I hope this aren't americans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smwRQPdKqKg

my god; you aren't
are you, is this possible

can't be
or is it

my god.

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in light of the video you posted.

tongue in cheek is not in my dictionary

You posted a video (A funny one, I should add) that takes Americans to task for being uninformed about the world around them and suggests they are stupid.

However, the title of your thread is poorly written and grammatically incorrect;


Which would lead one to question whether or not you are being sarcastic or if you are.....how do I put this delicately....merely obtuse.

That's why his English is so poor.

He is neither sarcastic or obtuse.

Click his profile.

I'm quite sure his English is better than my Dutch, French or German.

I'll bet you speak more than two languages, yes?

Ich spreche Deutsch german
mais pas tellement bien je suis plus doues en français
yo hablo un pocco de espanol spanish
en daarmee zou ik willen zeggen dat het toch niet zo slecht is flemish
nouw zou ik ook graag engels verbeteren dutch
and so now i'm lurning english english
y Parlo un po 'l'italiano italian

are any two of them closer than the other?

do you know my favorite painter?

some belgian people understand the dutch
but in the east of belgium the can't understand the dutch
and the dutch can't understand them

now german leans close to dutch
so if you have to speak and you speak dutch
and really slowly and you use words that in both
languages are used they could understand you

but it is like italian and spanish

unlamented president bosch

but magritte is fantastic

I tend to believe they both had access to some great drugs.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

they had to trown me out

How long have you been writing English? Learning English?

but we use internet and our movies are in english but at the bottom in flemish

I took German for a year in school and never did learn how to write it.

if you get there 3 months you will speak it

That's usually a good sign of a true troll.

Perhaps he was just trying to be funny. In retrospect, it's probably not a good idea for someone with rather limited English to post a link to a video that showcases ignorant Americans.

I don't think he's a troll...

He's from Belgium, and his English isn't like ours, to say the least.

:hi:

You know what's sad, though? As far as English language skills, I've seen far worse from people raised in the U.S. :hi:

:hi:
lol

i just wanted to know if this could be the truth

answer to it wasn't a stupid question.

cant tell the difference between mexico and new mexico.... silly me, arent i a ding bat and cute too. rollin eyes

no different from anywhere else.

i didnt watch video, but i could assume what it is showing. have seen in the past

I am sure you have a fair share in your country.

mostly in the government but not like this...
not knowing who is tony blair...
axis of evil .... germany
fight against the french
pointing Australia as korea ...
not knowing the world is round...

Go stand on a street corner with a video camera. Ask a large number of people questions. Edit your film so that only the uneducated respondents are shown and voila! Instant dumb country!

and i am sorry if i offended you ore you're country
but i just had this video on facebook and it looked at that moment
smart to put it here

now this not the right time sorry for offending you

I operate on the theory that human intelligence is a matter of opinion. Each one of us possesses an ability to excel above average at something.

he is in Belgium and is learning English. He speaks 6 languages. How many do you speak and how many fluently?

Here we finally get a more global perspective and DU shits on the guy. It's disgusting.

It looks like an opportunity to use Ignore given that major ignorami have shown their true colours.x(

but thanks

It's not surprising that someone could find many on any given day who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

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Granted, that was a while ago, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that they've abandoned it since.

Of course.

But since English isn't his first language, it's hard for him to use it correctly.

Have you ever studied a foreign language?

Belgium, sadly, has exhausted its quota (although it's rumored that a few M's and P's are available on the black market in Bruges.) New capital letters will be delivered in March, 2010.

but yes maybe in march 2010 we will get capital letters
and you will get health care

without defense, i came here to lurn not to fight

Please?

By the way, welcome to DU. :hi:

misconception.

Not to be a selfish American, but we need the health care more than you need the capital letters! :hi:

purchase a ticket to belgium hide you're papers get an accident
and they are forced to give you anny help you need
we have a law that makes it criminal to not help somebody
in need ...

