quote:
Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
Yes, our media tell us that Americans are stupid. (Jay Leno routinely goes in the streets and asks people such basic questions as who the President and Vice President are, and usually gets answers that embarass me as an American.)

I hate that - I mean, I reallyreallyreally hate that part of Leno's show. He asks the most basic questions and picks the most idiotic people to try to answer them. Really, its utterly embarrassing that the world thinks that these total schmucks represent the "average American." [...rassamnfrackin...]

Moving on... Dennis Miller once said that America is simultaneously the most hated/ loved, feared/admired country in the world and I tend to agree with his analysis for too many reasons to get into right now. However, I did want to just mention something in response to Dave's original question re: why Americans have such a bad rep. This is on a more local level, but I've been fortunate enough to travel a lot and time and again I have witnessed the "ugly American" everywhere. Generally speaking, we expect people everywhere to accommodate us and speak English without even attempting to speak the language of the host country (and if you at least try, you'd be amazed at much friendlier people become); have a McDonalds on every corner; and a lot of travelling Americans walk around with a sense of entitlement; etc.

Here's a story: I spent a summer in Israel volunteering in the army and on the occassional free weekend a bunch of us would backpack and stay in hostels. In one hostel I handed my passport to the woman behind the counter and when she took it to put it away for me I thanked her. She turned around in shock - seriously, she had such a look on her face I thought maybe I did something wrong - and she asked me if I was American. I said "yes" and she told me that she had been working in that hostel for years and in all that time I was the first American to ever say "thank you" to her.

I think that's kinda sad.

True, this is just one story, but I think it gives a very small glimpse behind the reasons the rest of the world isn't too keen on us - we expect things to come to us easily and I think that is the image that alot of people have of us - right or wrong. And that's not getting into politics (which is everywhere - have you guys read what is going on between Italy and Germany lately? [yuh huh] ) and economics and a slew of other reasons which have already been mentioned.