It’s not the Yanks who are dumb

The Spectator (U.K.) ^ | 09/07/2002 | Neil Clark

[Black Agnes]

...only 8 per cent of our own schoolchildren have heard of Winston Churchill...

YO! Maybe *this* is why Britain seems so broken to us Yanks! Have your school instructors gone mad?

[2banana]

And plus the US pulled our balls out of the fire in two world wars...

[gaspar]

This guy seems a leftist more out of political political-correctness than conviction.

[Phantom Lord]

Thomas Smith is featured in The Big Book of British Smiles

[Mr. Bird]

Calling America, or Americans, dumb isn't offensive. It's imbecilic.

And while we do have our share of idiots (paging Al Gore), how would a nation of morons rise as the most powerful in the history of the planet?

[ClearCase_guy]

This is why Americans are so hated by us on the Left

But ... but ... I thought it was only American Conservatives who were full of hate. I thought Hate was Not a Family Value. I thought only Ann Coulter had explicit hatred for her political opponents.

I'm so confused by the appearance of honesty from this self-professed leftist.

[chiefqc]

While they may call America and Americans all sorts of names, and this is to be expected from these inmature children, one thing we American know fro sure:

WHEN YOU ARE IN TROUBLE, YOU WILL ALWAYS CALL AMERICA AND AMERICANS FOR HELP.

Enough said, you get my point.

[jae471]

This guy strikes me as a "little-l" liberal, as opposed to the "big-L" Liberal.

He doesn't resort to name calling, and he isn't afraid to attack the Left for hypocracy. He calls the Left out on their "raciam". He has a problem with American foreign policy. That's fine -- I don't like our foreign policy half the time, either (almost certainly for different reasons, though.) He's on the ball about Yugoslavia, though.

[Hugin]

All men are equal; all men, that is, except Americans, Serbs, white Africans and Protestants from Northern Ireland. Those unfortunate enough to be members of these groups can be freely called all the names under the sun without fear of opprobrium.

He forgot to include Jews, and their "sh*tty little country", Israel.

Oh well, a recent poll that showed over half of adult Britons would rather live in the USA than their native land belies their smug anti-Americanism.

[GVnana]

Violent crime is undeniably a problem in most American inner cities; yet, away from them, the US suffers from significantly less crime than the UK.

The rural US population is armed.

[tcostell]

We all have a “dumb Yank” story on our travels.

Not to get off topic, but I've heard this before and I have a theory about it.

No one will claim that there are no "stupid" people in Europe. Since there are more people in Europe than America, it is probably reasonable to assume that there are in fact more "stupid" people in Europe than America. So why is it that Europeans all have a dumb yank story? Well probably because they have all met a "dumb yank" while the "dumb yank" was traveling through Europe.

My theory is this, in Europe, there is so little opportunity that if you are perceived as being less intelligent, then you will never get enough disposable income to travel in the US, but thanks to our vibrant economy, even those people who are somewhat deficient in their knowledge of European history or culture can still afford to go there and visit.

so we yanks may be dumb, but if we're rich and our European counterparts are not, than I think it's a fair question to ask "How dumb are we really?"

[tcostell]

My spelling apologies....need my afternoon coffee.

[texasbluebell]

Well, there is some hope in England I think. I love the following essay from the Times of London, written not long after 9-11, and posted then. Here's just a snippet from it.

Why do they hate America?

< snip >

I am sick of my generation's whining ingratitude, its wilful, infantile loathing of the great, tumultuous, witty and infinitely clever nation that has so often saved us from ourselves. But I am heartened by something my 19- year-old daughter said: "America has always been magic to us, we don't understand why you lot hate it so much."

[KC Burke]

How come the ol' saw, "Damming with faint Praise" comes to mind?

If his triumvirate is indeed the ones he lists, I almost prefer the unadulterated conciet of the writer he is castigating to his reservations. He is intelligent enough to know better about American culture, but refuses to make the attempt.

[MadIvan]

YO! Maybe *this* is why Britain seems so broken to us Yanks! Have your school instructors gone mad?

We had our own Hillary Clinton, if you will. Her name was Lady Plowden, and she was in charge of educational reform. Being the Hillary Clinton of her day, she did about as good a job on our schools as you might expect Hillary to have done on your health service.

Prior to her we had a system in which children took an exam called the 11 plus. Based on the results of that exam, you either went into grammar schools or to vocational schools. Grammar schools for for the very gifted. Vocational schools taught kids a trade. The system worked. But if you went to grammar school you likely had a higher income than those who went to vocational schools. So the socialists lumped the two together in "comprehensives". Not all grammar schools were eliminated; and I was fortunate enough to go into private schooling.

By eliminating excellence, the leftists managed to dumb down much of our population. Yet we are a nation that has prided itself on its scholarship. That proud legacy of scholarship still exists in our private schools as it exists in yours. But do let the corpse of much of our intellectual life, at least for the general public, do serve as a warning for you.

Regards, Ivan

[Black Agnes]

How sad. I attended the brit equivalent of first grade in the UK. Kicked butt in the American schools when I returned stateside too.

[Brian Allen]

<< ..... organised petitions for the indictment of Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright as war criminals for their role in the illegal bombing of Yugoslavia ..... >>

Good find. [How'dja beat Ives to it?

But he forgot the Arkansas abberrations' Neo-Axis Charter Member, Turd-Way-Tiny Blair on the war-crimes blotter!

[Brian Allen]

The EUroweenies -- including the Britrash referred to in this piece, suffer terminal hesporophobia.

Dead and decadent EUrinal's squalidly-socialist slaves hate and despise US one at a time because of our individual casual success and as a Nation because Our Beloved FRaternal Republic's immense national wealth causes them know the agony of realising their individual and collective inferiority.

They suffer, that is, not an inferiority "complex" but FRom inferiority REALITY!