Posted on 12/13/2004 5:39:51 AM PST by Le Bouledogue Britannique
It has been noted that there has been a grievous and unprovoked attack on Great Britain on these pages
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1295524/posts
which THE MANAGEMENT, in their wisdom, have seen fit to leave in situ.
Therefore, here is the British response.
[Note to Mr Moderator, please feel free to remove this thread (I'm sure you will anyway) and indeed ban me from these boards (once again) However, if you do choose you that path, please display your lack of bias and sense of fair play by removing the "40 Reasons why the US is Better than Britain (humor)" thread which I have linked to above at the same time. Thank you.]
70 Reasons why GREAT Britain is miles & miles better than the USA (humour)
1. Michael Moore
2. You don't have any custard
3. You invented McDonalds
4, Our military are peacemakers.
5. We know a few things about the U.S., whereas you know next to nothing about the UK.
6. We have a sense of humour (and we even know how to spell it)
7. We don't rely on therapy or Prozac to lead a "normal" life
8. We understand irony.
9. We can watch TV for ten full minutes without a 15 minute commercial break
10. We are 6 times less likely to be murdered in the UK than you are in the US
11. We are 60 times less likely to be shot in the UK than you are in the US
12. We don't feel that we have to own firearms to protect ourselves from our own government.
13. We aren't xenophobic
14. Did I mention Michael Moore?
15. We don't expect people to like us or respect us, but some of them do. The U.S. seems to have got that back to front.
16. British beer doesn't taste like diluted gnats urine.
17. We don't have rednecks (at least, if we do, they don't actually have red necks)
18. We can drive around corners and most of our cars can manage more than 10 miles to the gallon.
19. We are intelligent enough to use a manual gearbox
20. We are not all obese.
21. Yorkshire pudding.
22. We are a net exporter of oil
23. We can sometimes see the other guys point of view.
24. Our accents don't sound vulgar.
25. We don't hate people just because they are different to us.
26. We have a prettier flag than you.
27. We invented modern democracy, you just pay lip service to it.
28. We have more attractive women here per head of population than you have.
29. We don't have the left wing stink hole that is Hollywood.
30. We are capable of enjoying a film (translation: "movie") in which nobody gets killed every 3 minutes.
31. We don't eat raw corn.
32. We don't have to buy our drinking water from other countries
33. Most of our population realise that there is a world beyond our borders.
34. I live here.
35. Our armed forces are capable of mounting an operation without playing rock music at 120 decibels, shouting "YEAH RIGHT!", or "OH DUDE!" every ten seconds and putting panties on the heads of captives.
36. We enjoy steak & kidney pie. You are too pernickety to even try it and therefore don't know what you're missing.
37. Our students study geography
38. We don't let our armed forces recruit in our schools.
39. We don't let our homosexuals recruit in our schools either.
40. We do let the boy scouts recruit in our schools.
41. We are able to settle minor disputes without filling each other with lead.
42. We don't deny healthcare to a large proportion of our population because they can't pay.
43. We don't react to any perceived minor critism or a question of our opinions by accusing the other party of being a "pinko-commie", a "faggot" or a "reee-tord"
44. Our teachers are able to deal with difficult young children without calling the police.
45. Our police (even if they were called to a school) wouldn't dream of tazaring a six year old boy or handcuffing a 10 year old girl (for bringing scissors to school - what's that about then?), nor of locking them up in a cell.
46. Our teachers are able to deal with parents visiting their classrooms without kicking seven shades of excrement out of them.
