European Views on America

[SpiceGuid]

I always feel a tinge of sorrow when thinking about France. Our countries owe one another so much you'd think we'd be the best of friends.  But instead we think some rather horrible things about each other...or such is my impression.  By rights (and when I say "by rights" I'm talking about historical conflicts between countries) our relationship with the French should be better than the one we have with the UK.

Same feeling this side, when thinking about 20th century one wonder why France is closer to Germany than to USA. I don't really think it's a language matter, perhaps something more related to geographic proximity, modern economics, and morale (especially a different relation to money).

We europeans often depict americans as having a compulsive relation to money, in europe money-addiction is historically and religiously considered as a sin.

[alchemi2]

An Americans view of Americans.

This is both clever and hilarious  ;D

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-7068677712290004125&q=genre%3Acomedy&total=13788960&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=8&hl=en-GB

[Wolf]

Carlin's pretty funny... check out his bit on creating "state prisons farms."

But, I'm surprised I didn't stumble across this thread before. I actually have an interesting theory about Europe and the United States that my housemates and I formulated while I was living in London. It goes something like this: (***EDIT #2*** Hahaha! I did see this thread before! And somehow I totally forgot. Hot damn, the idiot stereotyping isn't far off... but, seriously, I more or less rewrote what I said before, only somehow phrased it better. My apologies, all.)

Americans are Europe's unwanted children come back to them.

Think about who most Americans are descended from: religious nonconformists from England, industrial poor from Germany and France, starved Irishmen, disaffected Italians, White Russians and Mensheviks, Jews -- wholesale, slaves from English, French and Spanish colonies, and many others fleeing war, oppression, famine, religious persecution and everything else. Really, no true American exists, save for perhaps Native Americans, we're really just an amalgam of all the people Europe didn't want. And now? We're as prosperous (until quite recently, a lot more prosperous) and militarily strong as the whole of Europe put together -- but with only half the population. And this isn't me being the classic "arrogant American," but Europe attempted to annihilate itself twice, and the intervention of the United States -- Europe's lost children -- played a key role in tipping the balance. The second time around, and I can quote British MoI, War Cabinet and Home Office files saying more or less exactly this, American intervention "saved European civilisation as we know it." For Europeans, particularly Britain and France, it's a really good thing that the United States came into existence as it did. And I think it will continue to be a good thing, and here's why: Europe's birthrates are declining. Overpopulation and pollution are becoming serious concerns for the Continent, as well as for the United States. The presence of the United States as a continued, safe, more or less reliable haven for European emigration is extremely beneficial to Europe, if that's what needs to happen. On the other hand, if conditions in the United States become poor, the emigration of Americans back to their "mother countries" could be key in revitalizing European national and economic systems. I know you Europeans loathe the idea of unskilled laborers flooding your countries from Africa, Asia Minor and Central/South Asia. What I also know is that you do not loathe the idea of relatively wealthy, college-educated Americans of British/French/German/Italian/Russian/etc. descent coming in to stay. Indeed, Australia and Canada play similar roles -- I do not claim the United States as entirely unique in this -- but it is, shall we say, the experiment of this type conducted on the largest scale.

EDIT: Just thought I should add this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries-by-County.jpg (You'll notice a tan "nationality" listed as "American" -- this does not mean Native American, as far as I can tell, it refers to the descendants of European settlers, but so far removed from the present that we can no longer divine their origins. Think of these as the classic "Middle Americans," and the nascent emergence of a truly "American" ethnicity. Confederates, if you will.)

And the quick addendum: so, Europeans and Americans both -- don't shit on each other. Ultimately, we're really all the same.