What is the worst thing anyone could say about the US?

[Truthiness Inspector]

What is the worst thing they could say about the US to make you go ballistic?

I won't make this a poll because I'm sure the answers will vary too much.

Really, picture it, you're sitting in a cafe in Europe, Central America, Asia, the Middle East, etc.

What is the ONE thing that could set you off?

[Colobo]

1. "I wish something like 9/11 happens in every major American city!"

I'm not a violent person, but that would make my blood boil.

[Rosemary2205]

2. "You people selected Bush TWICE"

I think that is the nastiest thing anyone could say about us. -- And I would not get mad at whoever said, I'd look real sad and agree it's bad.

[Colobo]

3. Bush won in 04, was chosen by the SCOTUS in '00

So that would be an innacurate statement.

[CJCRANE]

4. Florida 2000, Ohio 2004.

Shennanigans.

[Colobo]

5. And what happened in 06?

[CJCRANE]

9. The margin was too high.

It seems that they flip approx 3 - 8% of the vote. That only works in close races but in '06 the Dem turnout was too high for them to steal (in most cases).

[jgraz]

27. It wasn't too high, just higher than when they fixed it

Remember when * and KKKarl were both crowing about how they were gonna win? And KKKarl had "THE" math? That was in early October, when technicians were setting up the voting machines. But then the Foley scandal broke and all their careful hacking was overwhelmed by the landslide.

[Rosemary2205]

8. Yes, obvious ones - and yet

no mass outcry in the streets. As a nation, overall, we just sat here and let it happen.

[jmatthan]

6. Not for anyone

Bush won in 2004?

Not for anyone who watched election day and then read the John Conyers report on what happened in Ohio.

The real cause of America's problems are "the quitters" as Al Gore and John Kerry!

I hope the last statement will be used as one of the statements that should rile Americans!

[Colobo]

7. I respect your opinion. I just disagree.

I think 52 million of us were stupid enough to vote for the man, me included among them, and it's our fault that things are going the way they are going.

[baldguy]

36. Why do you think all those US Atty's were fired?

To keep stolen elections from being investigated.

[leftofthedial]

10. they could just recount US foreign policy of the last generation

that's about as bad as it gets.

[WritersBlock]

11. That we elected George W Bush as President.

My work colleagues know better than to say that around me now.

[Dr.Phool]

12. We love Bush so much, we repealed the 22nd amendment.

And decided to make him king.

[Robbien]

13. "Torture? No. We are Americans, We don't do that."

Makes me go ballistic each and every time.

[slowry]

14. unrelated drunkenness

9/11 was bigger than the milky way
the planes stomped and the universe
started to sway
the buildings fell and the sky
it started to swell
with more smoke than has
ever existed in hell
every star in the sky
they dimmed just a little
(unwritten)
(unwritten)
time stood still
mathematics came ill
every rule that once was known
now blown
our sun turned off for a full minute of silence
to acknowledge that unprecedented show of violence
(unwritten)
(unwritten)
(unwritten)
(unwritten)
(etc.)
9/11 was bigger than the U.S.A.

[WildEyedLiberal]

15. "They deserve (insert tragedy here)"

I saw something to that effect on a BBC News messageboard about the VT tragedy, and it really pissed me off - something like "America brings this kind of thing on itself, so they deserve it when it happens" more or less. Wow did that make me angry.

[Lester222]

16. Angry at who?

Just curious.

Just watch "Apocalypse Now" or any other movie post Vietnam era. There you will find the reason of this type of stance. Many people in the world feel like virtually all foreign politics of the US since the late 1960s were wrong and unjustified, selfish, and illegitimately sold to the world as necessary in the face of the communist threat. America was admired by Europeans after World War II but since Vietnam, Corea, Cambodia, Chile etc. people feel like they are seeing "the true face of the Empire" (confirmed recently by Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo etc.) to use such analogy, and that the american people are ultimately to blame for it, because of their nationalism, voting behaviour, christian fanatism and that the american soldiers are to blame for their patriotism and willingness to carry out the crimes that have been enduringly commited in the last fourty years in the name of freedom. Yes, then it becomes easy to understand why some cheer when american blood gets spilled on american ground...

[WildEyedLiberal]

18. Angry at anyone who EVER thinks that innocent people "deserve" to die.

So I guess you think the students at Virginia Tech deserved to be mowed down in their classrooms because they were Americans (some of them; not all) and by extension are responsible for whatever litany of evils America is/may be responsible for? Wow.

If you sympathize with wishing death on innocents then you are pretty fucked up.

