They think the next election will be a blowout for Obama, and that America is a force for evil. I wonder if anyone sought out the opinion of european jews for that poll, well, at least the ones that europeans didn’t kill or drive off the continent. There’s plenty of evil to go around in this world, and Europe sure as hell isn’t exempt, and damn sure doesn’t get to look down on us.
16 thoughts on “Europeans Misunderstand America”
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who really cares what europe thinks about us. What they say and think about us should not matter at all.
They don’t like us because we have lower taxes than them and have more liberty’s than them. That for some reason seems to scare them. They want us to be like them with the government telling them what they can and can not do. They want us to be a social welfare state just like them.
We need to stop worrying about what europe says about us and let them dissolve into chaos.
Good morning
Individually Americans only wish the rest of the world be allowed to live under the Ideals we all Cherish. However while working on Aerospace Secret Projects I attended several CIA briefings. After learning their tactics first hand I was appalled at how they were allowed to abuse our Ideals to protect our Ideals because “The Ends Justified the Meansâ€!
We need to insist our Government live up to the very Ideals we keep telling the World we stand for!
Time to resurrect my favorite Uncle quote of all time: “I uphold the fine American tradition of not really giving a fuck what other countries think of the US.”
rwp–Yeah, I like that a lot ! Who gives a rabid rat’s ass WHAT the Euro-weenies think? Didn’t we fight a war around 1776 to separate from them and rid ourselves of their smug superiority complex once and for all?
Matt — you understand exactly zilch about Europe. i say that as a naturalized American who immigrated from there.
granted, Europeans don’t generally understand any more about America, either, but their misunderstandings of us generally stem from (and become hilarious because of) them thinking we must be pretty much like they are. you, on the other hand, seem to think Europeans are… well, the motives you impute to them aren’t even human ones, really. seriously, no nation of people think like that about other nations, not normally.
that’s not to say we either should or shouldn’t give a rat’s ass about what other countries think of us. but if we choose not to, we should at least make the choice based on a better understanding of why other countries don’t get the point of America.
(Europeans often don’t much care how much they pay in taxes, because they feel they’re getting their money’s worth in services. they don’t think America is any more free than they are, because they feel they’re plenty free enough. they are, however, unnerved if not outright scared by us, because our foreign policy seems to them belligerent, jingoistic, self-destructive and crazy. modern Europeans don’t like warlike nations such as the USA, because they remember the world wars quite well and don’t like the feeling. that’s why they also tend to like the EU — rightly or wrongly, it gets credit for the longest stretch of general peace the continent has seen in recorded history.
you’re right about one thing, though — Europeans do wish we were more like them. we’d be easier for them to understand, then. the way we are, they can’t grok the point.)
The misunderstandings surely go both ways. It always annoys me that many American writers clump all Europeans in the same pool with some Central European bunny huggers. It’s like me basing my opinion of Americans only on Californian hippies and communists. There are great cultural, sociological and economic differences between different states and countries in both US and Europe.
The jew comment was a nice one. I just have to point out that while the US was fighting the Nazies, FDR was sucking up to Stalin and doing nothing concrete to prevent a similar genocide in USSR. The economic aid was even enabling it. Then there was the fire bombing and nuking of German and Japanese cities. That is probably the biggest terrorist campaign ever. Yes, there is plenty of evil to go around and few nations get to look down on others.
I reserve the right look down on anyone I choose, however. I choose to look down on certain people and concepts both in Europe and the US as well as other parts of the world.
Matt mentioned liberties in his comment. Well, you win some and you lose some. We don’t have anything even close to the Patriot act.
This post may give you the image that I’m one of the Obama lovers. In fact I preferred Thompson, and now prefer McCain. I also prefer everything fair and balanced.
“I also prefer everything fair and balanced.”
You also have no moral compass. None. Of course, Europeans don’t. That’s the problem.
If you had, there would be none of your complaining that we didn’t take care of Stalin. Why didn’t you? Why is it our job to change your diapers?
That’s the problem with Europeans. They’re not adults. They’re children. And that’s why Europe is utterly irrelevant.
Jani,
My point was not to absolve America of anything, but to point out that evil is part of the human condition. Europe is no more exempt from the human condition than any other part of the world. Perhaps our civilization has risen above that now, but I doubt it. We still live in a world with evil, perhaps less than in the last century, but it’s still there, and it will assert itself if not confronted.
i don’t know if you’re actually insane, but stating such broadly sweeping and patently silly things as that certainly makes you seem less than entirely balanced.
FWIW, the given name “Jani” sounds distinctly Finnish to my ears. if that’s the case, he(?) could easily retort that we tried to take care of Stalin by ourselves, but it was kindof difficult for a nation of a handful of millions to stave off a nascent regional superpower even back before the crazy dictator got nukes. yeah, that’s where i immigrated from, myself.
