Condemning American Culture

Who in the world could have a problem with American Culture?

Cars and TV sets and technology galore.

Convenience and name brands and everything a short drive away in your 9200lb SUV.

Junk food and beer with TV sports.

The best medical treatment that money can buy, and to heck with you if you didn't have the foresight to pay whatever coverage costs, or hold down the sort of jobs that offer it.

Televangelists and faith healers who can make you better just by touching your TV set and sending money.

Melodramatic movies with people running faster than explosions and lots of gunplay. TV shows where everyone laughs and laughs.

All that cheap shiny imported stuff you can just throw away when it gets chipped.

Who could wish more for their town than a Walmart, and a McDonald's?

Where it's still OK to shoot some creep who tries to get into your home, and maybe steal something.

Everything is just perfect here in the U.S. of A. Who in the world could have a problem with all of that great stuff, anyway?

An anti-American spoilsport, that's who!

Why, we even have the best and most well-populated prisons anywhere!

[NoZed Avenger]

If I see a point, I'll tell it to head on over to this thread.

Or perhaps I'll move to one of those countries without problems that I hear so much about.

[Tmy]

Ya know whats worse. The Anti-Popular culture crowd. They seem to hate things just cause people like them.

Like those people with the "Kill Your TV" bumperstickers.! HOW DARE THEY!! TV is one ofthe greatest inventions ever. Its bad rep is really undeserved.

KILL YOUR BOOKS!

[Cleon]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tmy

KILL YOUR BOOKS!

Tmy, when did you become a Republican?

[Zep]

Quote:

Originally posted by evildave
Who in the world could have a problem with American Culture?

Cars and TV sets and technology galore.

Convenience and name brands and everything a short drive away in your 9200lb SUV.

Junk food and beer with TV sports.

The best medical treatment that money can buy, and to heck with you if you didn't have the foresight to pay whatever coverage costs, or hold down the sort of jobs that offer it.

Televangelists and faith healers who can make you better just by touching your TV set and sending money.

Melodramatic movies with people running faster than explosions and lots of gunplay. TV shows where everyone laughs and laughs.

All that cheap shiny imported stuff you can just throw away when it gets chipped.

Who could wish more for their town than a Walmart, and a McDonald's?

Where it's still OK to shoot some creep who tries to get into your home, and maybe steal something.

Everything is just perfect here in the U.S. of A. Who in the world could have a problem with all of that great stuff, anyway?

An anti-American spoilsport, that's who!

Why, we even have the best and most well-populated prisons anywhere!

Oh well, nowhere's perfect!

Sounds like you should stand for office, and get about rectifying the situation as you see fit.

[Tony]

Dont forget video games, Mobster flicks, Jello shots and Girls Gone Wild dvd's.

[Luke T.]

Freedom rocks, baby!

At three o'clock in the morning, I can drive a half mile and load up on food, alcohol, cigarettes, condoms, toothpaste, aspirin, nail clippers, coffee, a frozen ice concoction, magazines, newspaper, a calling card, a birthday card, some massage oil, an electric lawn mower, a houseplant, and a lottery ticket. And I have multiple choices of each item! And I can get a prescription filled. And I can shop in my pajamas and bathrobe if I want to. At three in the morning! Three in the morning!

[Tony]

Quote:

Originally posted by Luke T.
Freedom rocks, baby!

At three o'clock in the morning, I can drive a half mile and load up on food, alcohol, cigarettes, condoms, toothpaste, aspirin, nail clippers, coffee, a frozen ice concoction, magazines, newspaper, a calling card, a birthday card, some massage oil, an electric lawn mower, a houseplant, and a lottery ticket. And I have multiple choices of each item! And I can get a prescription filled. And I can shop in my pajamas and bathrobe if I want to. At three in the morning! Three in the morning!

A few of those things will earn you an execution in evildave's islamic paradise.

