What it means to be an American

[MaggieL]

"Funny" is a movable feast. Many asshats like to blame the poor reception their asshatery gets on a lack of sense of humor, when in fact it's simply as result of having some taste. Finding Adam Sandler or Carrottop to be dreary and dimwitted does not prove someone doesn't have a sense of humor, for example.

[Flint]

That's a good point, Maggie - in that one specific instance where the "asshattor" places direct blame upon the "asshatee" . . . However, consider the other side of the coin: the inability to recognize humorous intentions, IE responding out of left field with a stern reply to a light-hearted post. In other words, an "apples" reply to an "oranges" post.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Flint

the inability to recognize humorous intentions

...is not identical with recognizing humor.

If you haven't manged to be funny, don't expect to be treated as a humorist. Credit is not given for "trying".
Or being trying.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Or being trying.

See, now that's funny.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Nice try Flint, but you'll never buy a new car again at less than 17% interest.

Originally Posted by Kitsune

I moved your comment here, because I think it is a really important note and I don't want to clutter up this BBQs/SUV/apple pie thread with anymore ranting about Big Brother.

Is that what you really think "Being an American" is about?

Originally Posted by MaggieL

I'm more worried about liberals trying to take stuff away from me ("..as representatives of The Common Good", as Hilary said); they spend all their time talking about it. Take a look at that Google sketch-up thread...the very first words out of tw's mouth when he found out I was a ham was about whether my neighbors would prevent me from erecting antennas.

He asked that because it's an extremely common problem, as you damn well know. If you think it's a problem with "liberals" you are sadly naive.

I don't think Bush wants my radios. He seems to understand they're more valuable to him (and everybody else) in my hands.

More likely he doesn't understand shit, but one of these days some bureaucrat will ponder it, while trying to figure out a way to advance his/her career.

Get real indeed. Do you advocate gun confiscation too?

Nice try but the fact remains, you don't need a license to use that radio, so confiscation is the only solution for the government. Maybe sending everyone that has demonstrated a working knowledge to Gitmo, too.

And even more in digital data. HF radio used to have significance in international intelligence; it doesn't anymore. For one thing, it requires somebody who knows what they're doing on both ends to use it.

So terrorists that learn to fly a 767 are too dumb to operate a ham radio?


No, I don't think they'll be going after ham radios but I'm pointing out it wouldn't affect me a bit, while I'm sure you would be livid.
The same way if they said cars couldn't have more than 200hp, the majority wouldn't care but I'd be very pissed off.
The point is, that taking away any freedoms from anyone affects us all.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Maybe sending everyone that has demonstrated a working knowledge to Gitmo, too.

Quite a straw man. Attribute an extreme position to the opposition as a hypothetical and then exclaim how extreme it is.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

So terrorists that learn to fly a 767 are too dumb to operate a ham radio?

Learning to steer an already-flying 767 into a building is pretty damned easy...it's not rocket science. But my points were that 1) there's much easier ways today to get better communications under most circumstances and 2) the strategic significance of HF radio is already recognized.

And nobody believes that it's possible to choke off all communications between any two people on the planet.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

No, I don't think they'll be going after ham radios

Unless crotchety 80 year olds are considered terrorists, I'm certain ham radios are safe from government concern.

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

"Funny" is a movable feast. Many asshats like to blame the poor reception their asshatery gets on a lack of sense of humor, when in fact it's simply as result of having some taste. Finding Adam Sandler or Carrottop to be dreary and dimwitted does not prove someone doesn't have a sense of humor, for example.

Thank you. I do have good taste.

Originally Posted by Flint

That's a good point, Maggie - in that one specific instance where the "asshattor" places direct blame upon the "asshatee" . . . However, consider the other side of the coin: the inability to recognize humorous intentions, IE responding out of left field with a stern reply to a light-hearted post. In other words, an "apples" reply to an "oranges" post.

When I 'post sternly' it will be after thinking a harsher word than 'retard'.

[BigV]

wrt monitoring emails, calls, internet searches, etc ad nauseam:

Justice Department wants Internet companies to save personal Web surfing data
By Elise Ackerman
Mercury News

The U.S. Department of Justice has told Google, Microsoft and other major Internet companies that it wants them to keep detailed records of where people go while surfing the Web for up to two years.

the sh*t just never stops. Why not just have regular mandatory public mass strip searches, maybe at checkpoints?! You just never know what might turn up. *This* is your best shot at catching perverts with a taste for child pornography? Bonus question: Who here thinks this will be restricted to the effort to catch the above mentioned perverts? Hmm? Anyone, anyone? Now who thinks this will be ABUSED to troll for whatever looks...interesting. Like, oh, I don't know... searches for information contrary to the administration's One True Way (tm)?

Special shout out to AG Gonsalez: Go away. When I need a cop, I'll call one.

And in aticipation of the terror-addled knee-jerk reaction "It's in the interest of national security!! If you don't have anything to hide, there's no reason to be opposed to such a plan." To the utterer or thinker (and I use that term very very loosely here), I say bull shit. Privacy, liberty and security are not quantities in some zero sum game. They are not mutually exclusive. I urge you to read the excellent short essay, The Eternal Value of Privacy by Bruce Schneier.

This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

[Kitsune]

I moved your comment here, because I think it is a really important note and I don't want to clutter up this BBQs/SUV/apple pie thread with anymore ranting about Big Brother.

