Davey1965's Blogs

It's time to cut Americans some slack

Davey1965 Blog Last Activity 10 years ago 572 views 20 comments
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Davey1965
10 years ago

Hugs Mike xo

10 years ago

thanks for sharing davey. our media has way too much influence in national politics. but we are a great country.

gm4yngr
10 years ago

@swiftjohn, thank you for trying to explain our problems here in the USA. We are a truly mixed bag of people. I also accept everybody's compliments and criticisms. I might add that Gee Duh Bush may have won his first election, but the majority of voters didn't really vote for him the second time.
As an American that has travelled to several other countries, I can understand the criticism. I've seen some fellow Americans acting very foolishly abroad. Our "reality shows" on TV also paint a pretty bad picture of our people, as do our politicians.

Davey1965
10 years ago

Its funny when u see alot of those Car chase or Reality Cops shows it paints a grim Picture of the states .An asian guy asked me once if Americans are all drunk and on drugs.I replied by saying POSSIBLY lol.
@JJLONRIDER Thats so true Jon in what you say .Its the minority in any country who can spoil it for the rest.

10 years ago

it was once said Americans are their own worst enemy shooting themselves in the foot. It's because they have so any guns lol!

swiftjohn
10 years ago

As an American, I accept everyone's criticisms and compliments as being legitimate. I am perhaps harder and more critical of Americans than anyone else simply because I know what we're capable of being but don't always live up to it. The biggest problem we have in this country is the pernicious influence of religion. There are over 70 million Evangelical Christians in America and every god damn one of them shows up on election day. That's a lot of gullible people who can be conned into anything if they can be conned into that. This is how we wind up with morons like Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Michele Bachman, Dubya and a whole other rogue's gallery of other lesser idiots that constitute the confederacy of dunces that is the Republican Party. Unfortunately, it's always the idiots and boors who make the news, never the wise and dignified. Because let's face it, everyone loves a freak show. And everyone loves to see Americans acting stupidly and behaving badly. If for no other reason than to feel superior. But we are fundamentally a good and decent people. And despite a lot of the idiocy displayed by many of my countrymen, I should like to remind everyone that some of the greatest scientific and technological advances of the last century happened here. One last thing. I would like to pass on to you something once said by a Russian comedian by the name of Yakov Smirnoff who fled the Soviet Union back in the seventies. "If I moved to France and lived there for twenty years, I would never be able to call myself a Frenchman. If I moved to England and lived there for twenty years, I would never be able to call myself an Englishman. But I moved to America, and now I am an American". That friends, is what America is really all about.

BATTLEFIELD3
10 years ago

Circumcision should be a prerequisite for citizenship, given for free.
Latino heaven....

BackStreetBoy
10 years ago

:) Dabey... oh sorry Davey. Sarah Palin is my number 1 as americans. Number second comes Kylie Minogue.

10 years ago

If you get out and get to know the average working class American I think you would find the majority of them are great human beings, as is your average Canadian, Frenchman, Australian, Chinese, Russia, Englishmen and on and on. I truly believe the world is dominated by good human beings with a basic understanding of right and wrong and are guided by those two basic principles. A very wise man who will forever remain my life’s example once told me there are only two kinds of people in this world, good ones and bad ones and they can both be found in all corners of the globe.

10 years ago

@Mark nope.. sadly never got dual citizenship.. they disallowed it. The 'mother' and 'father' also changed my info too. They messed up my life totally but now I have a chance to change all that by starting again :)

10 years ago

as Canadians we love Americans, our closest neighbour, but when they pull a stunt like electing George Dubya Bush twice it leaves you wondering. Just google "Bushisms " see what I mean, and have a laugh at what this guy actually said. Kinda like the Americans wrote a test and all failed, then the teacher went over the exam and gave the answers, then they wrote it again and failed a second time lmao!

10 years ago

dod you not have dual citizenship Jordan? i thought because you were born in America, that entitles you to live there without any problem. i must admit i agree with Davey about the weather being far better than UK geez lol. guess UK should be called the the rainy state lol

10 years ago

Like Bill Maher always says and I so agree...the majority of Americans are low intelligence!

