Top Gear is a British automotive show typically geared toward demonstrations of high-end automobiles, but they headed to Alabama for a for a little friendly contest. Three Brits, three cars, several cans of paint and a camera crew.

The rules - you cannot get shot or beaten while driving across the state.

The goal - to get one of the others shot or beaten while driving across the state, as a result of what you've painted onto their cars.

The contestants:

1. "Country and Western is rubbish" Chevy
   
2. "Hillary for President", "I'm Bi", "Nascar Sucks" Cadillac
   
3. "Man Love Rules" Dodge

Who wins?: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKz4QgVQBHI]YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]

Well, I am a Canuck and so I did feel free to laugh my face off - initially. Upon further reflection I decided that this video is very disturbing.

Thanks for posting it.

We live in a country with the best weapons.

But we also live in a country with primitive feelings.

In this day and age, we still have debates over the what could be the first woman, the first Black, the first Mormon or the first Hispanic president. We still single them out for these meaningless differences.

"All men are created equal" is something that very few US Americans actually believe in, no matter what they say.

The biggest difference between the North and the South is how much more the people of the North keep their prejudices secret or low key. That's why the chance of getting beat up for being different is higher in the South, though if the Brits in the "YouTube" piece had been beaten, many people in the North would have applauded in private, but spoken out against it in public.

But the USA is not that much different than most of the countries of the world. What makes it appalling is that most Americans think they are better, but sink to the same level as the people of the countries that they despise, while at the same time berating those countries for being backward.

Remember the outrage when the Afghani was on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity? Were the people in the Alabama gas station any different from the Afghan public who wanted the convert executed?

I think it was the "NASCAR Sucks" that really got to them. I think they should have added another car: "WWF IS FOR PANSIES".

The real bigotry in this piece is the assumption that they would get beaten, killed or arrested, not the reaction that they received from the people who were taunted. And, we get this type of thing all the time in Alabama. Somehow it's politically correct to lay all the blame for bigotry and ignorance in the US on one state. Every time there's a joke about the south on TV, it's "Alabama".

Tami

The real bigotry in this piece is the assumption that they would get beaten, killed or arrested,

I think they came pretty close to getting beaten. Their vehicles were pelted with rocks and I think they were genuinely frightened. Serves them right.

I loved the woman at the gas station who asked them if they were gay and did they come to a hick town lookin' to be beaten up?

Alabama does seem to be the butt of a lot of redneck jokes. But don't forget Arkansas' unofficial motto....thank God for Mississippi.

I don't know how much of our reputation is deserved, and how much of it is stereotypes perpetuated by the media. As Jeff Foxworthy says, when something news worthy happens, they don't look for someone with some measure of intelligence to discuss it, they look for the woman in her housecoat and slippers with curlers hanging out of her hair, saying, "It was pandelirium!" Of course, sometimes the piece just speaks for itself:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zkw_mru-hU]YouTube - Leprechaun in Alabama[/ame]

What the 3 Brits did was dumb, but they should not have been threatened or attacked. It would be nice if we lived in an Enlightened society where ignorance was looked at and then the looker would just turn away.

I guess if the 3 Brits had driven up to Harlem with signs on their cars saying "Martin Luther King was an Asshole", they would have gotten a similar reaction. But why? Why do people think they need to hurt anyone who says (or does something) that insults one of their sacred cows?

If a man came up to my wife and I in a mall and said to me, "Your wife is a (fill in the blank with something vulgar)", yes a confrontation could definitely start and escalate. But if the same man came up to me and said that the hometown baseball or football teams stinks, then where is there a need to do anything other than walk away? I would hope, in fact, to be able to avoid any more than just a verbal exchange in the situation involving the insult of my wife.

Many years ago, in the year we were married in fact (1967), a man grabbed Tina's ass right in front of me in a bar. I banged him around until the bouncers pulled me off of him. I was young and hotheaded, but a physical sexual attack is different than a man wearing a tee-shirt with a slogan or picture that I find offensive or a car with a sign on it that I find offensive.

We are too ready to fight in order to come to the defense of ideas or people we worship. Carlene was right about the “NASCAR Sucks” reference. People down here (in Florida) talk about these NASCAR drivers as if they were on a first name basis. I worked for Home Depot for about 8 months after coming to Florida and one day they announced that Tony Stewart and his Home Depot Special would be in the parking lot the next afternoon. Next day, my shift finished a little while before Tony Stewart got there and I went straight home without waiting. Many of the other workers came in on their day off or came in early to see the driver and the car.

The next day, I was challenged in the lunch/break room for not staying. One woman told me. "You don't ever disrespect NASCAR or county music". I could not stop laughing even as some of my coworkers told that they were going to beat my butt.

Maybe, some people need to hate people who are different than themselves. Maybe some of those people also need to hurt people that they hate.

I am from up north. What is NASCR?