[Lester222]

19. Read my post carefully...

... I didn't say I believe it, I said I can offer an explanation why people say so. I am an American myself. I live in Germany however, and I see a similar kind of discussion going on here. There are several groups of innocent german people who were displaced in the aftermath of WWII who are now telling their stories. It will be hard for them to envoke any compassion among foreigners, because they are being viewed as responsible for the actions of their government at the time. That it simply how the world works. Keep in mind that the very next day after the VA shooting there were 190 people killed through bombs in Bagdad (and some people hold the USA indirectly or directly responsible). If the news coverage on these deaths had been as thorough as that of the VA shooting, then probably the reactions wouldn't been as heated. IMO, if someone says the US deserved the VA shooting its just another way of saying "look people, you are rubbing your own tragedy in the worlds face and thus taking attention away from the place were it should actually be. again you see yourselves and your country as more important than the rest of the world"

[Lester222]

20. Perhaps things would be a little different...

... if instead of the constant "I hate Bush because he sent my nephew to die in Iraq", there were more people standing up and publicly stating "Hey Rest of the World. Look, we are really really sorry for what our government is doing. Please forgive us, we the people deeply regret all of it"

[WildEyedLiberal]

29. Well the next time I go to Europe..

I plan to bring my John Kerry and anti-Bush shirts. I'm also going to learn how to say "I voted for John Kerry" and "I hate Bush" in various languages... I certainly want to make it clear to anyone that I do not support his regime. That said, while I understand your point, Europeans (or whoever) need to understand that ALL Americans are not blind, arrogant, imperialist Bush-loving warmongers and that to lump us all in that category is as narrow-minded as the freepers who automatically assume an Arab Muslim must be a terrorist.

[jgraz]

28. heartless, but true

I think we DO bring this stuff on ourselves, some of us through simple inaction, some through drooling moronic nastiness. The problem that the idiot on the BBC board doesn't get is that the 32 dead people at VaTech didn't deserve to die for all of our failings, and their families didn't deserve all the grief they're now experiencing.

If only Cho could have "slightly" shot each one of us instead of directing all the suffering at a select few. I fear something like this will happen soon (or many somethings), but it will come in the form of economic damage rather than physical.

[John Q. Citizen]

17. If it was the truth, why be mad, if it wasn't, why be mad. I'm just not that nationalistic

about countries. If they said something I knew to be false, I might tell them it was false. But what are you going to do? People all over the world have misconceptions about other countries all over the world.

[Breeze54]

21. That it wasn't there anymore.

;)

[dysfunctional press]

22. nothing would "set me off"...the worst things they could say would be true.

nt.

[B Calm]

23. Sept 1969 I was in a heated argument with a cab driver in Athens

who said the Americans astronauts never landed on the moon and that it was all a big hoax!

[Preening Fop]

24. Our 'born again' Leader, Bush, is a Reflection of the Amurikan People

:yoiks:

[TheCowsCameHome]

25. George W. Bush is the president of the United States.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

30. Ding ding ding ding!

That was my first thought upon seeing the topic as well.

:hi:

We think alike. You have my sympathy ;)

[L. Coyote]

26. The truth? n/t

[uppityperson]

31. I can't think of anything that would make me go ballistic

[Jacobin]

32. The Truth.

[Joe Fields]

33. Basically, whatever they would or could say about us would be true.

I would more or less have to agree.

[MedleyMisty]

34. Nothing, really

Honestly, although I get mad when fellow Americans paint other Americans with a broad brush based on where they live, I think I could live with a non-American painting all Americans with the same brush. I mean, I'd probably correct them and say that not all of us are like that because I can't stand generalizations and very rarely let one go without saying something about it, but I can't see myself getting that upset about it.

[Ghost in the Machine]

35. "You Americans have the BEST President I've ever seen"...

anything else, we pretty much deserve until the American People start rising up and DEMANDING justice and rule of law. This is OUR Country, NOT the neocons'! Take back our Country! Run the BUMS OUT!

/rant

[Orsino]

37. We deserve *. n/t

[lutefisk]

38. Veiled threats that my family would be killed in a nuclear attack

If he/she made that threat, day after day, making sinister references to "mushroom clouds" over our cities... I guess that would get to me after a while. But I wouldn't go ballistic.

Hearing Bush and Rice do it to us over and over has gotten me kind of used to it.

[RedCappedBandit]

39. "They deserved it"

talking about 9/11

Fucking punk on television said that a while back.. I remember some journalist interviewing iraqi children. ...Now that I think about it, it was probably pro-war propoganda bullshit. Still, thats the one thing that would set me off.

[pitohui]

40. can't really think of anything

i've heard such comments as bush is your hitler in germany and if such a remark was meant to provoke, it didn't work, since i just laughed and said that i agree

an honest comment would not make me go ballistic even if i did not agree

a comment meant to start a bar fight would simply be ignored and/or cause me to withdraw to a more friendly setting

anyway i already know my own opinion, when traveling i am just as happy or more happy to let them tell their opinion while i keep my own counsel