Seriously, we almost need a sticky thread titled “Bitch about America.” Place it right above a “Israel sucks” thread. And that’s my useless post for the night.
This ought to stir up some shit. Enjoy
Anti-Americanism
Here’s the article.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=5cm8m89n8bpb099csz9qn8p6z7nzj8xp
And here’s my counter-analysis.
What this guy misses is a very simple thing about human beings.
Humans hate. Humans really love to hate. With it becoming “uncouth” to hate real enemies, much less the standard tropes of the “different”, the Europeans have seized on the one remaining group it’s okay to hate: Americans.
And by “Americans” they have a very specific image. The “Americans” they are permitted and encouraged to hate are: White, male, middle-class and reasonably comfortable with their place in life.
It’s easy to see in movies as foreign revenues have become more and more important. It’s impossible to have a villain who is any racial/social type but white, male and preferably “conservative.”
With blacks (Kaffirs, niggers, Sens) removed from consideration, with Jews (Kikes, Shylocks) questionable, with women being “equal” (far less so, demonstrably, in Europe than in the US) with even a real enemy, violent fundamentalist Islamics, removed from allowance for hate, they have to turn it somewhere.
It is exacerabated by the fact that, so-called “superpower” or no, Europe is demonstrably inferior to the US in every provable metric. Fewer Nobel Prizes in scientific (vs purely subjective “literary” or “peace” prizes) awards, fewer research papers, tiny and increasingly incompetent militaries, fewer patents, economically on either a per capita or personal productivity level…
Say what they will about their “superior” culture. Give me a metric on that. They cannot and thus when they drift to sleep they fume against McDonalds, cheaper and yet more dependable cars (ever owned a Renault?) and all the rest of the “tawdry” that, inconceivably, is supplanting their “superior” culture.
They hate us because we’re workaholics and it’s embarassing to them. We always have been, comparatively. It was the hard workers and those willing to dig in and hoe who came to the US . It was the lazy and the uncaring, or the powerful and privileged, who remained. As the lazy and uncaring have gained political power, they’ve taken over the reins and now decide just how much work they want to do, rather than how much needs to be done to remain competitive. How many paid holidays do Europeans get? How much paid vacation? The French are down to a 35 hour work-week.
Despite fewer hours to work, thus presumably needing more workers, we still have statistically zero unemployment (there’s a level that’s darned hard to crack simply for reporting reasons) vs their comparatively huge levels. But it gets worse. It used to be that that German worker would get out as much work as an American in less time. No longer. American per-hour productivity is the highest in the world. Our work-force is the most integrated to the information age thus the most efficient. We work more hours and get more done in less time.
We’re kicking their asses. It has to be embarassing.
Then there’s the fact that they’re dying off. Aging so fast that the concept of a “German”, an “Italian” and even a “Frenchman” is something that is approaching “the buggy-whip.”
They’re old and they’re crotchety and everything they hate translates to “those damned kids.”
They hate our energy, they hate our efficiency, they hate the “mongrel” culture that produces it, a culture that’s willing to grab a burger (or a wrap or a salad) on the run so that they can do more, more, More, MORE! WORK HARD, PLAY HARD. This is not a European motto. “Work less then sip coffee or beer while bitching about Americans” pretty much covers it.
Who invented extreme sports?
They are the geriatrics raging against the future. They are walker-bound nontegenarians wheezing curses at the kid on the skate-board.
They know it, deep in their “cultured” bones, and they hate us all the more.
We are the future, they are the past. As Lazarus Long said: “You know you’re dying when all you have is memories and no goals.”
Rage all you want against the dying of the light. If all you have left is rage, you have nothing.
Let them rage.
[quote]Grimnuruk wrote:
This ought to stir up some shit. Enjoy
Anti-Americanism
Here’s the article.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=5cm8m89n8bpb099csz9qn8p6z7nzj8xp
[/quote]
Well, the article has conveniently disappeared. Technically, all you’re left with is a giant strawman…
I agree with Sloth to some extent. There needs to be an “Iraq war” sticky. It’s the most recurring theme around any world politics forum.
The most recurring theme around any world politics forum is lixy…lixy…lixy…bull-shiite.
Why doen’t Biotest give them their own forum, preferably on another site.
How bout Lixy buys something, then they release his info, and I stomp a mudhole in his ass?
[quote]hedo wrote:
Why doen’t Biotest give them their own forum, preferably on another site.[/quote]
To give you enough resistance to have the opportunity to grow.
Plus, the circle jerk that this forum would otherwise be would be unbearably gay.
And yes, there would be something seriously wrong with that.
[quote]orion wrote:
hedo wrote:
Why doen’t Biotest give them their own forum, preferably on another site.
To give you enough resistance to have the opportunity to grow.
Plus, the circle jerk that this forum would otherwise be would be unbearably gay.