I don't know a lot about it, it isn't my cup of tea, nor anyone in my family, but it's some kind of car racing where they drive around in an oval for - no idea - either some number of laps or some length of time. I have no idea what kinds of cars, or what fuel, or however it is that the cars are classed. I've heard about two names, one is a girl who does commercials (I've seen her commercials, but couldn't tell you what her name is) and the other is a guy that died named Dale Earnhart (sp)... the only reason I know that is because lots of cars around have stickers with his name and "3" on them, which has something to do with him or how he died.

Ayup, that's about the extent of what I know.

Here is a wiki for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASCAR

NASCAR racing uses replicas of real cars so modified to have almost no relationship to what they represent. I guess they allow fans to think they are driving the same cars as their heroes, but except for appearance, the cars are nothing alike.

The big races are 500 miles with laps of about 2.5 miles around. Some are 400 miles.

If you want to see the passion, get a feel for feelings of the fans and see way people discuss NASCAR, take a look at R U a NASCAR Fan...Let's Talk in the Lap-Band Talk Lounge.

I guess it's like hockey up here in Canada. Thanks for helping me to understand.

I love watching hockey, but I don't know much about it. Much more exciting than our three big ones here. Is curling big there?

Curling is not like hockey but people do like it. Hockey is a real cult up here. People not only love to watch it but many of them also play it. Lots of men play hockey with friends and work mates and of course Canadian kids play hockey.

This involves a lot of time, money and commitment on the part of the whole family. There is the cost of the gear and the membership fees for the kids and then the time spent ferrying the kids to their practices and watching them play. This used to be something that came with having boys but now some girls get into hockey, too.

The coaches are guys who volunteer their time; they are hockey nuts as well but this game is a passion for the people who care about it and things can get out of hand. Parents get into brawls while watching their kids play hockey. Occasionally these brawls end up in the courts.

And sometimes the parents will even turn on the kids' coaches for enforcing rules which the parents don't agree with. There was a case recently up here of an upper middle class father who physically assaulted his son's coach because the coach wanted to bench the kid for missing a couple of practices.

The local news will run stories on the worst cases of these dramas; the ones where hockey parents get down with each other and lose control. Of course the whole business is totally Jerry Springer or whatever but it is entirely unstaged.

Because I am not a fan of hockey nor of any sport, I just don't get the passion or the sense of self-identification that would lead me into destructive behaviour. I don't understand the desire to strangle your son's hockey coach, nor the weird (psycho-sexual and very boring) affiliations conjured up between regular type women - that is to say, women like you or me - and a bunch of guys who drive cars around oval tracks.

This being said, it is crucial that we folks who live on this continent recognise that the Brits and the Europeans are every bit obsessed and ill-behaved as we are: they behave badly when it comes to soccer. The game is different - the behaviour is the same.

As for curling, this is, I believe, popular in small town Canada.

Curling is not like hockey but people do like it. Hockey is a real cult up here. People not only love to watch it but many of them also play it. Lots of men play hockey with friends and work mates and of course Canadian kids play hockey.

This involves a lot of time, money and commitment on the part of the whole family. There is the cost of the gear and the membership fees for the kids and then the time spent ferrying the kids to their practices and watching them play. This used to be something that came with having boys but now some girls get into hockey, too.

The coaches are guys who volunteer their time; they are hockey nuts as well but this game is a passion for the people who care about it and things can get out of hand. Parents get into brawls while watching their kids play hockey. Occasionally these brawls end up in the courts.

And sometimes the parents will even turn on the kids' coaches for enforcing rules which the parents don't agree with. There was a case recently up here of an upper middle class father who physically assaulted his son's coach because the coach wanted to bench the kid for missing a couple of practices.

The local news will run stories on the worst cases of these dramas; the ones where hockey parents get down with each other and lose control. Of course the whole business is totally Jerry Springer or whatever but it is entirely unstaged.

Because I am not a fan of hockey nor of any sport, I just don't get the passion or the sense of self-identification that would lead me into destructive behaviour. I don't understand the desire to strangle your son's hockey coach, nor the weird (psycho-sexual and very boring) affiliations conjured up between regular type women - that is to say, women like you or me - and a bunch of guys who drive cars around oval tracks.

This being said, it is crucial that we folks who live on this continent recognise that the Brits and the Europeans are every bit obsessed and ill-behaved as we are: they behave badly when it comes to soccer. The game is different - the behaviour is the same.

As for curling, this is, I believe, popular in small town Canada.

Hockey, polo, soccer, lacross are all basically the same game. The difference is only what part of the body or what implement can touch the ball or puck.

While there is a lot of action in those sports, they do not have the obvious strategies of (American) Football or Baseball.

I showed this vid to my bf who commented "yeah, well....they were sort of asking for it...I know plenty of pubs in the UK where if I showed up in a tshirt saying "Manchester United sucks" I'd be killed."

I know these guys were making a point, and an interesting one, but if you poke the sleeping tiger, one can't be shocked if one gets bit.