Ummmm…………

No.

They can park a tractor in the middle of the motorway during holiday season and have a 5 day strike though. And get what they want. Now THAT is intelligent!

“The average person, from any country, is no know more knowledgable than an average person from any other country. “

That is perhaps true at birth, but education systems would play a major role in that. Something we have a major problem with in the UK i’m afraid. French schooling is of a far higher standard (as is discipline) and I would say that the Average French teenager is more intelligent than the average British teenager personally.

Me and Geedee would – but no-one else ever shows up.

“ First, an unadmitted contempt for democracy.”

I have contempt for democracy. Because total democracy doesn’t exist. Our beloved leader didn’t listen to the people when he sent British troops to the Gulf, did he? Some democracy.

“The U.S. is the world’s most successful democracy.”

Yep. they have more McDonalds in schools than anywhere else in the world. Excuse me, but how is your success measured?

“The right of voters to elect more than 80,000 public officials”

Democracy or bureauocracy?

“the length and thoroughness of electoral campaigns”

And all the fun of the fair. The glitz and glamour of the screaming adoration.

“the pervasiveness of the media and the almost daily reports by opinion polls”

Fawning and time-wasting. Does the government look at these?

“ensure that government and electorate do not diverge for long and that Washington generally reflects the majority opinion in its actions.”

Is that true? Does your government act as the people wish?

”It is this feature that intellectuals–especially in Europe–find embittering.”

Who says?

“They know they must genuflect to democracy as a system.”

I didn’t know I had to do that. I thought I was allowed to think for myself and decide for myself

“They cannot openly admit that an entire people–especially one comprising nearly 300 million, who enjoy all the freedoms–can be mistaken.”

I could admit it – if it were true. 300 million people who are right? There’s your answer. America and Americans are always right. So they tell us. That’s why we get so fed up with you. No humility – just arrogance.

“But in their hearts these intellectuals do not accept the principle of one person, one vote.

Count the votes in your presidential election and then tell me that. Aha – one person, one vote, but the winner is whichever performs better on TV.

“They scornfully, if privately, reject the notion that a farmer in Kansas, a miner in Pennsylvania or an auto assembler in Michigan can carry as much social and moral weight as they do.”

That’s why Europe has never had a democracy. We all oppose it.

“In fact, they have a special derogatory word for anyone who acts on this assumption: “populist.” A populist is someone who accepts the people’s verdict,”

Surely, in a democracy, the president needs to be a populist then? Is that not the role of a democratically elected spokesman for your farmer/miner/auto assembler?

“even–and especially–when it runs counter to the intellectual consensus (as with capital punishment, for example).”

Please explain this point. Its garbled.

“In the jargon of intellectual persiflage, populism is almost as bad as fascism–indeed, it’s a step toward it.”

I believe your phrase for this would be baloney? We would actually snort superior beer through our noses and ask wtf you are on about, and whether you had drunk more than us.

“Hence, the argument goes, the U.S. is not so much an “educated democracy” as it is a media-swayed and interest-group-controlled populist regime. “

Media swayed – most definitely. Business defined rather than interest-group I would have said – unless we talk of self-interest.

”The truth is, on the European Continent there is little experience of working democracy.”

Truth?

Italy and Germany have had democracy only since the late 1940s; Spain, since the 1960s.

“That’s 3 countries out of how many? Did you know there are more? Can you point to them on a map?”

“France is not a democracy; it is a republic run by bureaucratic and party elites, whose errors are dealt with by strikes, street riots and blockades instead of by votes.”

Hmmm. Already been answered above by someone else. They have democratically elected leaders and parties. ‘Nuff said.

“Elements of the French system are being imposed throughout the EU, even in countries such as Denmark and Sweden that have long practiced democracy with success.”

Elements of ALL systems are being imposed – by non-elected leaders who ignore your so-called ‘populist’ opinion.

“In a French-style pseudodemocracy, intellectuals have considerable influence, at both government and street levels.”

Is this a historical document?

“In a true democracy, intellectuals are no more powerful than their arguments. “

At last something that is not absurd.

” Second, anti-Americanism is a function of cultural racism.”

Nope. It’s a reaction to swaggering, bragging, ignorant imperialists who just annoy our **** off trying to dictate everything to us and the rest of the world. I suppose that’s a conspiracy?

“An astonishingly high proportion of European elites know very little about U.S. history or culture and even deny that they have a separate existence apart from their European roots.”

What is there to know? You only have 200-odd years of it – apart from the Native Americans whose history I bet you are unaware of. What do you know of European history? More importantly, what does Bush know of it?

“It is strange that those seeking to bring about a European federal state or union have at no stage sought to study the lessons Americans learned during the creation of the U.S. in the 1780s.”

Hmm. That’s a long time ago. Life is vastly different now. Do you mean that we must have the same opinion on freeing the slaves?

“After all, the U.S. Constitution (suitably amended) has lasted for more than 200 years, and within its framework the country has emerged as the richest and most powerful society in world history.”