And yes, there would be something seriously wrong with that.
[/quote]
Elitest europeans obviously think we are stupid and we’d go around bragging about how great we are to each other, when nothing would be farther from the truth.
They “think” we need to grow which show how obviously little they no about our country and our culture. All they do is keep everybody going in circles so that when we bring up a topic, they can go around saying "Oh yea, well the U.S. done bad things too.
You guys are stupid and need to grow and think like the Europeans because that’s obviously the right way to think". Be an elitest bastard, oh wait! You can’t you live in the U.S., only Europeans can be smart.
Fuck you.
[quote]Valentinius wrote:
How bout Lixy buys something, then they release his info, and I stomp a mudhole in his ass?
[/quote]
Why would you want to lower yourself to anywhere near his level? I’d say the effort would not be worth it. You kill a fly with a sledgehammer, you still only have a dead fly.
[quote]Grimnuruk wrote:
This ought to stir up some shit. Enjoy
Anti-Americanism
Here’s the article.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=5cm8m89n8bpb099csz9qn8p6z7nzj8xp
And here’s my counter-analysis.
What this guy misses is a very simple thing about human beings.
Humans hate. Humans really love to hate. With it becoming “uncouth” to hate real enemies, much less the standard tropes of the “different”, the Europeans have seized on the one remaining group it’s okay to hate: Americans.
And by “Americans” they have a very specific image. The “Americans” they are permitted and encouraged to hate are: White, male, middle-class and reasonably comfortable with their place in life.
It’s easy to see in movies as foreign revenues have become more and more important. It’s impossible to have a villain who is any racial/social type but white, male and preferably “conservative.”
With blacks (Kaffirs, niggers, Sens) removed from consideration, with Jews (Kikes, Shylocks) questionable, with women being “equal” (far less so, demonstrably, in Europe than in the US) with even a real enemy, violent fundamentalist Islamics, removed from allowance for hate, they have to turn it somewhere.
It is exacerabated by the fact that, so-called “superpower” or no, Europe is demonstrably inferior to the US in every provable metric. Fewer Nobel Prizes in scientific (vs purely subjective “literary” or “peace” prizes) awards, fewer research papers, tiny and increasingly incompetent militaries, fewer patents, economically on either a per capita or personal productivity level…
Say what they will about their “superior” culture. Give me a metric on that. They cannot and thus when they drift to sleep they fume against McDonalds, cheaper and yet more dependable cars (ever owned a Renault?) and all the rest of the “tawdry” that, inconceivably, is supplanting their “superior” culture.
They hate us because we’re workaholics and it’s embarassing to them. We always have been, comparatively. It was the hard workers and those willing to dig in and hoe who came to the US . It was the lazy and the uncaring, or the powerful and privileged, who remained. As the lazy and uncaring have gained political power, they’ve taken over the reins and now decide just how much work they want to do, rather than how much needs to be done to remain competitive. How many paid holidays do Europeans get? How much paid vacation? The French are down to a 35 hour work-week.
Despite fewer hours to work, thus presumably needing more workers, we still have statistically zero unemployment (there’s a level that’s darned hard to crack simply for reporting reasons) vs their comparatively huge levels. But it gets worse. It used to be that that German worker would get out as much work as an American in less time. No longer. American per-hour productivity is the highest in the world. Our work-force is the most integrated to the information age thus the most efficient. We work more hours and get more done in less time.
We’re kicking their asses. It has to be embarassing.
Then there’s the fact that they’re dying off. Aging so fast that the concept of a “German”, an “Italian” and even a “Frenchman” is something that is approaching “the buggy-whip.”
They’re old and they’re crotchety and everything they hate translates to “those damned kids.”
They hate our energy, they hate our efficiency, they hate the “mongrel” culture that produces it, a culture that’s willing to grab a burger (or a wrap or a salad) on the run so that they can do more, more, More, MORE! WORK HARD, PLAY HARD. This is not a European motto. “Work less then sip coffee or beer while bitching about Americans” pretty much covers it.
Who invented extreme sports?
They are the geriatrics raging against the future. They are walker-bound nontegenarians wheezing curses at the kid on the skate-board.
They know it, deep in their “cultured” bones, and they hate us all the more.
We are the future, they are the past. As Lazarus Long said: “You know you’re dying when all you have is memories and no goals.”
Rage all you want against the dying of the light. If all you have left is rage, you have nothing.
Let them rage.
[/quote]
I’m buying Grimnuruk a beer.
Americans are a bit egotistical, I think.
Look at the long post above mine. I’ll sum up with I got from it:
Europeans dont like Americans because Americans are better than them.
The same way I’ve been listening to “Terrorists hate us for our freedoms! They hate us because we love peace!”
