h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Unfortunately, there is no 'current popluar opinion' on handguns. It will always be a divided issue. Advocates of right to carry will continue to be advocates of right to carry until someone offs all their loved ones with illegal handguns. I will probably end up the butt end of some liberal-bashing for this, but there is no policy or legislation that will ever make handguns completely safe. There will never be a way to absolutely ensure that a gun never gets into the wrong hands. And while there will never be a gun anywhere in my home, when my ex- had one, I REQUIRED that the gun be kept empty, including the round in the chamber, and locked up in a place that was completely removed from the clip and ammunition that was also locked up.

I'm an american...and I can tell all of you exactly whats wrong with us...

1. the public schools are really bad...no one really learns anything important, like manners or respect for others...(why do you think those kids at columbine decided shooting everyone was a good idea?)

2. Almost everyone has to work all the time, so children get left to their own devices...this leads to them growing up to be incredably self centered adults...

3. our government decided at some point that they needed to be the police for the world...which makes for quite a lot of resentment in places like vietnam...

4. the advertising coorperations and mass media have conspired to make everyone in america feel as though what they own is much more important than what they do.

There's more, but i think thats enough for now. Citizens of other countrys have their problems too...(yugoslavia and palestine/isreal anyone?) But its the general attitude of americans that seems to piss everyone off so much. And unfortunatly, it's usually the wealthy, self important, and raised by television americans who can afford to travel to other countries...and they make the rest of us look bad...
(i am NOT saying that all foregin traveling americans are a******s, just that a good precentage of them are..."why be on good behavior..its not like we have to live with these people"...that sort of attitude...)

I must say (Brit speaking here) that I have been very impressed by some Americans way of touring. While backpacking in Italy once - we were at the Youth Hostel in Florence and talking about the sites - one American (who, of course, didn't speak a word of Italian) had managed to find all sorts of hidden treasures and by asking people nicely had got them to unlock obscure churches and synagogues for him to have a look. And when Americans do read up about a subject, they often take it very seriously and go quite deep.

Living round this way (Southern Germany) we had - up until recently - a surfeit of Americans. Some were quite nice and I remember going to camp with some Girl Scout Juniors. I traded a Leberwurst sandwich with one of their Peanut butter and jelly sandiwches - a first for both of us. The highlight of the first evening was my telling people I had brought something in a polythene bag. That took some explaining!

Latterly, remembering these experiences with Girl Scouts, I sent my boys to the American Boy Scouts, where they learnt a few things. Here, too, I met several people who, probably due to Scouting, really took things seriously, whether it was fishing or meteorology. The people were really great, although, in typical American style, I haven't heard a word from any of them since they left (the troops were withdrawn after the Berlin Wall fell.) One Scouter called Bill, I can remember, I got on so well with, it was like finding the brother I never had.

At this point I could have a moan about the American system. When they pulled out of this little town alone they left at least 1000 people jobless with no compensation. and there were US forces in nearly every town from Düsseldorf to the Austrian border, employing local civilians for menial and liaison tasks.

There is definitely a difference between the Americans who have never left the country and those who have travelled (preferably without the help of the forces.....I'd like to bet that some of those soldiers who were flown to Kosovo or Somalia would have no idea where they were if asked to point it out on the globe)

Andy, I never said that the death penalty was a deterrent, I just feel it's right. Eye for an eye and all.
That's one reason it's nice to be an American sometimes, just sometimes criminals get what they deserve. Revenge/justice call it what you will but at least one less scumbag in the world is fine with me.

Broelan - It's real easy for criminals to get guns, and there is no way you can possibly stop them from getting a gun. So why should only criminals have them? Why is it so bad for honest law-abiding people to have the right to defend themselves against criminals? What happens if someone breaks into you house and trys doing a Helter Skelter thing. What would you do then? Call the cops and watch your family get killed while you wait for them, or would you rather have a weapon in the house to defend yourself?

