Are Americans the descendents of European loosers?
May 12, 2006A month or so a go my wife and I were in a bar in central Copenhagen ordering a beer. To my right were two women and a guy talking very loudly. The center of attention was the shortest of the women who was theorizing on why American’s are the way they are. Normally I feel pretty immune to most of the anti-American rhetoric you often hear in Europe, but this one took the biscuit and I had to severely restrain myself.
Basically she was saying that the American’s are descendent from the losers of Europe. So all the weak and crazy went to America, because there wasn’t a place for them here. You know it’s wrong on so many levels it isn’t even funny.
Immigrants are in almost all cases more ambitious than the people they left behind. I know in Scandinavia during the big emigration phase 100 years ago the younger sons of farm families would often emigrate because the oldest got the family farm.
Secondly American immigrants came from all over the world, not just Europe.
They guy in the group said, well thats the same for Australia then as they were all criminals in England. She said, no it’s not the same because these weren’t serious criminals and Australians are nice people not like Americans.
Well in that case I am happy to be a stinking, crazy American looser. The funny thing about idiot intellectuals like this girl is that they come out with stuff that wouldn’t be out of place in a clan meeting and they seemingly get away with it.
Comments:
Basically she was saying that the American’s are descendent from the losers of Europe. So all the weak and crazy went to America, because there wasn’t a place for them here.
She's got a germ of truth there. As you said, for many people there wasn't a place in Europe. To them what stayed behind they might have seemed crazy indeed.
She said, no it’s not the same because these weren’t serious criminals and Australians are nice people not like Americans.
Not serious by the standards of our day. By the standards of the times the crimes were serious indeed.
There is a folks saying in middle America - he timid never started and the weak died on the way.
The worst thing about blather like this is that they don't realize how crude and arrogant they sound, and it's accepted that what she is saying is correct.
Posted by: Brian at May 12, 2006 11:31 AM
Mmmmmmm....America was founded by weak, crazy losers. In just a short time, those losers built the richest, strongest and most prosperous country on earth, a country to which many, many Europeans still flock.
These losers accomplished in a short time what European countries failed to do and continue to fail to do.
Posted by: Will Kamishlian at May 12, 2006 10:57 PM
Since my first experiences with Denmark were in the late 60's and 70's, where I was held personally responsible for not only the Viet Nam War, but also pollution and McDonald's, by people who were wearing Danish clogs with American jeans and sweatshirts, I know that this attitude has been around a long time--way back to when "Uncle Jens" was sending care packages to post WWII Denmark and showed up in a new suit.
The immigration issue in the US is now telling the same story. The new immigrants are taking jobs the stay-at-homes don't want. They are working their butt off to provide a better life for their children, both those left behind in the mother country, and those who they even put through college on less than minimum wage.
Definitely the ones who intentionally left Europe, Asia and now the Middle East, Africa and South America came to the US because they had talents they weren't able to use where they came from. The funny thing is that now that I've immigrated BACK to America, I also have opportunities that were not available for me in Denmark--like a job instead of unemployment insurance.
It's probably not a coincidence that the ones who were brought here (or even the ones who were sent here by rich parents who didn't want them hanging around) are the least successful in this country. In fact most anyone who has his life determined by others: slaveholders, parents (like Paris Hilton) or the State, seems to have to work extra hard to get the motivation to have a productive, happy, successful, whatever, life!
Posted by: Bonnie Yelverton at May 13, 2006 03:05 PM
