The following is from a piece I read in an opinion magazine yesterday:

"The US has, despite what they may believe, a culture of violence. I don't know another country where violence is so close to civilized society as the U.S. Just look at American football: it's a sport made for Americans. Nobody else plays it because they just don't want to. It's a sport about destroying your fellow human beings. It is about being tough, about smashing heads together. One guy wins and another gets carried away on a stretcher. It's about the fight to be the best, often by crushing the other, and that mentality seeps into the entire society. You need to be a winner, number one."

Not that I agree, but it does relay the general impression that a lot of people have over here of American football. I for one read the first chapters of Better Angels of our Nature today - I wonder if he's got something to say on this.