47. Michael Moore anybody?
48. We play proper football, you....well, I needn't say any more on that subject.
49. We don't have crooks calling themselves TV evangelists, because we are not dumb enough to send them any money.
50. We stopped having mullet haircuts in the 80's
51. We don't marry our cousins & call the offspring Billy-Bob or Mary-Lou
52. We have toilet blocks older than your most historical sites
53. We have a pot plant at Kew Gardens which is older than the USA
54. While we don't have the first amendment, we do seem to respect it more than you do.
55. Michael Jackson.
56. We don't exaggerate our achievements in the 2nd World War.
57. You elected Bill Clinton.
58 You elected Bill Clinton, TWICE! (I mean, come on Yanks! Once is a mistake, twice was just stupid!)
59. We are capable of winning a sports event (oh yes we are!) without chanting "UK! UK! UK! UK! UK! UK! UK!" ceaselessly and intensely irritatingly over and over and over again.
60. We (with a little minor assistance from our Froggy neighbours) conceived, planned, built and financed the Concorde, the finest, fastest & most beautiful airliner the world has ever seen.
61. You, in a typical fit of petty jealousy and America-firstism, strangled commercial supersonic flight at birth by banning Concorde from your airports (and thus markets) on ridiculous environmental grounds (possibly the only time the US has objected to anything for that reason), then announced your own supersonic airline project (which never got built - while even the USSR managed to produce a Concorde rip-off)
62. We do not regard war as a spectator sport.
63. We, a small nation, in the space of a few generations, built the largest Empire the world has ever seen, and then gave it all back. Just for laughs. You, a very large nation, have attempted to dominate the world for the last 50 years and have failed, miserably.
64. We, while still retaining our patriotism, are able to appreciate and applaud the achievements of sportsmen, politicians, scientists and businessmen from other countries.
65. We have our own language that we ourselves invented. You have pinched ours and devalued it appallingly
66. We have given the world, modern democracy, law & order, the English language, the industrial revolution, the world wide web, penicillin, the jet engine and a host of other social and technological breakthroughs too numerous to mention. You have given the world....Mickey Mouse.
67. Is there a Michael Moore in the house?
68. We play cricket, perhaps not the most exciting sport out there I grant you but nonetheless a gentlemanly pursuit. You have baseball. Nuff said.
69. You, often claim, in your brusque, bombastic manner to be "the greatest nation on Earth". We smile silently but say nothing because we KNOW that we are.
70. No British Prime Minister has ever been caught with his pants down in 10 Downing Street.
& one for the pot...
71. We are British. Don-cha-know!
Toodle Pip Chaps.
16. British beer doesn't taste like diluted gnats urine. ( so we have to special order it for the holidays )
Your loss.
70% success, then...
Hard to favour anyone actually,while Blair may be an American ally,he is a liberal as far domestic issues are concerned.
I've heard that about him, being a liberal. What other choice is there?
You Brits live on an island. We yanks live on a continent. Continents are better.
Good one. lololol
bttt
Kinda funny post though, there are a couple of technical erros. 60. We (with a little minor assistance from our Froggy neighbours) conceived, planned, built and financed the Concorde, the finest, fastest & most beautiful airliner the world has ever seen.
Yes, it is pretty, and unprofitable. That is why one is sitting at the Boeing Museum of flight. They'll have room for the A380 when it's done not making a profit. Besides those points, it's not the "Fastest" by any stretch of the imagination. It is however, a very nice display.
I'd also point out that the Concord is a ripoff of Alexander Lippisch's work. I don't think he received compensation either. And, you also had a fair amount of Yanks on retainer when the Concord was in development. One brilliant structural engineer by the name of Forrest comes to mind.
61. You, in a typical fit of petty jealousy and America-firstism, strangled commercial supersonic flight at birth by banning Concorde from your airports (and thus markets) on ridiculous environmental grounds (possibly the only time the US has objected to anything for that reason), then announced your own supersonic airline project (which never got built - while even the USSR managed to produce a Concorde rip-off)
The War of 1812 was a typical fit of Petty Brit Jealousy, as is the entire EU. However, Boeing's SST program was killed by the same environmental wacko that killed the SST, the result was the elimination of 66% of the Boeing Staff. Not to mention the fact that funding for the project would have been by private investment as opposed to socialist confiscation. Just a small point.