[Ziggurat]

American culture does rock. That's why so much of the world wants a piece of it. Hell, even the French, who specialize in anti-Americanism, need to import anti-Americanism from the U.S. (Moore), and have to legislate how much non-French programming can make it on TV because they can't compete on a level playing field for culture even with their own language advantage.

The only countries who CAN compete with us on the cultural front are Britain and Japan, about the only major exporters of culture besides us.

[Flo]

Quote:

Originally posted by Luke T.
Freedom rocks, baby!

At three o'clock in the morning, I can drive a half mile and load up on food, alcohol, cigarettes, condoms, toothpaste, aspirin, nail clippers, coffee, a frozen ice concoction, magazines, newspaper, a calling card, a birthday card, some massage oil, an electric lawn mower, a houseplant, and a lottery ticket. And I have multiple choices of each item! And I can get a prescription filled. And I can shop in my pajamas and bathrobe if I want to. At three in the morning! Three in the morning!

So can I, and in much skimpier nightclothes !

[Flo]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ziggurat
American culture does rock. That's why so much of the world wants a piece of it. Hell, even the French, who specialize in anti-Americanism, need to import anti-Americanism from the U.S. (Moore)

You're way behind times, we certainly didn't wait for Moore. He just found a cozy niche for his particular brand

Quote:

and have to legislate how much non-French programming can make it on TV because they can't compete on a level playing field for culture even with their own language advantage.

Since when horrible soaps and silly "reality-shows" are "culture" ?

Quote:

The only countries who CAN compete with us on the cultural front are Britain and Japan, about the only major exporters of culture besides us.

You've obviously never seen Japanese TV, then. If the majority of it is considered culture, even Swiss state-sponsored TV's card tournaments shows (1 hour watching 4 guys playing "jass" while listening to folkloric songs in Schwitzertütsch ) is too !

[Skeptic]

You're quite right, evildave. America has too much junk food, crap TV, SUVs, expensive medical care, and stores that sell tons of unnecessary geegaws to the masses. You can easily avoid this and have the healthy replacement: not enough to eat, one state-controlled TV channel, no roads or transportation, no medical treatment worth mentioning, and crushing poverty due to a subsistance-level economy--in quite a few countries in the world.

Walmart, McDonald's, and Cable TV and SUVs symbolize to most of the world precisely what is GOOD about America: it's freedom and prosperity. It is precisely to have Wal-Mart and McDonald's, SUVs and cable TV, that people come to America in the first place. Your "criticism" here is, in effect, the equivalent of "oh, the gold paving the streets looks so tacky after a while."

But what's really annoying here is that you only started this thead as a "response" to the criticism of Muslim culture in another thread. God forbid that somebody be permitted to criticize Islamic countries without being told over and over again how America is just as bad, if not worse.

Quite apart from a). this being absolute nonsense, and b). your very own "criticism" actually showing what is GOOD about America, your reflex demand for "equivalence" shows you are a moral moron: it presupposes that the mideaval, theocratic, dictatorial, impoverishing way of life in most (not all) Islamic countries is somehow equal, or comprabable, in its faults to the modern, secular, democratic and prosperous USA, and so that both deserve the same amount of criticism.

If you were on trial for something, you could probably use these posts of yours as evidence for an insanity plea, on the basis that they prove you really don't have a clue about the difference between right or wrong, good and bad, freedm and slavery, etc.

[Skeptic]

At three o'clock in the morning, I can drive a half mile and load up on food, alcohol, cigarettes, condoms, toothpaste, aspirin, nail clippers, coffee, a frozen ice concoction, magazines, newspaper, a calling card, a birthday card, some massage oil, an electric lawn mower, a houseplant, and a lottery ticket.

I envy your sex life. But what's the lottery ticket for?

[Number Six]

France didn't have to import it's anti-Americanism from America, as the Frenchman that wrote the book saying that 9/11 attacks weren't really attacks and had his book go to #1 in France proved.