[Flint]

@Maggie: I'm not defining a "joke" by whether people thought it was funny or not. I'm saying there are posts intended to be taken seriously and those that aren't. The inability to distinguish between these two categories can subjectively be considered either the fault of the author for inadequately expressing him or herself, of the fault of the reader for failing to comprehend the meaning intended by the author.

Nowhere, in no way shape or form, does the variable perception of whether the "joke" was "funny" or not have anything to do with anything I've posted here.

The "inablity to recognize humorous intentions" is "not identical with recognizing humor." Right, that's what I've been saying all along. "The inability to recognize a joke as a joke doesn't simply equate to whether you thought it was funny or not."

[skysidhe]

I like you maggie but Bush is the antichrist.

Yes I am a socialist democrate who will probably vote for McCain if he runs.

My perspective is I have never liked him and he gave me nothing to change my mind.

I see nothing redeeming. Here are the few of my reasons. He used the Christian right to get elected. He ran on the banner of 'compassionate conservative' He said we would not be the policemen of the world. He hasn't funded no child left behind. The states are either cutting classes or raising taxes or whatever to comply with the law. Your federal taxes went down but your social security taxes doubled. Mentally ill people are out in the streets. We didn't have to invade Iraq. Iran was always the threat. I don't even need to go into the corruption part of the mismanagement.

I don't think people are being unreasonable alarmists. We as a nation need to recognize the ripple effect. We should not do things 'just because we can'.

shallow? people are scared or frustrated

clever? I see lots of restraint. If I give you a rope and you hang yourself with it it isn't my fault.

devoid of real content? probably dumb struck. It isn't the time for rhetoric as usual. There's too much at stake.


I am curious. What do you think this administration has been good at? Where is the positive that you see because I am not seeing it.

[monster]

Being American is about being extreme. And about being passionate about those extremes.

You're either Republican or Democrat -no middle ground.
You're either a civilian of the freeest country on Earth, or you've had all your freedoms stripped by anti-terrorist overreactions
You're either so fat you're wider than you are tall and need a scooter to get round Walmart, or so healthy you consider a soyburger in a whole wheat bun a once-a-year moment of gluttony
You either live in a cookie cutter neighborhood with perfect lawns and regimented petunias, or in a messy hillbilly cabin surrounded by a car graveyard
You either have perfect teeth or no teeth
You're either a regular church-goer or spawn of the devil

......


Seriously, though (well more seriously anyway) What it is to be American surely must depend on which cultures you are comparing it to. Apple Pie's Pretty popular in the UK too, you know!

I felt I had more personal freedom in the UK than I do here. But there's certainly a lot more freedom here than in Afghanistan, for example. At least by Western standards of freedom. Brits don't know you think they have bad teeth and bad hygeine. They think the French are pretty poor in that area.

America is so completely different from the UK, it's almost impossible to make comparisons/pick traits that belong uniquley to one nation, but the one thing that does strike me is that Americans do everything full force. Full commitment. Always.
.....Americans don't go to their kids' soccer games and just watch. They scream, yell, cheer, find a way to make a positive comment about a totally lost situation, make sure they have all the right equipment, take chairs, blankets, snacks, refuse to mention the score if they lose.......
Unfortunately, the same thing can we said about political situations where a quieter, more understated approach might be more effective.

So it's neither a good or a bad thing, but it is a very American thing, from the point of view of this Brit. Nothing American is done quietly, understatedly, half-heartedly and no admission of error is ever made.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by skysidhe

I like you maggie but Bush is the antichrist.

Well, that's the kind of closely-reasoned insightful criticisim I'm talking about. It's become trendy in the small very Blue-colored social spaces that cluster around the social-service ecological niches of Democratically-controlled urban centers to Bush-bash. But it consists basically of a lot of handwaving about how horrible Bush is and how much better things would be if the Democrats were in control. Everybody tacitly strokes each other about how much more hip and sophisticated and enlightened they are than those hateful selfish rednecks, and enjoys a warm fuzzy feeling for having struck another Blow Aginst the Empire. .

"What the Bush administration has been good at" is doing a better job of responding to the demanding times we're in than the Dems would have, given their track record.

As I've mentioned here before, I voted for Gore...but realized on 9/11 that I'm glad he didn't win. He doesn't have the chops to be commander-in-chief and certainly neither does Kerry. With the Cold War over a lot of us--me included--indulged in the wishful thinking that the CinC role had become a much less important part of the presidency.

We were wrong.

I think the Bush administrations policies suck on a number of issues, including among other things immigration and gay rights. Bush himself certainly doesn't come off well on TV. But...

Originally Posted by Winston Churchill

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

That's pretty much how I feel about Bush. Appalling, but still better than any available alternative. People who hate his obvious whoring after the Christian Right might consider the possibility that he does it to counter the Democrats whoring after the Socialist Left.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

As I've mentioned here before, I voted for Gore...but realized on 9/11 that I'm glad he didn't win. He doesn't have the chops to be commander-in-chief and certainly neither does Kerry. With the Cold War over a lot of us--me included--indulged in the wishful thinking that the CinC role had become a much less important part of the presidency.

We were wrong.

I think the Bush administrations policies suck on a number of issues, including among other things immigration and gay rights. Bush himself certainly doesn't come off well on TV. But...

Being able to start wars does not require any special intelligence, especially after Congress gave him blanket authorization. By every other measure, he has failed so far in Iraq.

As for immigration and gay rights, I wouldn't go around mentioning those two in the same sentence or else someone in the White House will get the bright idea to offer the conservatives in Congress a deal - amnesty for the 11 million in illegals in exchange for shipping an equal number of gays to Mexico.