Well,the only thing favouring Blair is the TINA factor(there is no alternative).The Conservatives look too jaded & their foreign policy won't be too different from Blair's & they too have begun to develop a 'flip-flop' response to many issues.The agenda of Charles Kennedy & his liberal Democrats makes John Kerry look as conservative as Dick Cheney.But the fact is that,the electorate in GB don't seem to satisfied bout Blair,don't know how the TINA factor plays out.
Oh, come on now. Stop joshing.
Well, he has a lot of it right on, of course, but several of his statements seem to contradict his assertion #5.
The British made the world speak English, we gave the world a reason to want to.
As an American currently living in England I have to reply to this list.
1. Michael Moore-have to agree with you on this one. He's a huge embarassment.
2. You don't have any custard-Not true, but it's nasty stuff anyway.
3. You invented McDonalds-It is a pretty disgusting place to eat, but the Brits apparently love it b/c there are McD's all over the UK
7. We don't rely on therapy or Prozac to lead a "normal" life-No, instead you drink yourselves silly at the pub. I can't believe how many people in England live for the weekend so they can get stinking drunk.
9. We can watch TV for ten full minutes without a 15 minute commercial break-Your commercial breaks are as long as the ones in the U.S., with the exception of the BBC channels. BTW, in the U.S. we are not forced to pay almost $200 a year just to have a TV(for Americans reading this post the money goes to support the BBC. Can you imagine being forced to support PBS?)
12. We don't feel that we have to own firearms to protect ourselves from our own government.-I know of no one who owns firearms to protect themselves from the government. They own them to hunt or to protect themselves from criminals.
17. We don't have rednecks (at least, if we do, they don't actually have red necks)-yes,you do
18. We can drive around corners and most of our cars can manage more than 10 miles to the gallon.-I don't know what the comment about corners is supposed to mean, but most cars in the U.S. get more that 10mph. Also, our government does not gouge us with taxes on the petrol we do buy.
19. We are intelligent enough to use a manual gearbox-I know some idiots who can drive a manual. An automatic is simply more pleasant to dirve.
20. We are not all obese.-neither are all Americans.
21. Yorkshire pudding.-one of the many yucky English desserts. I do like that Sticky Toffy pudding though.
22. We are a net exporter of oil. --A lot of good that does you. Petrol costs over three times as much in the UK as it does in the U.S.
23. We can sometimes see the other guys point of view.-so can most Americans, but that doesn't mean that we have to agree with the other guy or accept his opinions/beliefs.
24. Our accents don't sound vulgar.-apparently you don't get out much b/c there are some atrocious accents here.
25. We don't hate people just because they are different to us.-neither do most Americans. I do know that some Brits hate Americans just b/c they are Americans. How is this any different?
27. We invented modern democracy, you just pay lip service to it.-How much longer are you going to be living in a democracy with the EU trying to dictate every facet of life? I expect to wake up some day and find out that the EU has passed a rule stating how many times a day each person can use the toilet.
28. We have more attractive women here per head of population than you have.-ha,ha. Where are you hiding them?
31. We don't eat raw corn.-Where do people eat raw corn? Speaking of food, Have you ever heard anyone brag about British food?!?!?!?
34. I live here.-yes, but a rather large percentage of Brits want to immigrate to other countries. Spain, Australia and the U.S. are the destinations most Brits want to imigrate to. Trust me, if Americans were polled you would not find many who can't wait to move away from America.
36. We enjoy steak & kidney pie. You are too pernickety to even try it and therefore don't know what you're missing.-your beef sucks!
39. We don't let our homosexuals recruit in our schools either.--Where did you get the idea that we do?
41. We are able to settle minor disputes without filling each other with lead.--most of us can too.
42. We don't deny healthcare to a large proportion of our population because they can't pay.--Poor Ameicans and the elderly are taken care of through medicaid/medicare. I have talked to more than one Brit who has had medical care in the the U.S. as well as Britain and they much preferred the care they received in the U.S. Having said this, our healthcare situation does have room for improvement, but I pray that it never comes down to national health care.