As far as all the bad things that you see in the news about guns, that's all you ever see. They never tell you about the woman who shot and killed her would be rapist in her own house. Or the old guy that detured a robbery by firing a warning shot at the theives in his house? You never hear stuff like that and it happens everyday.

I was brought up in a house with guns, and we were taught at a very early age to respect the weapon and knew that it was not a toy. My parrents also kept them out of reach of little fingers.

Zorpheus : suffice it to say that there will never be a gun in my house. I refuse to ever believe that I live in a society where it is necessary to keep a loaded firearm in my posession at all times to protect myself from others. 'nuff said.

I'm sure this would be a very enlightening discussion, however, maybe we should designate another forum for it. Let me know if one gets started, in the meantime, back to the issue...

wow testy, testy.

Right, back to the Amiercan bashing....

not testy... just interested in the subject at hand (if it continues). Actually I'm sure the gun topic would prove an equally lively dialog. Maybe next week, I'm due out of here (work) in about an hour, and i won't be back until the 7th. Save it for me, okay

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I can see this thread is going to rival British English for lengh and quantity of postings at this rate.

I was born in Nigeria 48 years ago.When Nigeria became independant I was 7 and we went home to London.When I attended school I was asked the usual questions like where are you from.I proudly affirmed I was from Africa.The next question was "well why aren't you black then"?
My point is it isn't just Americans who can be ignorant or arrogant or insular but the whole human race.This is why we are still having continual conflicts and wars around the world.

I would like to say that, speaking for myself, I do feel instinctively wary of other races and nationalities. But I wait with judgment until I know the person better. It is an inborn thing to feel negative feelings for anything "different". It is a sign of maturity, I would say, whether you give in to these feelings (neo nazis/anti-French/anti-american/anti-British) or whether you can suppress them and take each person at face value.

This will probably stir up a lot of anger among people, but if you think carefully, there is bound to be something somewhere that gets your back up without you having an explanation for it : a posh English accent/a Welsh accent/people with hare lips/people who use a particular phrase which annoys you/people with earrings..... I can imagine these can all produce an inexplicable annoyance in other people, without reason. So if "American accent" falls into that category, that's quite a lot of people, despised by lots of other people, for no apparent reason.

There are those who will approach this problem by asking themselves "What IS this thing that bothers me about American accents?" and will try and find out from Americans themselves, will go there, will read up about it, will learn to differentiate between the different American accents, and will finally break down this instinctive adverse reaction. Others will continue to let it rile them and will spout out about Americans when- and wherever they can, without really knowing what they're talking about.

In the end, it all boils down to fear of the unknown. A social worker in Germany once organised a group of skinheads to go to Rumania and work in orphanages. They soon changed their views.

So, actually, maybe the theme of this thread should be "what's wrong with people"?
My neighbours are Americans - and will be here for a relatively short time, because their with the forces - but have made a real effort to fit in with "our" community (I use inverted commas, because I'm also a foreigner here) which is a small village. They always remember people's names, have learned the language with amazing speed, and generally have changed a lot of people's opinions. Which is good, because Phil is black, and when he first got here people were incredibly rude and stared at him a lot. But, and here is where he is different from lots of people, (no matter where they come from or what their colour/race/religion/eye colour/musical preferance is) he thought "ok, so I'm different. Probably these German villagers have loads of preconceived ideas about black Americans" (a phrase, btw, he uses to describe himself) "so I'll show them...." And he does. Sings in the local male voice choir (even though sometimes he'd rather be singing with his blues band) etc etc.
On the other hand, in the next village there are a group of young German skinheads, who abuse their fellow villagers, and generally "show themselves up".
Just goes to show. Nobody is perfect (except me)

And sometimes innocent people get what criminals deserve?

I haven't read the whole of this thread - it's already over 40 postings long and Internet access in the UK costs money, which I don't have much of.

