Anti-american?

Question

Don't be mean...my father's friend is doing a survey on "foreigners'" opinions of Americans. I know you don't like us, for the most part, but as far as good reasons go, why?

Answer 1

I like and respect most Americans.

But here's some of the reasons that I think some of your fellow countrymen occasionally do your great country no good whatsoever:-
"Who cares what a foreigner thinks" (see above). If you cared a little bit more "what a foreigner thinks" you might be having slightly less trouble in Iraq right now. The cowboy attitude of thundering into Dodge City and sorting out all the bad guys at gunpoint might work in the movies but in the Real World things are slightly more complex.

Arrogance, particularly when dealing with non-Americans and even more particularly when that arrogance is displayed by Americans who seem to know very little about the World outside of the USA. I have seen a question on here asking if we have air conditioning in London - like we still live in the Middle Ages over here in the UK. NEWSFLASH: Americans are not always right about everything; you don't always have the biggest and best, cleverest or quickest - and even if you do, please try to keep your patriotism in check so that everyone else doesn't mistake it for bragging.

Your ridiculous image of "Britishers" all having big ears and bad teeth (about as accurate as our image of Americans as red-necked trailer-trash who marry their sisters and who are too stupid to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time).

The fact that you say "England" when you mean "United Kingdom" or "Great Britain".

The rest of the World doesn't like breathing your pollution.

Half your country seems to be ultra right wing fire-eating bible thumpers and the other half seems to drown in drugs, porn and gun crime... both worry me and I'm not sure which is worse.

Answer 2

People talk of the brash loudmouthed Yanks who boast that everything in America is bigger and better than anywhere else in the world. Well, my family have had many American visitors to our home in Scotland over the last 40 years or so and I can't say that I have disliked any of them. They have all proved to be very decent and generous people.

But America is a big country and there are a lot of really weird people who really would be dangerous if they ever get a sniff of political power. I mean, anyone who votes for a lunatic like George W. Bush not once but twice has got to have something seriously wrong with them upstairs.

Thankfully, I have yet to meet an American who has a good word to say about him. You will have gathered that I am no fan of George W. There is something very shifty and insincere about him and there is very little doubt he has made the world a very much more dangerous place with his heavy-handed, ill-thought-out foreign policy, and has shown himself more than once to be of less than average intellect. He certainly does not in the remotest sense understand the character of the Arab or the Muslim psyche. Americans have got to start recognising that by throwing their weight around in the world imposing their "way of doing things" on people who are diametrically opposed to that way of living is offensive and very counter-productive. For example, why should Iran or North Korea not have their own nuclear deterrents when America has the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet? I mean, George W. Bush is just about stupid enough to use actually use it. I wouldn't give him control of the remote control of the telly, let alone access to the button to launch a nuclear strike. Instead, we should be recognising that it is our diversity which makes our world a great place to live and if we respect one another's cultures instead of trying to bludgeon everyone into believing the American way is best, then that world would be a safer place to live in as well.

I am certainly not a fan of the bible-bashing brigade of the Bible Belt states or those with a love of guns. Those who derive a sense of power from some Devine source or from the misguided notion that owning a gun makes you safe are very dangerous people in my opinion. And those who continue to ignore their planet's plight and run around in their gas-guzzling SUVs are being selfish in the extreme.

Answer 3

I'm not anti American I'm anti neocon there's a huge difference and the reason is i support freedom , truth, justice and the right to have a different opinion none of which seem to have much to do with the present American government (or British for that matter)

Answer 4

Its when I hear Americans spouting really ignorant, ill informed shite about my country (Wales or UK) that I get Anti-American!

They really don't seem to know anything about the world outside their own door and what they do know they got from some half baked Hollywood blockbuster.

And when I hear them saying that its great to have a "right to bear arms" (even though God knows how many die in gun crime incidents in America every day).

Or slagging off "socialism" because they think its all about "lazy scroungers" getting into their tax money - they don't seem to care that there are people in their country genuinely too poor (through no fault of their own) to access medical treatment! Surely thats a basic human right not a luxury to be bought? There is such a selfish attitude in America it seems. "I made the money I wanna keep it and spend it on designer clothes and big flash cars." Nasty.