44. Our teachers are able to deal with difficult young children without calling the police.--Calling the police in America is not the norm. According to my British friends who are teachers they have a lot of behavior problems in the schools here and the teachers have very little power to do anything about it.
45. Our police (even if they were called to a school) wouldn't dream of tazaring a six year old boy or handcuffing a 10 year old girl (for bringing scissors to school - what's that about then?), nor of locking them up in a cell.--this and #46 must refer to isolated incidents and are not indicative of the actions of most of the police/teachers in the U.S.
46. Our teachers are able to deal with parents visiting their classrooms without kicking seven shades of excrement out of them.-never heard this story
49. We don't have crooks calling themselves TV evangelists, because we are not dumb enough to send them any money.--you must not have satellite tv if you think there are no TV evangelists on UK TV.
52. We have toilet blocks older than your most historical sites--and you are fantastic at taking something like an old wart and making it into a historical attraction. If you don't really know the history behind that hole in the ground or those big rocks then you'll speculate and call it history.
54. While we don't have the first amendment, we do seem to respect it more than you do.--are you kidding??
55. Michael Jackson.--yes, he is quite an embarassment. He has quite a following here in the UK and Europe though.
57. You elected Bill Clinton.--that was a sad day in our history
58 You elected Bill Clinton, TWICE! (I mean, come on Yanks! Once is a mistake, twice was just stupid!)-True
59. We are capable of winning a sports event (oh yes we are!) without chanting "UK! UK! UK! UK! UK! UK! UK!" ceaselessly and intensely irritatingly over and over and over again.-you hardly ever win in International sporting events so I suspect that you are stunned when you do.
62. We do not regard war as a spectator sport. Then why are your journalists in Iraq and the war is in the news continually?
63. We, a small nation, in the space of a few generations, built the largest Empire the world has ever seen, and then gave it all back. Just for laughs. You, a very large nation, have attempted to dominate the world for the last 50 years and have failed, miserably.--I needed a laugh. You are only fooling yourself if you really believe that the Brits "gave back" their empire out of good will or for a laugh.
65. We have our own language that we ourselves invented. You have pinched ours and devalued it appallingly-maybe you need to look up the origins of English. It was developed from several other languages. Also, there are many different dialects in the UK as there are in the U.S. and many people here in the UK "murder" the language every time they open their mouths. What's up with saying "me" instead of "my" when referring to a possesion like "me car"?? I live in an area where people say words like "buer" instead of "Butter".
66. We have given the world, modern democracy, law & order, the English language, the industrial revolution, the world wide web, penicillin, the jet engine and a host of other social and technological breakthroughs too numerous to mention. You have given the world....Mickey Mouse.--it would take way to much space to name all of the inventions and accomplishments that can be credited to Americans. I have found that some Brits are good at taking credit for inventions/discoveries that they don't have a right to claim.
69. You, often claim, in your brusque, bombastic manner to be "the greatest nation on Earth". We smile silently but say nothing because we KNOW that we are.--again, why do so many people want to leave your country if they think it is the greatest nation on Earth? It's silly for either country to make this claim.
We are living in England for a couple of years because the American company my husband works for purchased an existing British company. My husband was offered the opportunity to manage the business until a Brit can be trained to take over. Living here has given me a whole new appreciation for the U.S. and all that Americans take for granted.
I don't really see a need for Americans or Brits to make critical lists about each other, but I had to respond to the comments above. There are a couple of things I'll miss about Britain, but I miss a whole lot more about the U.S.
I must confess that you Brits "were" on the cutting edge when it came to taking care of the poor. The first poor law was passed in the 1500's and by the 17th Century, almost a fifth of the English population had received alms at one time or another.
However, it should be noted that the poor laws weren't passed so much out of compassion as to keep the beggars off the streets who were stealing and terrorizing the country.
So it would be a good guess to think your healthcare system was probably borne out of the same mind-set.
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