10 years ago

Who knows, bud... if I get too used to it I may be longing to move back there hahaha (if the UK Government ever lets me! lol.) Seems the only way I can move out there right now (cos I've been in the uk tooooo many years) is to either find work out there, or get married to another person out there hahaha

Davey1965
10 years ago

I bet your longing for home buddy.And i know Florida weather kicks ass compared to Wintery Endland haha You never know because Once yr back there again you may feel that your finally back were you belong 8-))

Davey1965
10 years ago

No Offence intended Just a Piece i thought i would share .
You Canadians can giggle if you like haha

10 years ago

Davey.. thank you for writing this blog. I'm the only American living in the street where I live. A couple of neighbors are fine, but then you get the homophobic ones.. and the ones who look at me when I speak to them and their reaction is "What?" or "Speak English!" I ignore it. I'm proud of my roots and proud to be American. The good neighbors that I do have kinda make up for it lol. I still want to travel over to Florida or America in general... just to get my bearings in life again :)

Davey1965
10 years ago

CUT THEM SLACK: Americans are among the friendliest people you'll ever meet.It's easy to make fun of Americans. They do, after all, ask some fairly dumb questions. ("You're from Down Under? How did you learn to speak such good English?")

They also, as a nation, have a baffling approach to gun laws, a quite incredible opposition to universal health care, a "world series" in a domestic baseball competition, and occasionally just a slight arrogance at being leaders of the free world.

So Americans, both the ones in their homeland and the ones abroad, get kicked around quite often. Head to the comments section of any travel article talking about annoying travellers or dumb questions they've been asked while travelling and Americans will make an inevitable appearance. Or frequent appearances.

The ones at home are gullible, or ignorant. The ones you meet on the road are loud, rude and demanding. They expect everything to be the way it is back home. They're disappointed - and vocally so - when it isn't.

You've heard all the stories. You know the stereotype.

And that's why I figured it was about time someone mounted a defence of Americans. After all, some of my best friends are Americans. Some of the nicest people I've ever met are Americans. Some of the friendliest locals you could hope to find while you're on the road are Americans.

The thing I like about Americans - if you can group an entire nationality together, which is a little dangerous - is that there's an impressive lack of cynicism about them.

When they tell you to "have a nice day", they actually want you to have a nice day. When they say "I love your accent", they really do love your accent.

The Americans I've met seem to have a confident optimism that can put people off to begin with. You wonder if they're making a joke, if there are hidden levels of sarcasm beneath this facade of positive vibes and sparkly teeth.

Spend a little while in the country, however, and you come to realise that no, there are no hidden levels. What you see is what you get: genuine friendliness.

Because Americans are friendly. Want to meet people while you're in the States? Just go to a bar and order a beer. Bam, you've got friends. Someone will inevitably clock the accent and pipe up to ask where you're from.

It happened to me just a few weeks ago in Nevada. "Hey, I recognise that accent," the guy next to me at the bar said. "You're British!"

Well, no. And this, for me, is part of where Americans get their reputation. Think of all the dumb questions people from the US have asked you in the past: the whole reason they're even asking them is a genuine curiosity to know the answer.

The only reason they're talking to you in the first place is that they're friendly enough to want to make conversation.

You can travel through some countries and spend the entire time talking to yourself, because no one else seems interested in having a chat. That's never a problem in the USA. Your main issue is taking to the time to answer all those questions.

Of course Americans' lack of cynicism can also make them appear a little gullible. Because why would you lie? That's not very nice.

Of the Americans who travel, however, it can sometimes be hard to mount a defence. Stereotypes appear for a reason. But I've found that this is more a case of the vocal few ruining things for the polite majority.

I feel sorry for American travellers sometimes, sitting around hostels and being grilled about their warmongering government, or their gun-crazed southerners, or anything else that the self-righteous fellow travellers around them have an issue with.

These are the good ones, remember - the ones who have decided to get out and see the world. Cut them some slack.

In fact, cut all Americans some slack. They might be loud, they might be brash, and they might be gullible. But they've also got a genuine warmth and friendliness that we could all learn from.