The flag at the end...
why was it shown with such dramatic effect? American propaganda?
shareIt's a FLAG. America's full of 'em. Get over it.
Allow me to explain...
THIS:
http://static.communitytable.parade.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/pledge-of-allegiance-under-god-ftr.jpg
If you did not grow up doing this, it's outright freaky to watch. It's indoctrination into a cult. You won't really see this outside of United States, so the flag question is quite valid.
As someone who moved to the 'states in my teens I can tell you that pledge is seriously weird to someone who isn't subconsciously doing it.
So unless you have completed that indoctrination in your early childhood, that flag just hanging there on the busted up Golden Gate Bridge will look out of place.
This one ain't over 'til the
Fat lady dies
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I concur.
share[deleted]
Good said, man, greets from free Russia :)
shareAnd that ladies and gentlemen, is the truth and nothing but the truth!
shareAny and every society which does not inculcate in its youth pride and respect for its own culture dies.
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Death is the road to awe.
Roman Empire, ancient Greece, Ottoman Empire... All crumbled...
Fighting a religious war is like fighting over whose imaginary friend is better.
I'm not getting what you're saying.
Zero_Wolf said:
Any and every society which does not inculcate in its youth pride and respect for its own culture dies.So, are you saying that those three crumbled because they didn't "inculcate pride & respect", or that they crumbled despite doing so?
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The Matrix Has You... share
Which is why every week or so, another nutcase wastes a half dozen or more innocent people, who were just watching a movie, sitting in a McDonald's -- or attending elementary school.
What country do you live in? The US murder rate is number 110 on a list of 218 countries. Greenland has a higher murder rate than the US!!!
I don't love her.. She kicked me in the face!! share
The Economist weekly in their December 12, 2015 edition had an interesting statistic: 'Since 9/11, over 400,000 people have been killed by gunfire in America and 45 by jihadist violence'. The countries death rate by guns is staggering, in the UK, where hand guns are illegal, the death rate is incredibly small
shareDo you know what "rate" means in your example? Well, nothing really.
Let me give you an example instead of math terms:
Imagine a village with 10 people. Some day one dude gets mad for whatever reason, goes outside & kills his neighbor (1 person). Now that village has a murder rate of 10%.
Now imagine a big city with 10,000,000 people. Some day one dude gets mad for whatever reason, goes outside & kills 100 people. Now that city has a murder rate of 0.001%.
So, even though the 2nd dude killed 100 times more people, his city's murder rate is 10,000 times less that the 1st dude's village's murder rate.
Do you get now why Greenland (with a population of ~56,000) has a higher murder rate?
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The Matrix Has You...
I see you have an interesting perspective but I say it does mean something. It sounds like you're saying that the larger to population, the less significant the numbers, but 10% is 10%. If you have a city of 10 or 10,000,000 and (for the sake of simplicity) there is no population increase or decrease, if 10% percent of the population is murderer per year, in 10 years both cities would cease to exist.
I don't love her.. She kicked me in the face!!
It really is cultish. I remember droning through the pledge for 12 years at school. It would be better if they had the kids sing the national anthem, instead. At least there's some color to it.
shareHere's betting you and Circa have never taken pride in or pledged loyalty to anything except possibly your own overinflated egos.
My people skills are fine. It's my tolerance of morons that needs work.
As Johnny Rotten put it so well its "Just another country".
I live in the US and its not bad. Better than lots but still it has this crazy hubris and
warmongering attitude. All this having to be so proud of your country nonsense. Its merely a contractual agreement. I pay taxes, get certain services and hopefully certain levels of freedom. Other than that its best to not get all worked up about it.
People are better off being egomaniacs than overzealous patriots.
The US government is one of the few that started a war that has lasted for close to 15 years. I guess Cheney wants it to last 50 years. love it.
we shook our fists at the punishing rain
& WE CALLED UPON THE AUTHOR TO EXPLAIN!!!!!
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Well put BetterThanThis!
we shook our fists at the punishing rain
& WE CALLED UPON THE AUTHOR TO EXPLAIN!!!!!
Yeah, Vlad doesn't create any messes, does he? You're getting your wish, the US under Obama is going to do as little as possible around the world. And the next time real warmongers march across the world I'll leave it to whatever country you're in to stand up to it. Believe me ayhole, we really don't want to be the worlds policeman anymore, if we ever did.
shareIt's also the only country in history that has ever used nuclear weapons against civilians -- twice.
And by doing so, averted the deaths of millions, most of whom would have been innocent Japanese civilians.
My people skills are fine. It's my tolerance of morons that needs work.
Truthfully, it is a lot more complicated than that. Those of us in the US often hear that the bombings saved more lives than they took, though when one considers what radiation does to the body, I am not entirely sure I agree, it sounds pretty rational. Unfortunately, there was so much going on, that it is not really all that clear, and we will likely never know for sure if we did the right thing. My own feelings about it are very mixed, I was born in Richland, Washington, and members of my family worked at Hanford, so it is an unfortunate part of my legacy.
"From a phylogenetic perspective, we are all fish!"
Wow. You as$holes read a lot into a flag on a bridge.
Of course it's possible to overdo national pride and patriotism. Of course there are a lot of people who do this.
Of course people on a rant like yours are presuming a unanimity of opinion outside the States about how blase one should be toward his/her own country and culture, a unanimity that does not actually exist. It's the typical "you guys are backward idiots, and everybody else is on my side in saying so" kind of dreck.
The truth is, some people from other nations are quite proud and patriotic. Some aren't. Some are life-committed to Eurocoolness, or neo-Western-Asian disaffectedness, etc., and get themselves onto comment lists on various websites to announce their specialness regarding how cool they are. That's what they -- and you -- are proud of. Just a different badge of specialness from the jingoistic, overenthusiastic "my country right or wrong" mentality. Same thing, different direction.
So okay, fine. You can pretend to be more evolved and have a "prettier" reality within your superior group. And you can write entire grad-school essays about how a flag on a bridge in a *beep* action movie explains why murderers kill people in such an inferior place. And so on. Give yourselves a circle jerk, or whatever it is you do when you congratulate yourselves.
So where are you from, O Evolved One?
I don't know which is worse, the simplistic charge of "brainwashing" or the number of folks who applaud such nonsense. There's an irony in the fact that those who live in a free, prosperous country use those freedoms to denigrate that country. The problem isn't that those who pledge fealty to the flag, and to the republic for which it stands, but those whose minds are so addled by the self-defeating philosophy of relativism they can no longer make rational value judgements.
shareuntil recent history, most countries were bound together by adherence to royalty, and racial and ethnic conformity. The US on the other hand was bound together by our Constitution and our flag as a symbol of the sacrifice and uniting of disperate states (née colonies), with no racial and ethnic conformity. e pluribus unum mofo! It ain't no cult.
shareLeave the flag alone, you jerk.
Yeah, but at that moment? And where did all the photos and photocopies come from looking for survivors? Is Staples really open that many hours?
share