On balance, the American people are ........

[Stinky The Clown]

Poll question: On balance, the American people are ........

Few peoples can be described in simple, one word terms. This poll is to look for broad overview terms. There is no doubt that there are Americans (or Austrians or Albanians or Australians or Afghans, or Algerians or Argentinians or ..... or ..... ) who are one, some, or all of these terms.

I would have to say that, while I can cite a massive number of examples to the contrary, it seems to me that, as a people, we are more vengeful than any other term in the list. But that's just my opinion. What's yours?

[MercutioATC]

1. You left out greedy, lazy, short-sighted, and intentionally ignorant.

[NightWatcher]

2. like you said "balance"-ed. There are a lot of screw jobs and a lot of kind hearts

[kentuck]

3. morons.

Perhaps that is being too cruel and judgmental?

[Deja Q]

4. "All of the above" or

unbalanced

:D

[Deja Q]

5. According to many topical sci-fi or other genre shows, we are "brainless sheep".

Okey dokey.

[Andy823]

6. How about

Spoiled and gullible! We have let big corporations screw us for years, allow the credit card companies to get us hooked on credit which tends to make most americans live way over their means and gets them in debt, simply because we want more, more, more! Americans allow others to "tell" them how to think, what the "need" to buy, how they must make more to get more, and all for what? The bottom has fallen out of the markets, yet the rich will stay rich and the poor will continue to be poor, we will just have a lot more who are poor!

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Do you think that describes only Americans?

I suspect any 'industrialized' (hahahaha) nation has people with the same history.

I would bet the average Brit, Japanese, Brazilian, German, etc., face the same issues

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Conformists who fear being outside of the herd.

Which is certainly not uniquely "American", but we seem to crave "acceptance" by our peers more than most.

[EFerrari]

14. Which is weird for a people so caught up in individualism!

[treestar]

16. Indeed. We crave not only acceptance of our peers but to be

just a little above them. We always want to be keeping up with the Joneses and would like to BE the Joneses, too.

[EFerrari]

18. Our flag should have the image of a gridlocked freeway, one person to a car.

:)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. Yep. The irony is astounding.

Even here, on "progressive", "free thinking", DU, it's amazing how many people have suddenly become hawks, fans of corporate welfare, trickle down economics, and critics of dissent because "our" guys are in charge.

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.

"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man." --Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795. :hi:

[Deja Q]

24. People dream we're for individualism.

Anyone who actually IS one is shunned and/or worse.

[EFerrari]

28. Yep!

:hi:

[givemebackmycountry]

8. Stupid, uninformed, incurious and way too religious.

That's a lot of things!

[varelse]

9. We're well-meaning, but ignorant

not all of that ignorance can be attributed to self-absorbtion, but much of it can. Sadly.

[nevergiveup]

11. 55% compassionate 45% stupid

I base the 45% on numbers who would support Palin in a presidential election. I do think a majority of Americans are caring and compassionate but the percentage is not high enough and it varies from region to region.

[camera obscura]

12. Everyone in every country in the world fits into each of those words, sometimes.

It is simplistic to the point of being meaningless to try and sum up our "national character" in one word.

[drmeow]

13. For the most part

self-absorbed with moments of all of the above plus generous.

[iamthebandfanman]

15. ignorant selfish assholes!

wheres that option!

[leftstreet]

17. Tired n/t

[seabeyond]

23. that is a good one. n/t

[Kaleva]

19. All the above

We are a composite nation that has the best and also the worst.

[mitchum]

21. Yahoos

[AndyTiedye]

22. All of the Above, All At Once

[leftofthedial]

25. gullible

intellectually lazy

[Parker CA]

26. Uninformed and/or misinformed. n/t.

[annabanana]

27. good intentioned, but not terribly bright. . . . n/t

[960]

29. Left out, conned, unaware, mis or ill informed, scared, compassionate, greedy,

lonely, worried, stressed..... and that's just me in the last 20 minutes.

Everyone is complex, and there isn't really a "balance".

[bunkerbuster1]

30. We're unique in good and terrible ways.

The circumstances behind our origins as a nation placed us as unwitting pioneers in Constitutional rights. That's the good stuff.

Unfortunately, we are hobbled with those boat anchors in the Constitution that gave us slavery, entirely too much local control, and an embarrassing House of Lords-ish Senate that should've been abolished ages ago.

It will take decades, perhaps centuries, yet of painful growth for ours to be the truly enlightened nation its founders hoped it to be.

[Odin2005]

31. Other, IGNORANT.

[shari]

32. Just people

Americans are just people like anywhere else in the world, and mostly good decent hard working people. I have been to other countries and I am thankful that I live here.

[proud2BlibKansan]

33. Stupid

[Urban Prairie]

34. Pawns, or at least 95% of us are.

Americans were jolted out of their jaded stupor on 9/11/01, and for the first time in my life I witnessed acts of genuine kindness and consideration demonstrated between strangers on a large scale in an urban/suburban environment. People were actually polite and helpful. It lasted all of oh...say three months at best in the area I lived in.

[BlooInBloo]

35. Dumb.

[Kip Humphrey]

36. Sheeple.

[Sebastian Doyle]

37. Horribly misinformed.

Yeah there is the segment which willingly supports all that is wrong and stupid. That would be the 18% who still supported Darth Cheney up until the end and, if polled, would probably still support him now.

But it was more than 18% who voted for Chimp and Darth twice, and for McCain and (for Christ's sake) an empty headed Moose slaughterer most recently. So what's the explanation for that?

They don't get the reality that they're voting against their own interests. Because they won't get it from Chuckles Gibson or Katie Couric. They damn sure won't get it from Mush Limpdick, or from Billo the Clown and Sean Hannity. And they'll never watch Keith or Rachel, let alone listen to Thom Hartmann or Mike Malloy, because the idiots on FAUX specifically ordered them not to.

And they ain't getting a reality check on Sunday either. Not from right wing "ministers" who wouldn't know the teachings of Jesus Christ if He personally came down and smacked them upside the head with His cross.

Media consolidation has to end, if we are ever going to reverse the damage done to this country.

[arcadian]

38. misguided, mislead, gullible, misinformed

[Lyric]

39. Greedy and Selfish

[davekriss]

40. I voted other for uninformed, ignorant (nt)

[shari]

41. All I can say is

if this is a reflection of what our own citizens think of us.....who needs enemies?

[dkofos]

42. You forgot stupid

[sendero]

43. Clueless..

.... but starting to get a clue.