And yes, soap operas and reality shows are culture although not culture that I care to partake of. But the fact some countries limit the amount of such stuff by law that their people can be exposed to shows that they think that their people would prefer such things to their own programming. And they're right right. And it pisses them off so they get angry at the US. Step back for a minute...they get angry at the US because they would rather watch US shows than their own shows! It's not cultural imperialism, rather it's their attraction to American culture and their simultaneous hatred of themselves for being so attracted to American culture. It's like being pissed off at Coke because you like their product so much you can't stop drinking it.

[Tmy]

Quote:

Originally posted by Number Six
.

And yes, soap operas and reality shows are culture although not culture that I care to partake of. it.

Eliteist!!!! Shakespear wrote soap operas, and relaity shows are modern day gladiator events!! REJOICE!!!

[BPSCG]

Quote:

Originally posted by Skeptic
If you were on trial for something, you could probably use these posts of yours as evidence for an insanity plea, on the basis that they prove you really don't have a clue about the difference between right or wrong, good and bad, freedm and slavery, etc.

...the insanity plea was a rather far-fetched compliment to pay the prisoner, inasmuch as one must first have brains before he can go crazy, and there was surely nothing in the evidence to show that McFarland had enough of the raw material to justify him in attempting anything more imposing than a lively form of idiocy. -- Mark Twain - "Unburlesqueable Things"

Plus ca change...

[Larspeart]

Quote:

Originally posted by NoZed Avenger
If I see a point, I'll tell it to head on over to this thread.

Or perhaps I'll move to one of those countries without problems that I hear so much about.

Me too! I want to live in one of those perfect countries, instead of this one, where everything is tyranny and hell and damnation!

I think EvilDave must live in a real perfect place! Let's all of us Americans move there.

[Skeptic]

Quote:

Originally posted by Larspeart
Me too! I want to live in one of those perfect countries, instead of this one, where everything is tyranny and hell and damnation!

I think EvilDave must live in a real perfect place! Let's all of us Americans move there.

But if they do, wouldn't the place be likely to IMPROVE? And wouldn't that be evil American imperialism in action?

[Jocko]

Dave, I've got a great deal on a beautiful three-room shanty in Pyongang. Guaranteed to be 100% free of all those annoying elements of American culture.

I sure hope you're just feeling unloved, and that's why your trolling has become so much worse lately. Because if you actually believe this BS then you should take the first step and UNPLUG YOUR FRIGGING COMPUTER FROM THE INTERNET AND FIND A NICE STATE-RUN NEWSPAPER TO GET INFO FROM.

Don't know if that would help you, but it would do me a lot of good.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by Skeptic
But what's really annoying here is that you only started this thead as a "response" to the criticism of Muslim culture in another thread. God forbid that somebody be permitted to criticize Islamic countries without being told over and over again how America is just as bad, if not worse.

I for one am glad that he did, because the object lesson is that, even though this is an American site and a substantial number of participants are American, there isn't anywhere near as much histrionic defensiveness of American culture or attempt to make exculpatory references to other cultures as there is in the other thread.

You say that American culture sucks, and people largely either agree or at least consider it not worth getting worked up over. You say Islamic culture sucks, and everybody and his dog wants to jump on you.

So I hope but do not expect that Evildave actually gets the message.

It's amazing how I can say "Everything is just perfect here in the U.S. of A. Who in the world could have a problem with all of that great stuff, anyway?", and people just assume that's bad.

Some even claim I belong to some religion or other, and offer to sell me real estate (that they presumably proudly own) in North Korea. Oh well, must be a bunch of anti-American spoilsports.

[BPSCG]

Quote:

Originally posted by evildave
It's amazing how I can say "Everything is just perfect here in the U.S. of A. Who in the world could have a problem with all of that great stuff, anyway?", and people just assume that's bad.

Okay, then what point were you trying to make? Or were you just trolling?

[CBL4]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sceptic
But what's really annoying here is that you[EvilDave] only started this thead as a "response" to the criticism of Muslim culture in another thread.

Your whole post was very well said but I find this part the most accurate.