Everything, apparently, boils down to how great America/Americans are.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Everything, apparently, boils down to how great America/Americans are.[/quote]
Everyone has to make themselves appear to be better by ripping on Americans. If the perception about how great we were did not exist, no one would have to waste their time telling us how bad or how much better they are. We’re the biggest guy on the block and everyone wants to try to knock us down.
A Couple More Things About Europe
The first is the article: Opinion & Reviews - Wall Street Journal A couple of “money paragraphs.”
The nations of Continental Western Europe, in the reforms they make to try to raise their economic performance, may prove to be a testing ground for the view that culture matters for a society’s economic results.
As is increasingly admitted, the economic performance in nearly every Continental country is generally poor compared to the U.S. and a few other countries that share the U.S.'s characteristics. Productivity in the Continental Big Three–Germany, France and Italy–stopped gaining ground on the U.S. in the early 1990s, then lost ground as a result of recent slowdowns and the U.S. speed-up. Unemployment rates are generally far higher than those in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Ireland. And labor force participation rates have been lower for decades. Relatedly, the employee engagement and job satisfaction reported in surveys are mostly lower, too.
Snip
The other part of the economic model consists of various elements of the country’s economic culture. Some cultural attributes in a country may have direct effects on performance–on top of their indirect effects through the institutions they foster. Values and attitudes are analogous to institutions–some impede, others enable. They are as much a part of the “economy,” and possibly as important for how well it functions, as the institutions are. Clearly, any study of the sources of poor performance on the Continent that omits that part of the system can yield results only of unknown reliability.
snip
The values that might impact dynamism are of special interest here. Relatively few in the Big Three report that they want jobs offering opportunities for achievement (42% in France and 54% in Italy, versus an average of 73% in Canada and the U.S.); chances for initiative in the job (38% in France and 47% in Italy, as against an average of 53% in Canada and the U.S.), and even interesting work (59% in France and Italy, versus an average of 71.5% in Canada and the U.K). Relatively few are keen on taking responsibility, or freedom (57% in Germany and 58% in France as against 61% in the U.S. and 65% in Canada), and relatively few are happy about taking orders (Italy 1.03, of a possible 3.0, and Germany 1.13, as against 1.34 in Canada and 1.47 in the U.S.).
In other words, the people of Europe don’t have a desire to grow, succeed, change the world to a better place. All the street demonstrations against the US are a reaction of unhappy people who are equally unwilling to do what is necessary to achieve happiness as a society. One is tempted to shout “Pull up your socks and quit whinging! The only thing you have to lose is the chains you have placed upon yourself !”
And what are the results of this choice to whinge instead of pulling up your socks? The article eloquently describes much of the economic damage. The below shows just how far mighty Europe has fallen in every metric of knowledge creation. The below is the text of the email I received. I’m not going to cite the author since he didn’t want his name associated with it. And I cannot verify the data, but it “feels” correct. It’s a very interesting comment on how far Europe is falling behind the US. "Each year Nobel Prizes are awarded to people. Each country then gets to claim that their ‘citizen’ won the award for that year (yes, there are countries that like to ‘double-dip’, for example Kissinger is under both Germany and US despite being a US citizen almost his entire life). If you look at the data and get the year in which a country ‘won’ and then come up with the average ‘year age’ of winning, (removing subjective Peace and Literature prizes) it looks like this.
Austria: 1964
Italy: 1961
Germany: 1951
France: 1947
Denmark: 1949
England: 1954
Spain: 1933
Hungary: 1961
Netherlands: 1950
Russia: 1964
Sweden: 1960
Switzerland: 1959
USA: 1985
In other words, Western Europe is falling behind in Economics, Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology/Medicine. Their peak years are behind them. The average is about 1954!"
Note that even if you choose to create a single numeric for the “EU”, it still is more than thirty years behind the US!
For the various Europeans that sent me emails arguing their side, I suggest you consider both this analysis and the article (by a, yes, American Nobel winner). Americans may be arrogant and smug, but perhaps it’s because we really are outstripping you in every measurable metric. (One not noted in this mail is the Freedom Quotient released every year by the Heritage Foundation. By the way.) There is a difference between arrogance and recognizing reality. And that’s not our fault, lads and ladies.
Quit bitching at me about pointing it out and look to how you can change it if you’re so upset. This is squarely on you . Get past it and do something! Or is the idea of trying to change for the better a purely Anglo-sphere thing? Come on, Europe, get off your ASS! I’d love for you guys, even the French, to have a reason to be arrogant. Instead of sitting in your flats whinging about how awful us Americans are.
The threads of greatness that created Western Civilization, from the Athenian Greeks to John Locke, were brought forth from your soil. The seeds must still be there. And the concept of the Rights of Man, of personal value of every individual of rational thought over blind ignorance and rational altruism over “how do I fill my ricebowl today” are worth living for, worth fighting for! Pull up your damned socks!
