to think --some-- Americans are just stupid!

[Ithinkitsjustme]

Have just heard that during the Olympic opening ceremony, when Sir Tim Berners-Lee was revealed, NBC commentators came out with "Who's he?" and told viewers that they would have to Google him to find out who he was! Which, ironically would have been impossible without his invention, .

eh. To be fair, I haven't seen a rush of support for the OP. I don't see anyone saying it's OK to malign Americans here. The fact that the thread still exists might be because it hasn't really been a bunfight, or perhaps MNHQ has fit men to watch on telly right now.

We're jealous of your high quality dentistry.

Really? Which Tesco? City Centre?

Show me one post that agrees with the OP...

We pretty much all said it was not ok. And now you've been nasty about our teeth for no reason.

Your teeth are fine. The longer I live overseas (almost 10 years now), the more I notice how strange the teeth of Hollywood types look. I think our obsession with teeth borders on unhealthy.

Speaking of unhealthy: Reeses cereal. yum.

They do tend to like leaving abusive posts up for educational purposes, so that the nastiness of the OP can be refuted by annoyed subsequent posters.
Can be painful if you are a member of the group being attacked.

Tee big one at Knocknagoney.

no worries!

Surely it would be xenophobia not racisim?

annie, as the US is the most powerful nation in the world I think you can probably stand a bit of gentle ribbing or even some light criticism. OP was clearly not being terribly fair calling a whole nation dim-wits - any nation - but no-one was going to take it terribly seriously as a formal assessment of the IQ scores of every single US citizen. With your political, military, economic and cultural might I don't think it's going to do your nation a whole lot of damage.

In 30 years time when the Chinese have taken over as top dog nation you may have more reason to be fecked off...

American isn't a race. It's probably more bigoted than racist. So says this stupid American.

That did confuse me Annie, you seemed to be objecting to the anti-American comments as if they applied to you but the maple leaf thing made me assume you were a yank living in Canada.

I've never met a Canadian who was anything other than lovely and super-polite (except at an ice-hockey match but fair enough) so am not inclined to argue with you too much... but I do think the most powerful nation in the world, which does have a dodgy record for bossing other countries around, to put it extremely mildly, can suck up a bit of mild criticism.

x post puds. Xenophobic. That's the word I was looking for. Silly me.

Here to help

It's because individual people don't see themselves as representatives of their government. It's odd to think that a person should be willing to accept criticism for the actions of their government. People do it to Americans because lets face it, they know what the US government is doing because it's in the news all the time. Smaller countries can get away with all kinds of strangeness (really not willing to give examples as it'll just end badly, and they'd really just be examples) because they just aren't under the scrutiny the US is.

I lived in Germany and Holland throughout most of the Bush years. They are some pretty blunt people. It takes a lot to get me going. I didn't see this thread as hostile. Indeed, I just thought it amusing that the OP clearly didn't even consider that an American would have been making a joke when suggesting that viewers google Sir Tim Berners-Lee if they want to know what he's famous for. Like telling someone to ring their mum if they don't know who Alexander Graham Bell was. :)

Hi Annieonamapleleaf
Sorry if it wasnt clear, we wouldn't dream of asking anyone to shrug off personal attacks cos of the Olympics.
I was just reminding people that things can stray gently towards the personal and that we'd rather it didn't.
This thread is a good example of the self policing we like
Thanks
MNHQ

lol yes I did hesitate to use that example, Annie! It was just the easiest one to pop into my wee American brain at the time.