:joker: The boot is on the other foot in actual fact. Watch any movie and see how America airbrushes and/or blatantly alters the facts to portray itself as the inventor/saviour/hero of the moment. What can you expect of a country without any significant history of their own, other than the decimation of the native indians, the perpetuation of slavery, and a current propensity for sticking their nose in, uninvited usually, to the affairs of countries which offer the best resources for them to plunder.

Americans have always been envious of Britain's rich, vibrant history and traditions, to the extent that the saddoes are now even claiming they are responsible for the fact that ENGLISH is the global language. Such deluded misplaced arrogance is precisely why the Americans are also the most hated nation on earth, and Blair's alliance with the cerebrally challenged, corrupt Bush, is what caused Britain to be placed firmly in the terrorists' firing line - we're the fall guys thanks to the USA.

But every dog has its day, and America is no different - I don't see it doing much sabre rattling against those it perceives as every bit as powerful. Like the typical bully it reserves its power to crush those weaker than itself, but backs off from real confrontation with the big boys.

I've spent a lot of time in the USA. I would never want to live there permanently. I find people generally much less worldly-wise than the rest of the world. Most Americans have no idea at all what's happening in the rest of the world, and very few of them ever venture out of their own country. Their biggest achievements are as a direct result of expertise and knowledge from other countries, which is fine... but Americans have a big problem giving anyone else any credit.

There is no "special relationship", there never was. Americans make a big deal about "saving our asses in WW2" when in actuality they turned up only after Japan threatened them, they were three years late and they charged us for their participation. They charged us A LOT and the debt was only finally paid off four years ago.

British people would never allow this country to become the 51st State because, even though we quite like Americans, most of us generally find them hopelessly ill-informed, terribly uncultured and little bit silly. There are exceptions of course.

Yep, I lived and worked in the States for a while years ago, and was at first amused, then irritated, by the insularity and general global ignorance displayed by your average American who had clearly been brainwashed by their own hype to believe they are God's Gift to the world. Really you have to feel sorry for them.:pat:

I wish the UK'd stop licking America's toe nail and focus on our own interests. They're a very bad influence on us :)

America's culture is now Britain's culture. Sad, but true. It seems as if everyone wants to move to America. Brits are no longer proud to be British. The culture is in the toilet. It's been overtaken by chavs, who show the "Westside" salute, never realizing where that hand gesture actually originates from. Everyone thinks America is like "Friends". It's not. I liked Britain when it didn't like America. Britain doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to America. It has the same amount of stupid people, and fat people. Britain is now the fattest country in Europe. It's horrifying. Globalization has really f-ed everything up.:nono:

You've just proven me right. You are arguing against your own point of view. You've just said britain was most powerful simply because it had the best Naval technology of the time.

There was nothing else superior about britain at the time, simply that you had the best ships featuring the best weaponry in the most places at that time in history.

Yes well that's the difference between the USA and britain isn't it. TheUSA has become rich and powerful on it's own, while britain had to for an "empire" (colonialism/genocide) to aquire it's power.

The USA is not an empire. We've accomplished our dominance from our own shores. Not by spreading disease, war, and slavery, like the European empires of the past.

You must be joking right??? That's EXACTLY what EUROPE did to not only North America, but also south america, asia, africa, and oceania. EVERY CONTINENT. You cannot be serious.

What the ******* are they teaching in british schools???

It was EUROPEAN COLONIALISM that brought genocide to the native americans, it was EUROPEANS that CREATED the slave trade, it was the EUROPEANS that conquered and plundered natural reasources from all other continents. WTF are you on about???

Seriously, you cannot be this ignorant. You MUST be joking t say it was USA that did these things. USA didn't even EXIST YET when YOU created these things.

I think you'll find most british are just as uninformed as most americans about the rest of the world.

If you want to find out, tomorrow, ask everyone you see who the leader of China is. I bet they won't even know if they have a president, premier or prime minister.

Or to make it even easier, ask everyone you know tomorrow who is the PM of Canada. I bet they won't even know that.

How many Brits do you think can answer those questions?? but Brits are sooo worldly wise?? lol.

