Fair enough lazs...but the ramifications of "not giving a toejam" are felt by all Americans, and some non Americans, when they travel abroad.
For example...lazs doesn't give a toejam what some guy in England, who has bad teeth, thinks of him. So lazs rants on and on about his personal hygene, his lack of dental care etc. and generally is obnoxious and rude.
Another American, who respects and admires the British happens across the same Brit a few days later. The only difference is that the second American genuinely needs some help...directions or some such. The Brit..having just had a very unpleasant experience with some puffed up over confident yank decides to send the second American on a wild goose chase. The poor guy ends up in frigging Scotland instead of Dorset.
Congratulations...you just screwed a fellow American...not the Brit.
I went to Paris a few years ago for a month. I hated every second (except for one weekend when my Swiss girlfriend came to see me). Why? Because the French thought I was an American and treated me with contempt everywhere I went.
Were you in Paris just before I got there?