When you say 'quite a bit of "Yank-bashing"', would you care to give examples? I've posted a number of questions to 'Ask h2g2', which were along the lines of 'Why is this different in the States?' or 'Why do the Americans use this word / phrase?' These questions were asked out of curiosity and yet I was accused of 'Yank-bashing', an accusation I strenuously deny.

I'm not asking you to 'name and shame' here. It's just that a remark that was innocently made, or humourously meant, may have been mis-interpreted as "Yank-bashing". I have nothing against Americans. I don't know enough of them to form any opinion of the race as a whole, although the ones I have met have been OK. I actually *love* the fact that they use the English language differently from the British. It's just that some of the things they do seem so weird and/or brainless to us that we find it comical. This is not the same as "Yank-bashing". As far as I'm concerned, that should have died with the end of World War II, when G.I.s were "Over-sexed, over-paid and over here!"

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I seem to be a little late as this thread has gone many places since I last posted. I posted the second message and would like to defend what I said.
Antipaz...,
There's a reason for the winking smiley: I was joking. That's why I focused on the TV programs and not the real question being asked in the first post.

I know that Americans can be arrogant, that's also why the winking smiley statement came last -- AFTER I fessed up to the fact that Americans do have a lot of problems as a culture, a people, tour groups, and individuals.

I do think that this is the best place to live, but not because I think we are freer, smarter, richer, nicer, or any other superlative you can think of.
I think America is the best place to live because my ancestors crossed the Atlantic a few hundred years ago in search of an ideal,a dream. They worked their asses off to make it into a reality. Today, all but the most remotely connected of my relatives live within a couple hundred miles of one another. I have an family roots that are much stronger than the average citizen in any western civilization. I love where I live. I think it's beautiful when the leaves turn in autumn. I think it's funny that I never know what the weather's going to be like from hour to hour. (I live in the South) I love that there's jazz and bluegrass music all around me. I love that most of my state is still covered in wildflowers. I love that even in a rather rural and poor section of my country, I can attend a college that is more diverse that most Ivy League universities (that's Yale, Harvard and the like, if you don't know).
I have friends from Poland (2), the Czech Republic (2), Russia (1), Indonesia (3), Japan (1), Ireland (1), England (1), New Zealand (1), Australia (1), Sweden (4), Guatemala (5), and a few other countries. And what I have come to see is that none of our countries or cultures is perfect. But we each have something valuable to offer the others in the group - our thoughts, feelings, patriotism, exotic holidays (read: new reasons to party), curiosity about ourselves and others, and lots of other stuff.

The only place I know of that really is better than EVERYWHERE is Heaven. Of course, some people don't believe that Heaven exists. And though that makes me sad, I'm not going to Bible-bash them.

Hope this clears up any misconceptions any of you might have about me. I'm not an arrogant American on a good day. And I apologize for my bad days. However, I am never a Yank. I was born and bred in Dixie, and Dixielander I'll always be.

"The South will rise again"

Neesey
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I have taken a vow of poverty. To annoy me, send money.

PS -- I have also come to the conclusion that it's usually best to ignore any kind of criticizing generalization. Just like the spinach that always gets stuck in your (universal you) blind date's teeth.

Neesey
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I have taken a vow of poverty. To annoy me, send money.

To put a damper (or is it dampner???) on this question

Nothing.

What´s wrong with me?

That is the tough one...

First and fore most Neesey I thought the civil war was fought long before our time as far as any other country is concerned we are ALL yanks.

Second off I really don't like you takeing that attitude about "the north" you love your home and I love mine. How would you feel if I went around saying things like the prejudicial, ignorant south? Not very good so please lets not try and break the US up into peices. There are more then enough other problem to concern yourself about (If I have offended I'm sorry but I was offended)

Next as I said earlier we are all a messed up race (this means all of us) But yet the thing that makes us great is our own opinions and our ability to express them.

Dare I ask? What do you people think of CANADIANS? We appear to be the only ones who haven't had a go-round!

I alrddy di canadeans with the rest of the "Civalised world"