It is an odd phenomenon, but then again, this is a site centered in/around America (and Canada, of course).
But I still find the obsession weird - there are plenty of things to discuss and evaluate with America, sure there are. But if the critics spent a fraction of their time being as unforgivably critical of their own countries/societies, the “America and the rest of us” paradigm wouldn’t be nearly as pronounced.
Of course, that is part of America’s strength - there is no shortage of opportunity to be heard criticizing, analyzing, and otherwise pontificating about everything related to America. Can’t quite pull that off in other places.
My way of looking at it - the fact that we have such rabid anti-American sniveling for the sake of sniveling shows how our robust self-audit system works. We should be proud of it. I will say that sooner or later, such radical garbage grinds on rational folks, and the “market” for such nonsense takes over and people move on to better conversations elsewhere - bad ideas die a natural death - but the silver lining is that we have such a market available to us.
Never forget, perhaps the most important aspect to our free speech approach is that it makes it so much easier to “spot the idiot”, which we want to do in order to inform ourselves how not to address a given problem. This forum is an amazing fishbowl of that process at work.
[quote]orion wrote:
hedo wrote:
Why doen’t Biotest give them their own forum, preferably on another site.
To give you enough resistance to have the opportunity to grow.
Plus, the circle jerk that this forum would otherwise be would be unbearably gay.
And yes, there would be something seriously wrong with that.
[/quote]
Arguing with bigots isn’t much resistance. More like annoying insects, ever present but don’t actually accomplish much.
The political forum “jumped the shark” a long time ago. Most of the vets have left or don’t post here anymore. It was a diversion for iron heads to talk about something different. It morphed into a “circle jerk” for politicos who have little or no interest in the purpose the site was created for.
In it’s heyday the political forum was entertaining and offered challenging debate. That was about 3 years ago.
[quote]Valentinius wrote:
How bout Lixy buys something, then they release his info, and I stomp a mudhole in his ass?
[/quote]
Is that a threat?
Doesn’t the lack of denunciation of Valentinius’ post show how terrorism is condoned when Americans do it?
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Americans are a bit egotistical, I think.
Look at the long post above mine. I’ll sum up with I got from it:
Europeans dont like Americans because Americans are better than them.
The same way I’ve been listening to “Terrorists hate us for our freedoms! They hate us because we love peace!”
Everything, apparently, boils down to how great America/Americans are.[/quote]
Actually I like Europeans just fine. I was on the academic path to doing Viking Age archaeology and wish I could continue it. The focus of my personal dabbling in the academic journal articles is still on Europe, from the Paleolithic to the present.
I work with (mostly Eastern)European kids every year who come over to earn money on break from school and think most of them are great. I’ve made some really good friends with some of them. I put up the articles from John Ringo’s website because I think they might generate some spirited inter-cultural debate (stir up some shit).
In the same fashion I’ve often “argued” with my European co-workers. One, a very good friend, would get mightily pissed at me, even when explained that I was doing it for the purpose of getting some understanding. The others would all understand and laugh at the stereotypes, as we all should.
[quote]Grimnuruk wrote:
http://johnringo.com/Abyss/Europe.asp
A Couple More Things About Europe
The first is the article: Opinion & Reviews - Wall Street Journal A couple of “money paragraphs.” …
[/quote]
That sounded like an angry young man that has grown dissillusioned with his father, but still wishes he (the father) would somehow meet his childhood expectations. Welcome to the real world.
[quote]hedo wrote:
Arguing with bigots isn’t much resistance. More like annoying insects, ever present but don’t actually accomplish much.
The political forum “jumped the shark” a long time ago. Most of the vets have left or don’t post here anymore. It was a diversion for iron heads to talk about something different. It morphed into a “circle jerk” for politicos who have little or no interest in the purpose the site was created for.
In it’s heyday the political forum was entertaining and offered challenging debate. That was about 3 years ago.
[/quote]
On the money, Hedo, from top to bottom.
It was once good - it is now a shadow of its former self.
[quote]pat36 wrote:
orion wrote:
hedo wrote:
Why doen’t Biotest give them their own forum, preferably on another site.
To give you enough resistance to have the opportunity to grow.
Plus, the circle jerk that this forum would otherwise be would be unbearably gay.
And yes, there would be something seriously wrong with that.
Elitest europeans obviously think we are stupid and we’d go around bragging about how great we are to each other, when nothing would be farther from the truth.
They “think” we need to grow which show how obviously little they no about our country and our culture. All they do is keep everybody going in circles so that when we bring up a topic, they can go around saying "Oh yea, well the U.S. done bad things too.
You guys are stupid and need to grow and think like the Europeans because that’s obviously the right way to think". Be an elitest bastard, oh wait! You can’t you live in the U.S., only Europeans can be smart.
Fuck you.[/quote]
Is it that special time of the month again?