I love the left...
They'll indict Americans as being "ignorant" (Michael Moore anyone?) while praising the intellectual prowess of the Europeans. My experience, however, is that the left's assertions of American ignorance is nothing more than projection:
"Europeans speak so many languages, and Americans barely speak one!"
Well, I for one speak two other languages fluently, and am currently working on my third. I also can manage to speak about 100 or so words in about three more languages; Spanish, Japanese, and Korean. Of course, I can only speak from my own experience, but EVERY time a lefty comes at me with this tired line, I ask, "Oh! Well, I speak German and Latin (yeah, I know... it's dead.. but fun) fluently! What do you speak?" and am met with blank stares "ummm... oh, uh... I used to take Spanish in high school... but I forgot everything..."
Case against liberal public education?
"Europeans are much more in tune with current events!"
As demonstrated by this website alone, I read several dozen newspapers daily, listen to news on the radio, as well as watch it on a couple TV stations. On top of that, I read academic journals in my particular field that would make most people's heads spin, and read about one non-fiction title a month. When I pose to my lib friends (a number which is rapidly diminishing), "Where do you get your news?," I generally hear, "uhh... well I listen to NPR... and Comedy Central's 'Daily Show'..."
I love that statement.... so, here for your amusement, is my father's (who turned me on to FR) news experiment...
Listen in the morning to your local AM Talk Radio news. Listen for a couple of hours or so if you can manage. Then, in the afternoon, listen to NPR and compare.
...my liberal friends NEVER take me up on that challenge.
"Europeans are so multicultural! I mean, a day trip in any direction is another culture."
Spoken like truly UNTRAVELLED people. If you think there's one overriding American culture, you watch too much TV. While there are certain traits and characteristics that bind us together, people are not the same whereever you go (despite the claims made by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney). If you want to experience culture shock, just travel to another state. Libs seem to think that Georgia is the same as Massachusetts, or California is the same as Alaska. Even within a state there are diverse cultures. I just moved to Illinois, and am amazed at the ubiquitous Amish culture here. I've never seen so many buggies in my life.
I suppose I could go on, but why bother, we all know that lefties are ignorant, hypocritical, know-nothings, who know that they're better than everyone else.
I had a friend who did this accidentially. Although she was a die-hard union democrat, one day she accidentially tuned into Rush. With out knowing who it was, she was listening to a commentary by him, and agreeing with every word. When the station identification came on, she about passed out from shock ! It really opened her eyes, and now she's going to vote for Bush. So, your father's idea is really good.
It has been my experience that Europeans are much more ignorant about Americans than we are of them. Everything they claim to know about America is either erroneous or a carricature. This article merely confirms what I've known for the last several years.
I was in Germany a week ago trying to close the purchase of a media company. When I finally got my hands on their books, I found 600,000 Euros of payables that couldn't be accounted for. While they laughed about Enron and Worldcom, I think the state of European accounting is much, much worse. Most of their scandals are too small to be worth noting.
When Germans find that I'm American, they make all sorts of assumptions. Europeans in general assume that I've been the victim of racism and are suprised to when I tell them I've experience much more racism in Europe. [Yet surprisingly, the girls at the clubs and raves love Asians - flavor of the month I suppose. I take full advantage of that.] In presuming racial victimization, they also assume that I'm not fond of America and try to engage me in some anti-american chat. They're often suprised at how well and how strongly I defend the US. In one instance where all the petty, dirty things the US had done to protect the free world was thrown back in my face and they were getting personal, I had to resort to "Germany is still well ahead in the body count this century but I do hold that against you because I understand that those things were done by a different government in different times." I was ashamed I actually used that but it was a heated argument. The Germans really are sheepish and ashamed about it.