Actually that was funny. Why is everyone pointing the finger at someone else? Why are you pointing your finger at people not even born when the thing happened you are mentioning?If i wanted to point fingerst too i would suggest u to visit this: http://www.iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1997/native-americans.html

But i do not want to point fingers at the past, i do not see any reason in it besides flaming and getting the temperaments heated up in such a discussion. So your ancestors killed indians, mine killed jews, fundamental muslims want to kill christians, in fact some christians want to do that reverse - it is all the same and never will be another way. Except one time when everyone realizes that its stupid animalistic behaviour and has the skill to disconnect from that aspect of human nature to a point where reason gives the ability to ascend over that point. At the moment we only think, we can evolve beyond that and subconsciously are behaving the same way as we did when living in caves. Realistically observed this point never will come and is only a fantasy of do-gooders. Mankind is an animal by definition and will ever be, so we have to deal with the negative aspects of it as well.

What i wanted to do with this thread is not mainly to make everyone laugh. I just wanted to get an image of the american stance towards criticism and get another side of the view i got of it from my home country. My uncle lived in the US for a couple of years and now lives in Canada and what he told me the americans are holding to their patriotism very strictly. My uncle sees the reason for this in the absence of a deep historical identity of the american, requiring them to have a deep need for a national identity and therefore blocking everything that contradicts this identity without being able to rationally process the way their country works. Actually comments like yours do support this thesis strongly. As said here before the main picture we europeans have of US citizens is, that they are mostly an non-intellectual folk, preferring talkshows and local news over sophisticated political and scientific education in a more global fashion. It was also stated before, that this may be the result of "reverse psychology" by the UN. Of course that might be and it was my intention with this thread to get an impression of the intellectual niveau the arguments are based on. "Your past was bad"-argumentation definitely does not work in your favor btw...

dystopic mentioned the word "sheepled" and that (after referring the meaning) definitely points out the way americans are seen in germany. But as i said - me as living in germany cannot really decide whether i live "sheepled" too, because the only information we receive gets filtered through media as well. Its not that our media is controlled or censored, its just that the capitalistic nature of it tends to blur reality in a way that may be negative to the image we have of others because "thats what people want to see". Actually we do have a bunch of tv programs that are not dependend on advertise, but the influence politics have on them as well cannot really be determined easily as well because the owners of these companies often are politic themselves.

But in whole i think i can say Germany especially has become VERY sensitive in the past towards anything that regards giving power away to superordinate structures. This projects onto the EU in whole, and with this come the difficulties of it. This is the root of a critical attitude towards the USA, because they do not share those experiences of the past. We view patriotism, nationalism, dutifulnes towards authority and all those things americans value more in a very critical way. It may be our historical past that lets us critically observe the way America is controlled and the masses are influenced by the media in another way the american civilian does. I think we are not immune to this as well, it maybe is a part of social structure in general, but at least the european identity still is a bit paralyzed by the events of the past. That is not a bad thing, it just encourages to view things in a very critical way. And observing the same approach  with a patriotic pathos to enlarge influence and might just reminds us too hard of the mistakes of the past.