens outside of USA.
They usually think they are great as well and better at stuff than anyone else.
We also think they have horribly loud voices.
I like most Americans inside the US...they stand out like sore thumbs in the UK though.
On their home turf, they're friendly and sociable and not as sceptical as us Brits.

Answer 5

I've traveled throughout South America quite a bit. For the most part, I met plenty of interesting and friendly people. They were usually more interested in who I was as a person, and not about the politics of my country.

Answer 6

Read a book US against the world, by input from people like me who are expats or were who have lived abroad since 911. It is getting very very ugly. IMO Aus is so staunchly American. they are more like us than i think even Canada.

India is deemed by a pew poll that they like us the most.

the bush adm has made us more unsafe and more unstable now than ever before. he is making more and more people hate us day by day by his strong arm tactics and now the atty gen of the us is telling judges, of which he has not power over, to not stop bush's policies. the pres and his buddies are eroding what we all hold sacred and others in the world have come to depend on a level playing field and honest govt.

Answer 7

They usually think pretty bad of us until they actually come here and meet us. I have plenty of friends i met through foreign exchange programs throughout my high schools. I made tons of friends from Germany, some from Brazil and one from Georgia the country. They agree that some americans are really cool while others fit the sterotype of us.

Answer 8

well i think that 50% of americans are complete idiots and tossers that think that the world revolves around them and the other 50% are just completely strange like they listen to what you call country and folk music while i listen to hardcore rave mc which is the newmonkey and newmonkey are an mc band look it up on google, oh ye and im english from the north east in middlesbrough no where near london just if you were wondering im from up north there from the south.

Answer 9

General impression is loud, kind of in your face, but nice with it. They ask a lot of questions when they go anywhere else but at least it means they're interested and not too reserved like some Brits. Most of the Americans I have come across have been really nice, and the bad ones well you get them everywhere.

Answer 10

I doubt if there is 7 million human beings residing in Mexico. yet despite the quantity they're residing there with the specific permission of the Mexico government. they grant their own well-being care, teach their infants in inner maximum faculties at their own rate, and could in no way become Mexican electorate, much less ever vote. If and whilst they become a burden to the Mexico government, there'll be no welfare, and their butts would be deported lower back to the rustic earlier you may say, amnesty playstation <> and getting to understand Spanish would be needed