Polish Man dies after Tasered at Canada Airport

Luba · 11-17-2007, 07:32 AM

YouTube - Raw video: Polish man dies after tasered at Canada airport

According to the News, Countries are talking about this horrific incident. There are many videos on youtube about this...I was going to post another one, but the comments are so unfit for a family website such as this...

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That poor, poor man!

According to some of the comments on one video, Canadians are now seen as pigs and much, much worse!

It is indeed sad that we are all lumped together as horrible because of this tragic, tragic incident.

TKDLady · 11-17-2007, 07:59 AM

Now you know how Americans feel when one stupid thing by one person or a small handful of people reflects on the whole country. It is a sad comment on the world for sure.

Vautrin · 11-18-2007, 07:33 AM

Sometimes Americans get the just treatment and complain, and demand preferential treatment outside of their borders, just because they are from the US.

It is incidents like this, that will strengthen negative perceptions of Americans. Or in this case, of Canadians.

Luba · 11-18-2007, 07:37 AM

Hundreds attend funeral of man tasered by police

I watched this on the News last night; so, so sad!

Vautrin · 11-18-2007, 07:40 AM

A similar incident in which a South African woman died in the US on I think JFK airport has received much media attention here - but that is from the crime country no #1 in the world.

TKDLady · 11-18-2007, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vautrin

Sometimes Americans get the just treatment and complain, and demand preferential treatment outside of their borders, just because they are from the US.

It is incidents like this, that will strengthen negative perceptions of Americans. Or in this case, of Canadians.

That is my point. A few, very few, bad apples have spoiled the whole bunch. We aren't all like that. In fact, I would say the majority are the opposite. I would love to visit Europe and experience the culture where ever I go. I was supposed to go on a business trip to Germany a few years ago and tried to teach myself German so I communicate with people. I wanted to blend in, not stand out. I never got to go however. It is sad. I will be judged if I ever travel overseas before anyone even knows me just because I am American.

Zil · 11-18-2007, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vautrin

Sometimes Americans get the just treatment and complain, and demand preferential treatment outside of their borders, just because they are from the US.

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure what to make of this statement.

Provide an example, maybe?

The only "preferential treatment" I would demand anywhere is to be treated like a human being... and there's so much on the news about people being mistreated in every corner of this world that I probably would never even want to travel anywhere. (BTW: The movie Hostel pretty much made me never want to step foot outside of my country.) If I did, familiarizing myself with the language as much as possible - like TKDLady mentioned - would be a good idea.

Does anyone know what the problem was in the video? Has anyone heard anything? If the man could communicate with others, that incident may never have happened in the first place.

People are too quick to judge, and people are too quick to lump everyone together just because of a few as well.

Vautrin · 11-18-2007, 11:19 PM

The fact that because they are American warrants preferential treatment when they are visiting other countries. Think of not wanting to play by the rules whenever they need to apply for some visa extension when visiting African countries. I have seen it first hand. You can call it not receiving humane treatment by the respective govts. But (general, not aimed at you, Zil):
a) why are you going there then?
b) why do you not take issue with the general maltreatment of non-Americans there?
c) why do you not mind to maltreat other human beings, just because you have US dollars available to spend?

You can't have it both ways. And sadly some of the Americans I have run into want it both ways.

Or behaving contrary to the laws of any country other than the US, and expect not to be punished for such contraventions. If I were to smoke weed in public in the US, I do expect to be punished, even though in my home country it is perfectly legal.

But the stereotype thrives on just that. Whatever view we have of the Japanese is mainly created by the Japanese that visit our respective countries - and they are quite likely to be not representative of the whole group.

NoTargeT · 11-19-2007, 04:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zil

Does anyone know what the problem was in the video? Has anyone heard anything? If the man could communicate with others, that incident may never have happened in the first place.

Appearantly the man had been quite agressive, yelling at personnel, throwing over his luggage cart, banging his fists on windows and grabbing a computer from a workstation and smashing it on the floor.

As for americans visiting abroad, all americans I met overhere (in the netherlands) were friendly decent people. I've been to a bar with a well paid canadian icehockey player, he was very adaptive and took extra care not to throw his weight in dollars around. I also had 2 young US citizens stay with me and my (then) girlfriend like 10 years ago, they were very nice too, they only had a problem with smoking too much of the available green stuff here, so they spent half their time passing out on the couch, lol.

The only big problem I have with the US is their agressive foreign policy (which I can hardly blame individual US inhabitants for).
Next to that I sometimes get a bit agitated by the 'we are the best people of the world' attitude of some americans, often backed up by simply faulty historical facts. (example; I've had people from the US claim that they had most casualties in WW2 so they 'made the biggest sacrifice in ww2'(thruth is half a million US casualties vs for example 25-30 million russian casualties out of about 70 million total))

Mondo · 11-23-2007, 03:41 AM

Nearly all the Americans I know I get on with really well and I work with quite a few people based in Austin TX. The negative perception the US gets is what NT said, a foreign policy that puts the US first and anyone else last and IMO the US guy people see on TV all the time, Dick Cheneys glove puppet. People then stereotype that to think everyone in the US is like GW or rednecks, which is a complete injustice to most Americans.

Zil · 11-24-2007, 07:00 PM

THANK YOU MONDO!!!!!!!

<3 MONDO <--- my new most favorite person on lifesupporters.com!

Mondo · 11-26-2007, 10:23 AM

Weiser · 11-26-2007, 02:06 PM

What really sucks is that roughly 80% of all canadians I have met have that perception of americans though - and it really pisses me off considering the majority of my family is american. There is nothing I can say to get people to think different either...Ah well, atleast my friend / coworker Tamara has the same views as I do.

What is really funny in my mind is that the Canadians themselves are the arrogant stuck up snobs they think the americans are, where as the americans are by far the NICEST people I have ever met in my life. Weird huh?

PepsiChic · 11-26-2007, 06:55 PM

i like all canadians and americans till they do something bad, i tend not to judge a country by the few that do the wrong thing, whereas my mum judges the entire country for something 1 person might do, i tend to look outside the box and realize if that was so true britain just could be just as high up on the list as america or canada. i think its sad people can be so small minded in situations as to think that everyone is like 1 person or another, after all we get told all the time that we are unique as individuals