Apparently Japan has a Democratic Party (which makes sense since the country has been like in a recession for twenty years), and for some reasons he gave some speech in which he called American “simple-minded.” Okay, where do other countries get this idea that they’re smart and America is stupid? If other countries are full of smart people, then how come they suck so much? Isn’t that a definitive measure of how smart you are: Your country’s awesomeness? And America continues to be way more powerful, richer, and influential than any other country out there.
It’s like a squirrel saying, “Americans are so stupid; they can’t even scamper up trees.” But what we can do is capture the squirrel in little cages, put them in homemade PVC pipe bazookas, and fire them through the air showing once and for all who sucks and who is awesome. And since Japan doesn’t really have much of an army, we can pretty much do the same to them.
As someone who was an Alaskan tour guide and had thousands and thousands of Americans and foreigners wash over me I think I have some insight into this. The opinions I have formed are thus:
-When people (Both Americans and foreigners) travel abroad some feel a little insecure everything works a little different then they are used to and many foreigners chaff when they come in contact with an American specimen because they have a been ingrained a lot of irrational pathologies against regular Americans.
-Some Americans get confused and defensive for while we might tease Candians/Europeans a bit we see them as our homelands or at least our western civ allies who come together once a lifetime to stop some monster. Most Americans dont know anything about their politics. They know more about us then we know about them. Many of them get more worked up about our politics and celebrities more then their own. UK’s “Daily Mail” or openly socialist “Guardian UK” will give you some insight into both how obsessed foreigners are and how they see Americans.
-Foreign governments/media constantly use propaganda and cartoon caricatures, think of the old cartoons of greedy hooked nose Jews, well now those are mostly about Americans to distract from their own crap holes they have created. Mexico-Canada-Saudi Arabia-Russia-China they all do it constantly. Some people see through it most dont.
-The whole world watches our Movies and TV and think they are a pretty accurate portrayal of Americans.
-If anyone wants to know what regular work all day Americans in flyover country are like they should watch the discovery channels “Dirty Jobs.” No other show captures regular Americans so very well.
And why doesn’t Japan have an army? I really don’t know.
I’ve an idea. Perhaps Japan doesn’t have an army because our Army, Marine Corps, Navy displayed adaptability, courage, and determination – the greatest traits of a great warfighter – when they rallied from the crushing blow of Pearl Harbor to defeat an enemy who often fell back on the same old strategies in a failed attempt at defense.
We’re the simple-minded ones.
Let’s see. a culture that eats raw fish, lost a world war and got nuked in the process, lives in paper houses, drives cars that are no more than lawnmowers with doors, and ships out movies so bad the words don’t match the mouth movement calls us simple minded. Of course, America did put Obama in office, with Biden as veep. Maybe they have a point there.
What size PVC pipe should I get for the average sized Japanese?
Speaking of PVC pipe bazookas (aka modified potato guns), you should see this raccoon trap I’m building. They’re gonna be gassed (CO2’d). The bastards ate ALL my strawberries this year and I’m on the warpath.
Oh, Japan? Racist, male-dominated, misogynic society that thinks it owns the world’s oceans. But I like the place.
Makes me wonder if he is a relative of Admiral Ozawa, who was dealt a devastating defeat in the Battle of the Phillipine Sea (3 carriers lost). I sense a chip on (not-so-)young Ozawa’s kata.
Agh, Storm beat me to the Obama election joke…
Said Frank to Mr. Morton in Once Upon a Time in the West:
“My weapons might look simple to you, Mr. Morton, but they can still shoot holes big enough for our little problems.”
Mark, I think Japan not having an army was one of the thing we snuck into their constiution we wrote after WWII. THey are allowed to have a small defensive force, but nothing big enough to start anything with. Which is also why we still have bases in Japan, the US military is their military.
Anyone not from America has a very limited and skewed view of Americans due to the sources they have exposed themselves to. What do they have to go on? Let’s see –
1) Our governent officials. I think we could all agree that they are simple minded. Biden, Obama, Pelosi, morons – every one(In Milwaukee we have Peggy West)
2) Our News Media. A screeching collection of poo-flinging monkeys. Olberman, Matthews, Cooper – imbeciles.
3) Our celebrities. Jersey Shore, the Jackass crew, Rosie O’Donnel, reality tv, Ryan Seacrest, Hollywood at large – barely sentient enough to breathe.
