Americans are not stupid

The worrying thing is that the USA wants to impose democracy across the World!

If a country wanted or had a use for it, by now that country would have implemented it for itself.

For example it is entirely inappropriate for China, and not because Chinese people are stupid.

ATB from George

> For example it is entirely inappropriate for China,

Why? 

Because the population there have not in thousands of years seen fit to try to implement it. It is none of the business of countries like those in Europe of specifically in this discussion, the USA, how a country like China seeks to govern itself  To think otherwise is the most ghastly hubris on our part.

How could we in the UK or equally the USA seek to advise another country like China, when we were still living in wooden huts when the Chinese were building a land mark that could be seen from out space like the Great Wall possible be in a position to judge what best suits the Chinese - without it being an extreme act of hubris. 

ATB from George

I hate these sorts of clips, they no doubt spoke to many people of which the majority got it right, but thats boring, so edit them out.

From George (my concatenations):

"Democracy...is entirely inappropriate for China....because the population there have not in thousands of years seen fit to try to implement it."

A circular argument.

Even had they tried and failed in past times, that would not argue irrefutably against a further attempt, under modern conditions, to establish democracy .

Fraser

Yep, this is why it is so entertaining, lol.

I have my doubts.

Absolutely! When the Chinese want a change, the groundswell will come from within, rather than applied from without.

If they want it, then 2 Billion people will certainly have it. When or if they want it.

It is no business of anyone else when or if this happens.

My view is that Regime Chance in a foreign country should be regarded as an inter-national crime of at least the second rank after genocide to be handled by the War Crimes Court in the Hague. First in line in my book would be GW Bush and Tony Blair, but there is a longer list than that. It should carry execution by hanging as the ultimate deterrent.

ATB from George

I don't think we should hate such clips. I think we should welcome, and, be worried by them, as a reminder that our democratic system still has not got the education system right.

How can people vote a government into power that may start a War, when the voters don't have a secure idea of where this policy may be carried on, or what implications this carries for the future? This is rather important in the case of the USA, which, like China and Russia, still has the capacity to start WW 3. 

ATB from George

PS: In the context shouls any country that cannot even educate its own populace presume properly to advise another or go much further and to enforce a different form of government on that country. I think not ...

Clips like these are amusing but (as well as being selective) they demonstrate a lack of education rather than stupidity.  I don't suppose I'm alone in having encountered poorly educated people who were actually very bright and university-educated people who were pretty thick.  The latter group are more dangerous in my view because they can find themselves in much more influential positions...and now I can't help but think of a US president or two. Oh well!

Tibet? All governments are corrupt, but some are more corrupt than others. 

>  the Chinese were building a land mark that could be seen from out space like the Great Wall

Surely a hideous carbuncle on the face of the earth, as Prince Charles would say, and not a patch on our superb Hadrian's wall which is work of sheer beauty. 

Though I must say they invented gunpowder and for a short while I thought that would be very useful - only goes to show how wrong you can be. 

Can't we all learn a bit from each other? 

[For instance the best way to cook rice is in milk with some sugar and add nutmeg to finish - this is surely how true Ambrosia is made]

> I don't suppose I'm alone in having met university-educated people who were pretty thick. 

OK so you've met me. 

Absolutely the point I made above!

How can a system of government [democracy] that cannot get education of its own people right, expect to be taken serious as an alternative in places where the education is more effective, but the government lacks what we like to call democratic legitimacy, in our rather self-satisfied way?

ATB from George

Can't we all learn a bit from each other? 

Yes, Guy, all cultures can learn in a voluntary way from others. But it is no individual culture's right to take the Nazi view that it is superior to all other cultures and that these should should conform to that one [self-supposedly superior] culture's randomly selected correct ways. After all who is to judge the relative values between cultures?

The ones who think they are the arbiters are the ultimate Nazis.

ATB from George

This reminds me of my college days, where "cultural relativism" was often hotly debated in smoke-filled dorm rooms...

