Americans

[Balagor]

This tells me that war is dangerous, and should be avoided when possible.

[Aurielius]

The problem with categorizing friendly fire is that in a mixed combat environment one must rely on your instrumentation. As a former naval aviator I will state that reaction time is limited to seconds. Now add up the sorties times the patrol hours and divide that by the mistakes and you will see that 'friendly fire' errors are under 1%. War has never been a fault free pastime, it is a mistake to assume that friendly fire has not and will not occur.

This does not excuse the command structure for not admitting when these incidents occur, but it is not some pathological denial of responsibility either. It is unfortunate that we as the surviving superpower are left in a world policing role, one that most Americans are not comfortable with. As war fighters we excel but as occupiers and nation builders we still have a long way to go, a lack of imperial experience. If our detractors would kindly step up and take some of the load then I think you would find that most Americans wouldn't mind at all.

As for the relative intelligence of the general population, I would prefer not to defend, since most of my countrymen could not find 10% of the world's countries on a blank map. Whether you love or hate us we are going to be on the world stage for the foreseeable future, anything under the spotlight will show it's flaws

 

 

"God loves the ignorant, he must, because he made so many copies"

Mark Twain

[Balagor]

@Aurielius

Well I consider my self above average educated.

Ask me to point out the US states on a blank map.

I think I know Texas, Arizona and California for sure. that´s all :wacko:

[Aurielius]

@Aurielius

Well I consider my self above average educated.

Ask me to point out the US states on a blank map.

I think I know Texas, Arizona and California for sure. that´s all :wacko:

 

@Balagor

I think that even if we put in the borders but left out the names, the result would be the same. How about Florida, Alaska and Hawaii, I'm sure that you could find them. :thumbsup:

The point was that my countrymen are geographically challenged. At least I do know where Denmark is, peninsulas make it easier. I'm not asking them to discern the counties/provinces of a country, just the country itself.

In Pennsylvania, where I live they do not even teach geography anymore. I'll admit if it wasn't for Idaho I would misplace several northwestern states :rolleyes:

[madman132]

i just tested that and found 40 States. And i'm a german ;D

 

I consider myself being rather well educated and i think i'm fairly intelligent.

 

I have never been to America but since i have a functioning Brain i'm assuming most of the "stupid" Stories are complete BS. There may be some truth in them and America may have some People which are so stupid they'll drag the whole States' IQ down by two Points.

But then again, we do have some really stupid People over here as well. Most of our TV Stations don't even care anymore and make rip offs of american TV Shows from the "stupid" Genre, like "american Idol". Everyone in their right Mind should be able to deduce that this Show has nothing to do with Talent whatsoever. And yet, there are thousands of People gathering at the beginning for each Seasons shooting.

Literally, we have thousands of People in every single of our larger Cities that will run the door in to be "discovered", so they can be a "Star". All these People have followed the Careers of many many "Stars" and somehow are unable to notice that they where exploited and even if they "win" in this Bogus "Competition" they'll earn Money for some Music Producers for a Month or so.

 

This is Ignorance on a Level that could be very well used to make the Germans in general look stupid. We don't even have out own Show, it's a ripoff of "american Idol". It's not the occasional doofus some Interviewer encountered on the Street and he couldn't point out France on a Map. You could show Pictures of thousands of People who haven't got enough grey Matter to deduce that they're being exploited.

[RdA]

i just tested that and found 40 States. And i'm a german ;D

 

I consider myself being rather well educated and i think i'm fairly intelligent.

 

I have never been to America but since i have a functioning Brain i'm assuming most of the "stupid" Stories are complete BS. There may be some truth in them and America may have some People which are so stupid they'll drag the whole States' IQ down by two Points.

But then again, we do have some really stupid People over here as well. Most of our TV Stations don't even care anymore and make rip offs of american TV Shows from the "stupid" Genre, like "american Idol". Everyone in their right Mind should be able to deduce that this Show has nothing to do with Talent whatsoever. And yet, there are thousands of People gathering at the beginning for each Seasons shooting.

Literally, we have thousands of People in every single of our larger Cities that will run the door in to be "discovered", so they can be a "Star". All these People have followed the Careers of many many "Stars" and somehow are unable to notice that they where exploited and even if they "win" in this Bogus "Competition" they'll earn Money for some Music Producers for a Month or so.

 

This is Ignorance on a Level that could be very well used to make the Germans in general look stupid. We don't even have out own Show, it's a ripoff of "american Idol". It's not the occasional doofus some Interviewer encountered on the Street and he couldn't point out France on a Map. You could show Pictures of thousands of People who haven't got enough grey Matter to deduce that they're being exploited.

 

Completely agreed. Now it's my time to complain )) I'm russian and it's the same situation here in Russia. Especially on TV. Everything (movies, shows etc) is copied (with reduced quality, of course) from elsewhere, we have nothing original. Russian so-called "reality-shows" are the worst in the world, believe me. Furthermore, millions of people here watch them every day and enjoy. They try to be like these "stars", take the example of them. It's some kind of brainwashing, IMHO. No culture at all. It was a surprise for me to know that such things happen in Germany. I really didn't know. When I studied German at school (almost forgot it now - no practice, sad but true) I couldn't even imagine such situation in such a civilized country.

So we are not alone... But only at this point.

And the young generation becomes more stupid day by day, corrupt by TV, Internet and so-called "freedom of speech". They don't know obvious things, and they don't care. The education system is down, so is medicine, technologies and many many more. Despite the economical crysis people strive to live in grand style impressed by mass-media. The government seems to be "deaf and dumb". So who is stupid?

[Balagor]

It`s like that in Denmark too. Prehaps the TV, the journasts and TV-hosts are the great sinners here.

Big TV- stations to day want to make fast money, then they act like the gossip magazines. They create someting sensationel, but without any substance at all.

I feel actually that the world is governed more and more by jornalists, both politically i.e. telling us what to mean and think, but also what is good entertainment and what is not.

To get back to topic; is America stupid? No, we all are, if we listen to these low budget TV-hosts and journalist who thinks they come up with what WE want, and not what their TV-stations want.

[RdA]

Sort of a "conspiracy theory"? If mass-media act like this, maybe somebody needs it?

Information rules the world, no questions. And somebody makes profit out of it.

[Balagor]

Let me come up with an example of our stupid mob in DK.

Our sitting Prime Minister, has never done anything wrong, and journalists HATE that. Finally they found that he 25 years ago after a party meeting had paid a bill of 50 dollar, in a pub, from the party account. He should had paid from his own pocket.

Now the jounalists starts a crusade, resulting in a revision of all acounts way back (they find nothing), and they even want him prosecuted, and the mob is shouting that he should resign as Prime Minister. A greater investigation is started, and this little 50 buck affair, 25 years ago, ends up costing taxpayer millions, and for nothing.

 

That´s what I mean when I say, that the journalists rules the world, not the politicians, and how stupid we are when we time after time listen to them.

[RdA]

And so is everywhere. Maybe it's just for money, who knows. But not only journalists with their "hot and shocking" reports and articles affect the mob. Entertainment has a big part too. Nowadays in Russia historical movies (based on "real events" ever happened) are very popular. They re-write history in these movies as they like so young people start to think that everything was this way. It helps to wash people's brains just as nice.