I've found countries with English as their primary language to be more polite in general than those which don't. This is mainly due to the use of language (e.g. indirect questions - we say things like "Do you mind if I ask why you decided to change your opening hours", others seem to say "Why did you change your opening hours?" - which to a native English speaker sounds more hostile).
As for America vs Britain I'm not really sure I agree. Perhaps fools are suffered less gladly by "educated" Britons, but then again random descriptions / desire for violence would be seen as fairly unacceptable in general conversation where you seem to think it's perfectly normal. As a general rule, I would never try to speak authoratively about something I knew nothing about, and if I did then I'd expect to be smacked down if I was talking shit. This is why I normally prefix things with "Well, from the little I know..." or "In my personal experience", etc, etc.
In any case, you're talking about on-line communication for the most part, which isn't how all people communicate in real-life. It's almost acceptable to call someone an idiot if their first post on a forum was utterly dire, yet most people wouldn't do that in everyday life. More than this, some of the people here are talking to others they've known for years. The way you interact with people over such a period is bound to change.
Also, we're dealing with quite small segments of the population here anyway. There's a gulf of difference in the behaviour of (say) djbass and Shaigar from Oz, Yahwe and Ste or Tact and QazokRogue5.
As for "non-Elite" America, I don't know. Most of the American's I've met (admittedly usually through university where they would have come from Ivy League schools etc) have been very "elitist" - albeit about wealth and current status rather than upbringing / social origin (what we generally refer to as 'class').
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Originally Posted by Tomkat
MrL_Jakiri doesn't have a degree, so referring to him as "educated" isn't really accurate
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To bastardise Twain, don't confuse schooling with education. Although MrL has had plenty of schooling too, so the lack of degree (so far) is pretty much irrelevent.