Comparing American culture and society with Islamic culture and society is very informative. One produces wealth and freedom. One produces poverty and tyranny. But some people insist on equating the two. I am not talking about people who appreciate the greatness of Western culture but complain about how the the US falls shorts from its ideals. That is constructive criticism.

But the people who enjoy the freedom to state their extreme anti-US views are amazing. I can sort of understand it (and even appreciate it) in the young. But even then it just gets old listening to the same idealogical nonsense bereft of facts.

CBL

I think everyone in the world should drive 9200 lb SUVs that gets an *amazing* "N/A Miles Per Gallon"!

Every family on Earth should have one. We need a billion of these driving around 60 miles every day. Those petroleum reserves and gasoline production capacity are infinite, after all. And if they're not, I'm sure Jesus will show up and wave his pierced hands and make more of it magically appear.

[Jocko]

Quote:

Originally posted by evildave
I think everyone in the world should drive 9200 lb SUVs that gets an *amazing* "N/A Miles Per Gallon"!

Every family on Earth should have one. We need a billion of these driving around 60 miles every day. Those petroleum reserves and gasoline production capacity are infinite, after all. And if they're not, I'm sure Jesus will show up and wave his pierced hands and make more of it magically appear.

Wow. Complaining about being misrepresented, then misrepresenting 280 million Americans - all in one afternoon.

Welcome to my ignore list, troll.

[Mycroft]

Quote:

Originally posted by evildave
I think everyone in the world should drive 9200 lb SUVs that gets an *amazing* "N/A Miles Per Gallon"!

I'm a lot more modest with the car I drive. It's a ten year old Geo Prism. People tell me I should buy a new one, but it runs great and it's paid for. Frankly, I've gotten spoiled not having a car payment, and since I don't have to drive clients around I don't feel any pressing need to upgrade.

I wonder what the favorite vehicle is in Saudi?

Quote:

Originally posted by Jocko
Wow. Complaining about being misrepresented, then misrepresenting 280 million Americans - all in one afternoon.

Welcome to my ignore list, troll.

Awww, how sad. To be ignored by someone of your, um, 'quality' is quite the blow. I'll ever so miss your... contributions to discussions. Bye-bye!

That's 294,279,568 people.

Though to truly to live the American dream, a Hummer H1 should be in every garage in the world, globally. That's 10,300 GVWR.

All I'm saying is that every person in the world should live at the American Standard of Living. Since this is the BEST way to live, everyone SHOULD live this way. Live the 'American Dream', so to speak. It would be outright immoral to deny them the common American pleasures that WE enjoy.

Quote:

Originally posted by Mycroft
I'm a lot more modest with the car I drive. It's a ten year old Geo Prism. People tell me I should buy a new one, but it runs great and it's paid for. Frankly, I've gotten spoiled not having a car payment, and since I don't have to drive clients around I don't feel any pressing need to upgrade.

I wonder what the favorite vehicle is in Saudi?

When I was there, it was mostly Japanese makes, driven insanely.

[CBL4]

"I wonder what the favorite vehicle is in Saudi? "

Quote:

Originally posted by Evildave
When I was there, it was mostly Japanese makes, driven insanely.

What was the favorite car for Saudi women?

CBL

Quote:

Originally posted by CBL4
"I wonder what the favorite vehicle is in Saudi? "
What was the favorite car for Saudi women?

CBL

You know the answer to that: Women are not allowed to drive. And yes, the women did wear the formless full-body covering.

When they're Americanized, they will HAVE TO drive. There won't be any shops within walking distance, but there will be a Walmart just 15 miles away.

[Mike B.]

Quote:

Originally posted by evildave
You know the answer to that: Women are not allowed to drive. And yes, the women did wear the formless full-body covering.

When they're Americanized, they will HAVE TO drive. There won't be any shops within walking distance, but there will be a Walmart just 15 miles away.

WTF is your point?

[Phrost]

I used to own one of those 9200lb SUVs. V-10, 9MPG... was a thing of beauty.