Maybe in 2010 you will get capital letters and we will get health care. I love that!

edited to add text.

I am very dismayed at the display here...

murkins

Jay-walking writ large, I'm afraid

how do you think we got eight years of reagan and twelve years of bush. not all those elections were stolen. at least three, sure, but not all five, right?

I'd say he's doing fine in spite of all the fucking assholes on DU.

Making a bad name for all of us at DU. Stop it!

:spray: :rofl:

His English is poor.

the benefit of doubt. Leno does this type of thing all the time. The average American seems to go dumb at the site of a microphone....

welcome to DU jacko_be :hi:

QED

:P

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I didn't think so.

:applause:

:smoke:

I know you are getting a lot of crap from people who can't see past their own noses... We get many trolls here, usually the conservative trolls have a bit of spelling trouble which is why you are catching some flak. Don't let it get you down, we need a global perspective here and people like you can bring that to us.


As for being stupid, Americans aren't as dumb as everyone thinks. We have a tv host here named Jay Leno and he does this bit where he asks people easy questions like who is Tony Blair or who lives in the White House. They ask hundreds of people until they find a stupid one who doesn't know the answers, then they put the stupid ones on TV.

"They ask hundreds of people until they find a stupid one who doesn't know the answers, then they put the stupid ones on TV."

Granted, there probably are a fairer share of stupid ones than knowledgeable ones, though. :eyes:

but i got this by facebook and i tough it could not be true
so i posted this.
thanks for helping me out here i didn't come here to trash on america
really i didn't
we have image of america, and i just wanted to lurn to know the people

I love DU so I am absolutely stunned by the rudeness evident on this thread. Rudeness is an indicator of ignorance, not much different fromt what's shown on the you tube video. I think this is a good time to take advantage of the Ignore function.

but it's nice that people treat me nice
also i don't have the hang yet off this site
and i think DU is a nice site with endless possibilities

"ask hundreds of people until they find a stupid one who doesn't know the answers".

Try it, grab a clipboard and a mic and do it yourself. You'll probably be stunned at the depths of ignorance.

and give permission to Leno to show their stupidity to the world.

And the scary thing is - they vote!

One of the "perks" of living in the kingdom of dumbfuckistan is being able see these morons in action.

Are you familiar with the saying, "it's like watching a train wreck, it's horrible but you can't look away"? Living here is like that.

Now, how about getting it together over there and helping those of us trapped here to escape to a land where people at least recognize sanity? Please, we are not wanted here and many of us do not wish to be here, but moving is impossible because you won't let us in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

:crazy:

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."

:wtf:

from http://www.cafepress.com/peacefulfish

:rofl:

I wasn't even going to comment on the original post, but I felt compelled, so here goes.

As for this video... it's just painful to watch, however, a few years back when I used to run ICQ, a Belgian contacted me randomly and asked me (I had never even spoken to this person by the way, a complete stranger) why Americans are all so fat. It was the first question he asked me, like a rude greeting or something. When I politely pointed out that not everyone here is fat, he essentially told me he'd "seen it on TV" so it must be true. Then he told me he's from Belgium and asked me if I knew where that was. When I told him "Of course I do," he questioned that and went even further with it, to ask me if I knew where Europe was. It was simply astounding to be treated like a complete moron by a total stranger with no reason given other than "I saw it on TV". "We do learn geography here in elementary school, you know," I told him. I imagine some of the negative responses here are a reflexive, defensive reaction, much like the one I felt that day when I was so rudely being quizzed by that random Belgian. I would have been friendlier to the guy but after being treated like I was some kind of fool right off the bat, I wasn't really in the mood to make new friends, you know?