4) Americans in the cities they’ve visited. Foreigners visiting here come to places like New York, Washington, San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas, etc. Vapid, touristy locales, replete with Liberal influences, and devoid of average Americans, save other tourists. They don’t normally visit anywhere in between the coasts, where most Americans live.
Taking that into account, I’d have to agree, those people are simple-minded. Seems I have something in common with foreignres. Ewww. Now I need a shower.
-Some Americans get confused and defensive for while we might tease Candians/Europeans …. Most Americans dont know anything about their politics. They know more about us then we know about them.
That’s because they suck.
The Japanese call us simple minded, yet they eat bait. Go figgur.
They call us simple minded, yet they bought swords to a gun fight.
They call us simple minded, yet they think that ninja’s can beat pirates.
The question: “USA vs Japan?”
The answer: “August 6, 1945”
Also acceptable: “August 8, 1945”
Basil, I feel the answers “June 4-7, 1942” or “March 31, 1854” are equally acceptable.
Jimmy, good luck with the berries. They are delicious and the sore back from picking them is a small price.
We elected Obama.
“Apparently Japan has a Democratic Party (which makes sense since the country has been like in a recession for twenty years), and for some reasons he gave some speech”
They must be doing alright if their democratic party is just one guy.
At least Emperor Akihito isn’t a Sith Lord like we’ve got.
Japan as our closest Asian ally/military dependent/loan officer has an aggressive North Korea and China who both have nukes and big armies who really want some revenge. They dont call the Japanese excursion into China. “The Rape of Nan-King” for nothing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre
America can not babysit all our allies indefinitely and Japan will be one of the hardest hit once its old enemies get an opening. Some years from now when China and N. Korea have invaded Japan they will literally be wishing for the good old days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It will be like when Arabs take Israel its not just land or money they want revenge and it will be incomprehensibly brutal. As I have mentioned here before many Asian peoples have a long history of especially brutal warfare. Stuff that makes the British-French 100 years war look like a warm up exercise. And the eventual Japanese evasion will surpass all the earlier events.
The history of China in itself and the -three kingdoms era is a perfect example. Imagine if our civil war lasted a few thousand years and things like Shermans March hundreds of years back and forth slaughtering peasants. Learn your history there are many Monsters re-awakening. They wont be put down easily. Especially if some event wakes them all at the same time.
Then again, the Americans that one sees out and about aren’t always the best and brightest. To Shiggz’s point about Alaska, when I lived there I heard the following questions numerous times (I’m not making any of these up):
What time do the northern lights get turned on?
Where do the animals in the parks go when it rains?
Do you take American money here?
At what elevation do deer become moose?
What elevation are we at? (asked while standing on a dock on the ocean)
When you travel internationally, it’s only ten times worse when you get the jackass who thinks that if he/she speaks loudly and slowly it somehow makes English understandable to someone who’s never spoken it before.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying I agree with the Japanese. What I’m saying is this is all the more reason why we need to be excellent ambassadors of our own country and NOT celebrate crap culture here (crap culture = most anything on MTV, Jerry Springer, etc).
Is that why Japan keeps getting stomped by monsters like Godzilla?
Actually, whoever thought up Pearl Harbor or volunteered to be a kamikaze pilot would rank pretty high on my list of “simple minded” people.
I don’t really want people to judge our whole country by what our democrats say so I’m not taking this as an invitation to be a dick to Japan. “Do unto others”, and all that.
Yup, we get bleating each year about Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The Rape of Nanking was as inhuman as anything ever done by the Gerries. To give you an idea, there is an account among many other similar ones, of a Japanese soldier who raped a pregnant Chinese woman before bayoneting her in her pregnant belly.
Here’s the thing. With respect to atrocities, the Japanese army was vastly different than the German army. The German army had special squads and units, composed of Death’s Head Schutzstaffel (SS) who were specifically tasked with brutality, such as the camps and genocide in conquered territory. In the main, regular German army units (with exceptions) were not responsible for these atrocities. Note that I am not exonerating inhuman behavior of regular German forces.
On the other hand, brutality and inhumanity was institutionalized throughout the Japanese forces. All regular members were encouraged and taught to commit atrocities. This is why officers carried swords, which of course have no military value. This is why the Rape of Nanking was conducted by regular Japanese army forces.
An excellent point. I’m not going to judge Japan by what one idiot politician says (and I’m not even sure he qualifies as an idiot). However, I think it is perfectly acceptable to judge Japan by their culture, and based on that, Japan is one ****ed up place.