I've met some really nice Americans - most of the nicest have lived in the UK for a while and had their eyes opened to another culture. The ones who come straight from America tend to need a bit of a kick up the ars.e to stop them being so arrogant and ignorant about anything thats not American!

Yeah we watch your Hollywood films (we don't have much of a choice really as Hollywood makes pretty much all the fims today) and we eat your McDonalds and drink Coke (again, American big business is hard to escape) but that doens't mean we are enamoured of everything American or that we "all want to live there". Some of us want to hold onto our own cultures.

I prefer to live in a country where I don't have to worry about huge medical bills when I'm sick, thanks!!

Answer 5

I like Americans. And some have become like a family to me. But there are some reasens, why you could dislike Americans.
They are ignorant. Could also be that they just seem ignorant as they don't know better.
Many tourists act like the country they are visiting is only there to be visited by them. Many behave like budheads.
Their Politics are quite bad. Bush is hated by the world, and you voted him again. War for bad reasons. Don't care about UN Resolutions. Act like you are the only on the planet.
Dont't care about global warming and nature protection. Dont't even think about sighning contracts like the Kyoto-paper.
Are crazy about war.

There are even more reasons, why you could like Americans, but you didn't ask for them.
There are also more reasons for disliking them, but these are the most important I believe.

nice greetings from Germany

Answer 6

well as far as i'm concern i relay don't give a hoot what Europeans think of Americans any way. one minute they love us then next they don't and well your will get a head ache trying to sort all that rubbish out. i know alot of Americans who are anti European and may be yha should hear what they think of yha humm. wonder what it feels like when the shoes is on the other foot. well as far as my family goes it's split down the middle cause well half my family comes from Europe and well it would be like hating my kin or something close to it which would be a hard thing to do. after 911 the European half of my family Finlay tried a made contact with it's American half go figure?

Answer 7

i don't hate americans as such, i've been there on several occasions and the people i spoke to have been some of the friendliest people i've come across. i've noticed, especially in the mid west states that their knowledge of world politics or geography is lacking and in fact is sometimes downright funny, for example one person i spoke to in montana genuinely thought scottish people still dressed like they do in braveheart! it's more a problem of a americancentric education system that dosen't educate in detail on world history, which would give them a better handle on world affairs. for example perhaps if colin powell had better knowledge of world history he would know why it would be so offensive to muslims to refer to the american response to 9/11 as a "crusade". with all of the genocide that caused. also during the cold war a lot of american foreign policy, (and russian, i'm not being biased here!) caused a lot of the problems with the war on terror that america now face, for example arming the mujahideen and iraq.

Answer 8

Your concept of what that's to be an American could carry real for you yet those people who voted for what our concept of being an American holds real for us. only given which you help the government in potential would not make you an American. us of a of america exchange into created with the aid of a insurrection against the British as quickly as we got here across that our freedom exchange into being taken away by utilising the British government. in a similar appreciate, being an American would not recommend which you blindly help the government while it does us of a of america grave harm or tarnish a ineffective ringer for our united states of america. the finest way for people to deliver people into conformity is to question people's patriotism. It extremely worked for the Nazis for the duration of WW II. I say in case you voted and needed good issues for the country in days to come back then you relatively are an American and a patriot, regardless of your social gathering association. Obama supporters elect the main suitable for us of a of america and that they elected a individual who they think of will make us of a of america greater valuable not worse. If that's being anti-American simply by fact they say that the present subject in us of a of america needs to be exchange, then i could elect to be attentive to the way you define being American and not anti-American.

Answer 9

We don't all hate all Americans but at the moment the representative of the American nation is George Bush and he just happens to manifest everything about America that we don't like- ignorant, arrogant and a simplistic belligerent attitude to the rest of the world.

Answer 10

Good reasons for not liking the Americans? Well, I don't know. Why should I have any view of a backward country as that?

America has been synonymous with street violence, corrupted politicians, unilateral wars, a monkeywrench in worldpolitics... and so on. I personally, am only bitter that such an imperfect state as America can claim to represent "Democracy and freedom" which, thanks to them, has come to mean manipulating and supporting factions whose only virtue was to be anti-communist, and now, anti-theocrats- whether the reason for that was that they preferred to marry their own sisters or that their fields of opium would be destroyed by the communists/theocrats.

There is no doubt, that countries in northern europe would be morally more worthy to take up the mantle of a superpower.