Mine is just another perspective on this thread, of course. Obviously I know there are some painfully stupid people in this country, but a slanted comedy show is no way to gauge it and if one believes everything one sees on television, maybe more questioning needs to be done of oneself. Stupidity isn't a uniquely American phenomenon and yes, it angers me to see my country being treated as a laughingstock. We all have our problems and they're not all as simple as one would imagine. For example, we have some of the best schools in the world but not everyone has access to them and our economy is so awful that some people can't afford to take time for school when they're working three jobs just to live under a small roof. I can't find anything funny about that situation, really. It doesn't excuse some of the more ridiculous responses in that video, but it is still a big problem, in my eyes.

Anyway, welcome to the forum. I know your initial post was not malicious, jacko_be, but I hope my post clarified some of the reaction here. I won't defend anyone who is making fun of your English though because I think it's admirable that you can speak it so well after just a couple of months.

"....is our children learning?"

he was in the northwest (OR or WA, at a dam or something, during the 00 campaign, talking about how salmon were doing better, for some reason he was trying to capitalize upon)

will check

Thanks a lot, now I have to go wash my brain...

I'm sorry that some have chosen to be so rude to you. :hi:

That was comedy to begin with, and they had the luxury of interviewing a lot of people and picking out the ones that gave funny answers.

If they'd interviewed me, I'd have known all the answers, so they wouldn't have used that tape.

You'd think they would have picked up some information just existing.

Don't worry about the asses - and there are a few of them here - they are out numbered by good people.

and thank you for a challenging view.

I met some of the rest , it is a shame really ... waste of resources for nothing .

Yes, people are stupid. In EVERY country. Thanks for the news flash.

Not all Americans are stupid, but it seems like there are more and more all the time. It's inexplicable to me with so much factual information available.

Stand out on the street in any nation on the Earth and ask 100 random strangers a series of unrelated and random but seemingly obvious questions, and the odds are good that about a quarter of them will miss at least one question. Edit your videotape properly, and you'll make it look like you're interviewing a crowd of morons.

Jay Leno used to do this trick a lot on the Tonight Show. He admitted once that they sometimes had to talk to HUNDREDS of people before they got enough "bad" answers to put a skit together. By the time it was all edited, it looked like they'd walked out, asked six people some obvious questions, and five of the six had been idiots. You never saw the 150 other people who provided correct and uninteresting answers.

The clip here, by the way, is from The Chasers War on Everything, which is an Australian comedy show. There are other clips of them pulling this same gag on everyone from Brits to Aussies. This is also the same group that crashed a WTO party in Australia by putting some flags on the corner of their car. The security people never checked the credentials because the vehicle and its security looked "official". The Aussies just waved them through. It caused a huge international incident at the time because they got inside of the security perimeter of various international leaders, including Booshie.

starting in the year 2001 we let one of the stars of one of these gags occupy the presidency for 8 years.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

:headbang:

video are like people I see every day. I'm happy to say that we Americans aren't all that ignorant. :-)

Welcome to DU. :hi:

Is this why so many are so gullible to the lies of Fox?

welcome to DU! :hi:

You mean to tell me you don't have stupid Belgians?

Of course, we have a LOT of idiots, but it IS a big country and there's a lot of opportunity to waste time and not think about much.

But there are plenty of people not nearly as stupid as those you see in this clip.

As you learn more about our land, you'll find that "teh stoopid" is heavily concentrated on the right end of our political spectrum.
Our schools have been gutted by the RW agenda and now kids are taught how to take tests.
Critical thinking skills are what we should focus on.

Here are some quotes on a book I'm reading called "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free".

“We’ve chosen up sides on everything,” he asserts, “fashioning our public lives as though we were making up a fantasy baseball team.” This new civil war almost always boils down to a clash between intellect and feeling, or what Mr. Pierce labels the Gut. “The Gut is a moron, as anyone who’s ever tossed a golf club, punched a wall, or kicked a lawn mower knows,” he writes. “The Gut is the roiling repository of dark and ancient fears.” The problem is, it currently has a stranglehold on a hefty slice of our major media—talk radio—as well as that traveling circus known as the G.O.P.