The cement in the walls of my house – just an ordinary house – has therefore lasted longer than the whole basis of your nation. Heaven forbid you ever hear about the Magna Carta. Richest, yes. Powerful, yes. And don’t we know it.

“You might think, therefore, that European elites would seek to learn something from such a successful process. Not at all: The view is that sophisticated, civilized Europe has nothing to learn from “adolescent” America.”

We must learn to be obese. And we must all carry guns. What could WE teach YOU?

“What these Euro-elites particularly abhor is the way in which the framers of the Constitution made every effort to involve the population through the process of public debates, town meetings and ratification votes”

Which I’m sure were all taken into account by whoever wrote the constitution.

“–and this at a time when Europe was still governed (for the most part) by the absolute sovereigns of the ancien régime. “

And what is wrong with a Sovereign? I for one wish that our Queen took over our country again. Oh to have a leader that already had power fame and wealth instead of somebody who wants to be of pop-star popularity. Monarchies worked for a long time.

”This cultural racism is particularly directed at the supposedly “know-nothing” President George W. Bush and his “gung ho” Texas background.”

Supposedly? You’re all gung-ho – but I could whip his ass.

“The European intelligentsia gets its notion of America chiefly from Hollywood, TV soaps like Dallas and fiction.”

Don’t Americans?

“Few of them have any experience of America, outside of three or four big cities. Middle America is unexplored territory.”

I can only speak for myself here – I came to your fine land to work a few years back – and promptly left at the earliest opportunity. Your world is far to wonderful for us poor unenlightened Yurp-eens.

“The fact that the U.S. has proved a highly efficient crucible for melding different peoples into a human sum greater than its constituent parts is seen as a misfortune in Europe because it produces a cultural stew that lacks purity of any kind and is therefore at the mercy of commercial forces.”

The commercial forces take great advantage of it all, and it produces some truly outlandish groups, severe racism, extreme political parties and so on. Nice bit of subculture you have there – wish we had it.

”Third, European elites tend to look at Americans as a subcivilized mass,”

That should read uncivilised mess

“whose function is to be obedient consumers in a system run by big business.”

A function heartily fulfilled. You want cholesterol with that? Have a nice day!

“The role of competition in U.S. economic life–and in every other aspect of life–is ignored, because competition is something Continental Europeans like to keep to a minimum and under careful control. “

Where on earth did you hear that? We are VERY competitive economically. And we even have FAIR trading laws to allow foreigners to be competitive in our markets.

”Although Americans are seen as highly materialistic consumers,”

That’s accurate

“they are also despised and feared for their spiritual interests,”

You have none. “In God we trust” is the only scripture generally adhered to (except by the extreme religious nutcases you are over-burdened with through the shallowness of your inbred morals) and that only because its on the bank notes. Real religious life in America is dying out now that credit cards have become so popular…

“their participation in religious worship and their subscription to creeds of morality.”

The nutters again. And morality? That’s confined to the Mormons I’m afraid.

“Europeans see no inconsistency in their condemnation of the U.S. for being at one and the same time paganly unethical and morally zealous”.

WTF? Now I’m lost.

”The truth is, any accusation that comes to hand is used without scruple by the Old World intelligentsia.”

As well as by everyone else who’s ever had anything to do with yanks.

“Anti-Americanism is factually absurd,”

From an American viewpoint

“contradictory,”

How so?

“racist,”

Xenophobic perhaps, but hardly racist.

“crude,”

which definition?

“childish,”

Don’t throw a tantrum now – life can be unfair you know

“self-defeating”

Nope

“and, at bottom, nonsensical.”

No more nonsensical than believing ‘The American Way’ is the best of all and we are all wong.

“It is based on the powerful but irrational impulse of envy–an envy of American wealth, power, success and determination.”

Is it? I’m afraid the only thing I envy from your country is the kind of barbecue food I get to taste at the Mildenhall airshow. You can keep your obesity, your commercialism, your materialism, your blind faith, your lunacy, your gun laws, your murder rate, your lawyers, your health costs, your lack of morals, your stupidly low driving speed and your sheep-piss beers. I wouldn’t want to be an American, or live in America if the only other place I could go was Hull.

“It is an envy made all the more poisonous because of a fearful European conviction that America’s strength is rising while Europe’s is falling.”

Europe strength is not falling in Europe old boy. We fear only one thing – the new Imperial bully-boy master. Who will you bomb next?

Now, I am English. I am NOT British. A Scot or an Irishman is NOT British. (A Welshman is just a sheep-shagger and it rains too much to worry about them). England is a country. So is Scotland. Together we are the UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND. My loyalty was sworn to Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth teh Second, her heirs and successors, and thankfully not to the government – a good reason to have a sovereign. No political party can send the British Army to war without the monarchs consent. A good control (that should have been used recently) and a reason why we can’t have a coup here.

And I concur with Steve. You are all too far up your own Arses.

Do you have to take a new re-test for your licence at your age?

Happy Birthday from me, and all at AEROPLANE MONTHLY!!!

(Spooky!)