How do Americans view Europeans?

[ZeTurd]

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Ive noticed this too. I have never even met a Norwegian, but the ones that post on this board seem to be all mainly self-serving, self-righteous, pieces of [censored], who's values and viewpoints are that of 6 year old children being spoonfed by a bunch of commies. Why is that? Norway seems like a cool country, but for christs sake, we have a lot of morons from there posting here. penis envy?

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We're very well endowed thank you very much.

[captZEEbo]

I view americans as more technologically advanced, richer, but far far more ignorant, self-centered, and feelings that we deserve everything.

It's gonna be a rude awakening for our generation and the next generation when the smarter countries take over all our jobs and we are getting paid next to nothing relatively speaking.

[ZeTurd]

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This unsustainable system you're talking about must be political. If an individual decides to work less and spend more, he carries the consequences of that on himself. What right do I have to have other people work hard so "society as a whole" can do well, anyway?

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I agree that noone should be forced to work to benefit society as a whole, but I definitely think there should be incentives to increase productivity, and likewise, lack of productivity shouldn't be rewarded as it might be argued it is today in some of the more socialized European countries (Norway being no exception).

[One Outer]

I generally like Europeans. They seem to "get it" about the important stuff, like family and vacations and work/life balance. It's tough to generalize because of all the different countries but that's my overall sense.

I understand that you may be interested in the thoughts of Americans on this matter but I don't think you're going to get much out of it. Most Americans think about very little beyond food and tv. Plus, Americans are all so different. I'm a northern liberal. I like hockey and Democrats, I live in an urban apartment, shop at a natural foods co-op and so forth. I drive a German car. I have way, way more in common with your average European (at least, in the Western European countries) than I do with a huge numbers of Americans (maybe even most). For instance, people in the South. I have nothing in common with them. Nothing. Their accents are ridiculous, they're politically retarted and their insanely consumeristic and narrow minded.

I guess the thing I like best about Europeans is that they don't have huge political blocs in their country that are trying to roll them back to the 19th century.

[guids]

[ QUOTE ]
I generally like Europeans. They seem to "get it" about the important stuff, like family and vacations and work/life balance. It's tough to generalize because of all the different countries but that's my overall sense.

I understand that you may be interested in the thoughts of Americans on this matter but I don't think you're going to get much out of it. Most Americans think about very little beyond food and tv. Plus, Americans are all so different. I'm a northern liberal. I like hockey and Democrats, I live in an urban apartment, shop at a natural foods co-op and so forth. I drive a German car. I have way, way more in common with your average European (at least, in the Western European countries) than I do with a huge numbers of Americans (maybe even most). For instance, people in the South. I have nothing in common with them. Nothing. Their accents are ridiculous, they're politically retarted and their insanely consumeristic and narrow minded.

I guess the thing I like best about Europeans is that they don't have huge political blocs in their country that are trying to roll them back to the 19th century.

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This is (hopefully), one of the best satirical posts on the internets.

[Georgia Avenue]

who?

[Bedreviter]

[ QUOTE ]
Ive noticed this too. I have never even met a Norwegian, but the ones that post on this board seem to be all mainly self-serving, self-righteous, pieces of [censored], who's values and viewpoints are that of 6 year old children being spoonfed by a bunch of commies. Why is that?

[/ QUOTE ]

Id say our press deserves a lot of the blame for this, as 90% of the coverage of the US is negative and heavily one sided. Tabloid newspapers are by far the most popular in Norway, and the majority of Norwegian journalists are pretty far to the left on the political scale. Americans tend to ridicule the USA Today, but USA Today is far more objective and serious in its reporting than any major Norwegian newspapers. Political pundits on Norwegian news also tend to be on the left side of the spectrum, and the capitalist bastards in the USA are often blamed for most of the wrongdoing in the world, one way or another.

The Norwegian school-system is also an extension of the social-democratic system that we have, and teachers tend to belong to the left side of Norwegian politics. The negative sides of American history and current society are often exaggerated, mainly because the teachers dont know better. The superiority of the Norwegian society and system is implied throughout society, from the media to the school-system. Its not so much a question of "if we are better", its more as "how much better are we". This obviously have an impact on many Norwegians.

When negative sides of American society is discussed in Norway its almost never put into context, the US is not compared to other European countries, its just mentioned and up for discussion why it is that way. If you compare the level of poverty or racial tension sin the US you would see that th eUS doesnt do any worse than most European countries, but this is not done by Norwegian press.

Many Norwegians can tell you how bad Halliburton, Dick Cheney and the conservative American christians are, while they would probably have difficulties telling you the name of the political leaders of our neighbouring countries. We like to compare ourselves to the US and Americans, and highlight where we are doing better and forget or marginalize the areas where we are worse. Little is done to explain the various factors that are contributing to American problems, we basically explain it being so due to the "fact" that Americans are uneducated, war mongering, gun waving racists.

While American culture (Rock music, Hip Hop, Rap, Hollywood, TV) is by far most popular in Norway it is frowned upon by the cultural elite who will rather tell you that the artistic French movies that nobody goes to see are superior to anything the US has to offer.

[W brad]

A couple hundred years ago Europeans had a choice.

They could get off their asses and move to a place where with a little bit of work they could vastly improve their lives and the future prospects of their children.

or They could just stick it out at home and muck out a miserable living.

Today those of us who descend from the hard working people are asked how we view the descendants of the lazy people of Europe.

Isn't it obvious?

[Jay Riall]

[ QUOTE ]
A couple hundred years ago Europeans had a choice.

They could get off their asses and move to a place where with a little bit of work they could vastly improve their lives and the future prospects of their children.

or They could just stick it out at home and muck out a miserable living.

Today those of us who descend from the hard working people are asked how we view the descendants of the lazy people of Europe.

Isn't it obvious?

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, if this is serious it is the most retarded post of the lot here by far. Yeah, I guess since America was founded all of Europe has just sat on its ass and done bugger all...

[Bedreviter]

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It's gonna be a rude awakening for our generation and the next generation when the smarter countries take over all our jobs and we are getting paid next to nothing relatively speaking.

[/ QUOTE ]

While the US are recruiting the best and brightest from other countries (like India)(the Mexican immigration is the exception), European countries are mostly getting uneducated people from Africa and the Middle East that only occupies the lower scale of jobs in Norway, and are heavily over-represented in regards of crime, unemployment and % that receives welfare.

The American jobs that are exported to foreign countries are often low-paying jobs in call-centers and such. The engineers and doctors comes to the US and contribute to the growth of the American economy and society, and a lot of the top research facilities are still located in the US.