The argument went that people who are governed by the customs, traditions and belief systems in one culture should not be able claim superiority to, or sit in judgement of, those same aspects of another, totally different and yet equally valid culture.

Unfortunately, taken to the extreme, this means one could argue that Hitler's Nazi's weren't evil, and that what they did was perfectly acceptable within the context of "Nazi culture". 

They may not be perfect, but IMO, having the UN and the International Court of Justice beats having nothing at all.

Hook

PS - I agree with George that democracy is challenged by the phenomenon of the "low information voter", who is all too easily swayed into voting against their own self-interests.  If it is a challenge in a country as relatively well-educated as the US, then it is a huge obstacle for third-world countries.  But what is the alternative?  There is none.  Dictatorships can last a long time, but not forever.  At some point, they all fall. And when they do, countries only have three choices for what follows:  democracy, chaos, or another dictatorship.

> I agree with George that democracy is challenged by the phenomenon of the "low information voter", who is all too easily swayed into voting against their own self-interests. 

I deny that ... I vote for whoever ensures i don't have to pay so much tax ... as they only waste what i already give them. I would, of course, vote for a party that made essentials like Naim kit VAT exempt. However, that would suit most on this forum so could hardly be called self interest. 

Who said: Democracy is a very bad form of government, but all the others are so much worse. 

I remember when John Major was PM and reelected in his Huntingdon constituency. He made his speech with Lord Buckethead on his right and Screaming Lord Sutch on the left. It really was a case of Spot the Loony ... I thought that a great day for our democracy. It showed something quite unique. 

Of course when Thatcher made a speech there was nobody on her right.

They may not be perfect, but IMO, having the UN and the International Court of Justice beats having nothing at all.

What Hook said, plus one.

I do think there is a difference between Nazi Germany and most other governments, but even though the Nazis stole  power it was not a War Aim to change the government as such, but to repulse the invasion of various Allied Nations, and crush the possibility of it happening again. The fact that the government fell was a result of the War, but not a specific aim at the start.

The Nazis had a particular plan which got them into trouble in the end. First create a crisis, and then coin a policy to solve it in their own twisted terms. 

Of course they made sure that each solution actually made the situation worse, and allowed for even more venal policies to be invented. Their fatal [for themselves and millions of others] mistake was actually to imagine that they could invade country after country without challenge, even it if it might reasonably be argued that the invasion of Czech lands should have caused the start of the War rather than waiting for them to invade Poland. 

Without the War, which the Nazis needed to allow them the demand loyalty from the German populace to remain in government, I do wonder if they would have been able to carry on and develop their terrible crimes against Jews and others. 

Speculating is pointless, but at least the whole thing is now known history, and should remain forever a caution from history about allowing for one culture to set itself above all others at any time and in any form. From that comes a very dangerous justification for Warfare.

ATB from George

History belongs to the winner! The history textbooks would have been very different now if the nazi won the war.

Of course Americans are stupid...look at the 2 pieces of f***ing garbage we have running for president.  You have to be stupid to believe either one of them.

It's by design...our "education" system just keeps churning out people like those in the video.

"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." H.L. Mencken

Goddamn right it counts. 

GC has it pretty right:

Mango,

You are spoilt for choice over there.

If it was me i would stick with the devil you know.

I would never vote for anyone called  Mitt that dyes his hair.

I would vote for Trigger  over him any day of the week.

Stu..

It's the same guy either way - they're both sociopaths, and someday we will see the Milgram experiment acted out in real society.  The choice is which way around the track do you want to go before you fall into the pit on the backstretch.

Wir gefickt...

Yanks must be stupid.

Just look at the list since JFK.

All you need to run the USA is shed loads of money to start with.

Love the gun club be a Christian and don't mess with the truckers.

Love the mafia but don't tell people where that money came from.

And don't get court shagging  or getting blow jobs buy other women or men until you are in office.

Everything in Europe would have been very different. Possible in USA as well!

ATB from George