Stupidity is as stupidity does, to quote a uniquely stupid movie. It has been with us always and always will be. But we moved into an era in which stupidity was celebrated if it managed to sell itself well, if it succeeded, if it made people money. That is “glorifying ignorance.” We moved into an era in which the reflexive instincts of the Gut were celebrated at the expense of reasoned, informed opinion. To this day, we have a political party—the Republicans—who, because it embraced a “movement of Conservatism” that celebrated anti-intellectualism is now incapable of conducting itself in any other way. That has profound political and cultural consequences, and the truly foul part about it was that so many people engaged in it knowing full well they were peddling poison.

Obviously the worst possible responses were cherry-picked for that video. As far as "dumb" goes, that's obviously going to generate an angry response. Since you didn't specify in your post what you think, you should expect such a response.

There's a difference between "dumb" and "ignorant". "Dumb" is a reflection of intelligence. An ignorant person can be very smart but uninformed. The corporations who increasingly control our media would like to keep us as uninformed as possible, and many of those in power would like to similarly control what is taught in our schools. To a great extent they have been successful, and the result is an increasingly uninformed populace.

Posting that video here, however, means that you're reaching the more informed segment of the populace - so if you're trying to create some kind of change in the world, you're aiming at the wrong target. If you're just looking for information, I guess you'll probably get some. No clue what good it'll do you.

ignorant :
i don't like to think something about something before i know if something is true
i don't know how you work, i clearly put I hope this aren't americans !!!!
so that means that i don't have an opinion yet
but by reactions i could make an opinion
and by doing dis i will not be ignorant anymore

dumb:
if you want to attack France or you think that Germany is an axis of evil
or you want to make a big hole out of the middle east

this is dumb
not ignorant

of why many of the answers to the questioner were likely taken out of context.

The person being asked that question probably was thinking back to elementary school where they were taught that the "Axis Powers" in World War II were Germany, Italy and Japan.

The person clearly didn't remember their history, but also clearly didn't understand the question they were being asked. It's possible that the person didn't even watch Bush's speech or bother watching the crap that the mainstream media constantly spewed regarding the "Axis of Evil".

This particular question just proves that you can make any person (or entire population of people) seem stupid with careful editing and questions that are not well-stated with the right context.

Same goes with "country beginning with a U" - many people in their own country would automatically assume that a person asking that question was talking about OTHER countries. I suspect that if you lived in a very large country such as the former U.S.S.R., and the U.S. was not a single country but instead was divided into 50 smaller countries - you'd have a hard time naming one of those countries since it didn't affect your daily life in the U.S.S.R.

Who's to say that 90 people didn't respond with "Uganda" and they picked the one person who couldn't think of one? Who's to say that 90 people didn't correctly identify "Iran, Iraq and North Korea" and they picked the one person who was trying to remember his elementary school WWII lesson?

This entire video is crap and your motive in posting it here is questionable.

And I agree that the person who wants to make a big hole out of the middle east is not thinking very clearly. But he's just responding in anger to terrorism.

And I agree that the person who wants to make a big hole out of the middle east is not thinking very clearly. But he's just responding in anger to terrorism.
Not thinking very clearly= no , it's called genocide, it's called mass murder, and it's called dumb,
responing in anger to terrorism, I do know they killed a lot of civilians in ny
but america did bomb schools, did invade falsly a country, and made a lot of civil deaths.
and don't forget they don't think they are wrong if someone kills someone in you're family
you will want to take revenge
i do and i strongly believe that no more of 30 persons knew about the attack on wtc

but to hold a country responsible an invading it does not seem right
( I do not wan't a fight but if someone attacks belgium because some dumb belgian fucks hate capitalisem
i will defend my country, I do believe that you would react the same way.)

I don't know if they did or did not have 90 people who answerd uganda
how can I know.

The video is crap but, I needed to form an opinion

my god, my motive: is this true

people will get to know you and forgive you for it... I've been through it too.... Welcome to DU!