Sebastian, you’re quite right that evil is still a concern in our world. that being the case, it’s imprudent hubris of us Americans to imagine we might not, at times, be doing evil in our dealings with the rest of the world — in other words, those pesky Europeans might just have a point.
Insane? Coming from you, that’s a compliment. But let’s see here.
Carpet bombing is terrorism. Funny how none of the diapered Europeans complained about it when it was saving their worthless asses, isn’t it. Then there’s the whining about Stalin, the man Europeans carried water for from the end of WW2 until after he died, and still carry water for. Europeans aren’t pesky. They’re not noticeable enough to be pesky. They’re just irrelevant.
Europeans are like the scrawny little kid at school who cries all the time and won’t take up for himself. Take up for him, then he cries about what a bully you are. Grow up, take responsibility for your own national defense, and be adults for the first time in your lives.
Yes, and perhaps sometimes we should listen more. But overall, I think Americans tend to get fed up with Europeans lecturing them about their evilness. I won’t argue we don’t make mistakes… we’ve certainly made a lot in Iraq, but I’m not yet convinced if some semblance of democratic government can be made to take hold there, that will in the end be an evil result. I still think George W. Bush had the right idea, he was just the wrong man to do it.
On the other topic, my understanding was that the Finns were a significant source of surplus SVT rifles. Never fired, only dropped once.
“You also have no moral compass. None. Of course, Europeans don’t. That’s the problem.
If you had, there would be none of your complaining that we didn’t take care of Stalin. Why didn’t you? Why is it our job to change your diapers?”
Actually, we did the best we could. Our casualties 85 000 dead or missing and 200 000 wounded. The Soviet casualties estimated at 325 000 dead or missing and 650 000 wounded. Considering the size difference of the countries and the armies, that’s pretty good.
You also have no intellectual capacity. None. Of course, some Americans don’t. That’s the problem.
Did I say that it was the Americans’ job to take care of Stalin? No. I just said that the Americans were allied to and gave aid to a country not that much different from Nazi Germany. Had FDR trusted Churchill more than Stalin, things might have gone a bit different. I also said that there are some other campaigns in the US military history that take away any moral high ground you might think you have.
Obviously nobody has the high ground to look down on others, but many still do. Even in this thread. Including me.
Sebastian, I agree.
Ah, intellectual capacity. That’s always what you Europeans fall back on when you don’t have an argument. We had the intellectual capacity to throw off feudalism; you did not, so now you have the EU, unelected and unaccountable, to tell you what you may and may not do. As to the “moral high ground,” you aren’t equipped to make the judgment.
Trust Stalin more than Churchill? In whose sick and twisted fantasy world did that happen? We knew exactly what Stalin was. We dealt with him because we had no other choice. And as soon as WW2 was over, Europeans went back to carrying water for Stalin. Europeans took Stalin’s side in the Cold War. Communist parties rose all over Europe, and they’re still there. That’s because Europeans rely on their more sophisticated “relative morals” and their vast intellects, which tell them that the only reason Communism hasn’t worked is because nobody has done it the right way.
Yeah, that’s intellectual. Sophisticated, too.
you must have us mistaken for some nationality that did not fight at Suomussalmi or Ilomantsi. the WW2 surplus rifles Finland sold off were mostly Mosins, dropped once by a Russian, fired plenty by the Finns that picked them up.
I thought I had recalled reading that somewhere. A quick search only turned up this bit:
The SVT-40 had a somewhat controversial reputation. It was highly regarded by the enemies (Finns and Germans) and it was a very sought-after war trophy, re-issued to both German and Finnish troops. On the other hand, it was often considered unreliable and over-complicated by the Soviet troops (when comparing with old Mosin-Nagant rifles), but it was more to the poor training and maintenance, than to the rifle itself. Some better trained and educated Soviet troops, such as Sea Infantry (Marines, which always were some kind of elite in the Soviet army) used the SVT-40 with great deal of success.
“Ah, intellectual capacity. That’s always what you Europeans fall back on when you don’t have an argument.”
I don’t have an argument? I think my English is good enough. Somehow you managed to read something in the comment of mine that wasn’t there. Then I explicitly said so in my second post. You missed that too.
“you aren’t equipped to make the judgment.”
But you are equipped to make the judgment on my moral compass? You obviously have such a high moral ground that the lack oxygen is already affecting you.
“And as soon as WW2 was over, Europeans went back to carrying water for Stalin. Europeans took Stalin’s side in the Cold War. Communist parties rose all over Europe, and they’re still there.”
In whose sick and twisted fantasy world did that happen? I’ll grant you that we have a communist party. It has a total of zero representatives in the parliament.
I’ll also grant you that we had to do some political tap dancing living next door to the Soviets. There is also another side to that coin. We had intelligence co-operation with the US. For example, we had some extremely high-tech seismological equipment from the US that was used to collect data from the Soviet nuclear tests and that data was then sent back to the US.