But spending $270 in one week on gas had me car shopping.

The glory of free market capitalism in action.

Quote:

Originally posted by Mike B.
WTF is your point?

Point? Everybody should be just like Americans, shouldn't they?

Wouldn't it be immoral to deny anyone in the world the fruits of the American way of life?

Quote:

Originally posted by Phrost
I used to own one of those 9200lb SUVs. V-10, 9MPG... was a thing of beauty.

But spending $270 in one week on gas had me car shopping.

The glory of free market capitalism in action.

Now just imagine if everyone had one and everyone got 9MPG. How much would it cost to fill up the tank then?

[a_unique_person]

Quote:

Originally posted by evildave
Now just imagine if everyone had one and everyone got 9MPG. How much would it cost to fill up the tank then?

That's one of the beautiful things about capitalism, everyone will never be able to afford one, only some.

Apart from that, your main gripe is not so much America, as the junk consumes so much of it. It is one of the paradoxes of human existence, that as soon as we get everything we need, we lose that spark that makes us want to strive for something better.

Just so.

Who wants to pioneer when they're comfortable?

Who wants to consider what cheap junk and state supported fuel prices ultimately cost, as long as they can fill up their tank cheap?

People call me a 'socialist' because I don't think having the U.S. government running the oil business, or the oil business running the U.S. government.

That's funny, because 'socialism' is having the state support and run and major production industries. Here we have the U.S. taking over foreign petroleum reserves and seeking to pay for its miltary adventures with oil that it 'secures'. Isn't that pretty much getting into the oil business? Oh, no. Obviously not. We're "freeing people" (from their natural resources) and "spreading democracy" (well, at least the reach of our democracy's power).

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0807/p02s02-woiq.htm

Minor miscalculation: petroleum pipelines are hundreds of miles long and difficult to effectively defend from pesky insurgents. Oh, too bad. I guess we'll soon be paying $2,000 more on our taxes every year supporting our national debt instead of only $1,000 extra.

http://www.iags.org/iraqpipelinewatch.htm

[Flo]

Quote:

Originally posted by Number Six
France didn't have to import it's anti-Americanism from America, as the Frenchman that wrote the book saying that 9/11 attacks weren't really attacks ...

picked his insane theory from some insane American conspirationist website ... The French press (to my delight) thrashed the book and the guy's credibility is from now on totally destroyed.

Quote:

And yes, soap operas and reality shows are culture although not culture that I care to partake of. But the fact some countries limit the amount of such stuff by law that their people can be exposed to shows that they think that their people would prefer such things to their own programming. And they're right right. And it pisses them off so they get angry at the US. Step back for a minute...they get angry at the US because they would rather watch US shows than their own shows! It's not cultural imperialism, rather it's their attraction to American culture and their simultaneous hatred of themselves for being so attracted to American culture. It's like being pissed off at Coke because you like their product so much you can't stop drinking it.

You're reading far too much into this. The main reason for the law is money, namely French producers wanting most of the pie ... The French public has no better taste as any other public and will therefore watch whatever is fed to him, regardless of where it comes from.

[Grammatron]

I am a bit saddened by this thread because here 'evildave' is showing people just how ignorant and dumb an American can be. Please people, don't look at 'evildave' as an example of an American, sure he might be ignorant, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are.

Thank you and good day.

[Flo]

Quote:

Originally posted by Grammatron
I am a bit saddened by this thread because here 'evildave' is showing people just how ignorant and dumb an American can be. Please people, don't look at 'evildave' as an example of an American, sure he might be ignorant, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are.

Thank you and good day.

He's not the only, or even the worse, example I can think of on this board ...

[Mr Manifesto]

Quote:

Originally posted by Grammatron
I am a bit saddened by this thread because here 'evildave' is showing people just how ignorant and dumb an American can be. Please people, don't look at 'evildave' as an example of an American, sure he might be ignorant, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are.

Thank you and good day.

Nor should anyone think that Grammy is typical of Americans, and therefore completely moronic.