Sorry, but i've seen Jeremy Kyle show, Brits are just as ignorant and insular as Americans.

Just because Brits know more about America than Americans know about Britain doesn't mean Brits are more worldly. It just means you watch a lot of American TV.

The average Brit knows just as little about Uganda or Vanuatu or even Croatia, as the average American. Which is basically nothing.

Well we might be able to bring down their apalling homicide rate.

Interesting fact, the Uk has a higher violent crime rate per capita than the US.

Are you less likely to get shot in the UK? yes. But you're much more likely to get stabbed or beaten. hmmmm. lol

:thumbs:

They are the Joke of the world.

but that's beauty of it isn't it? Because the US doesn't care about the rest of the world, the joke is really on those laughing at it. :)

You can't humiliate someone if they don't even know you exist. lol

It's like an ant laughing at a bulldozer.

But as an American, I feel some need to speak for my country, and as ambassador for my country on TiBB, let me say, we respect you, and your cultures, and we wish only to spread peace and love to the entire world. :)

LMAO

The US has a higher murder rate per capita than the UK does

No I wasnt saying it was because Britain had the best technology, I was saying it was because they had complete naval dominance, that was only one factor anyway

Each country can only be looked at in the context of it's time period and their capabilities and technology available in that said period.

compare murder rates between just white populations... not so much.

The UK is 85% white, the US is only 55% white.

non-white populations always have higher murder rates, not just in the US, but every country with significant non-white populations.

I have no idea how to explain why non-white populations are more violent, but it certainly is the case.

And most of the people who did those things at the time are desendents of Americans as well as Europeans.

well i'm adopted, so i i'm not decended of anyone. Well, not anyone that i'm aware of at least.

I have no ethnicity, so i have no connection to any of that.

I'm quite literally just a Native American. I was born in the USA, and that's all i know, so i'm just a Native American.

Regardless of your case, most Americans descend from Europeans; and as you said, America didn't excist at the time so you can no more blame modern Europeans than you can Americans as we were the same people.

That's simply not true. The vast majority of American's are also native americans, the vast majority of americans have never been to europe, they don't even have passports so how would they get there?

America took in immigrants desperate to escape europe, why would they want to go back?

America was a safe haven from all of the f00ked up sh!!!t going on in europe durring the last few centuries. None of them were coming to represent europe, they were desperate to escape the horrible chaos going on in europe. They wanted something new. so they decided to help built something new. We built something beautiful.

America is America despite Europe, not because of Europe.

LoL, the Americans killed the natives, continued with slavery, abolished it, but continued with lynching and segregation til the 1950s. Hardly a haven!

Anyway, it's not as if the vast majority of Europeans condone what happended in the past or had anything to do with it. America's done FAR worse things in recent history (note not ever)!

It's not a race thing, it's an economic one. There's obviously going to be higher rates of crime in poorer areas, and those areas are disproportionately populated by non-whites.

If you wannaknow about slavery follow the money, follow it to europe.

Maybe you don't know, but the US was only 4% of the total slavery in the americas. The vast majority of slavery and the european slavetrade was south america. Get yur facts right.

The majority of slavery was in the carribean islands, and the east coast of south america. infct Brazil accounted for 40% of the slave trade comared to the US at 4%.

If you wanna talk about slavery, you need to talk to europe and south america. north america and the Us was a tiny miniscule percentage of what what was going on.

Wonder why the carribean islands are almost all black people????

oh yea, cause when the slave trade became illegal, you just left them there.

You can try and twist it all you like, but the fact is, slavery was EUROPEAN. Not American, or African, it was EUROPEANS making the big bucks off it, and the minute it became illegal, you just washed yur hands of it, and left us to clean up the mess.

try to rewrite history all you like, but we don't forget.

If you've followed the discussion, you'd realise that I'm not defending anything Europe did, neither did I say that America has done worse things, I'm just disagreeing that America is some perfect haven when the country's done its fair share of bad, particularly in recent history. I'm not sure why you've bombarded me with a textwall on the ins and outs of slavery from hundrerd of years ago, when Europe was unarguably worse.

i'm sorry if you felt bombarded. that wasn't my intention. it sounds like we are agreeing.