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johnm214



Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread
#8594314 - 07/04/08 08:54 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Happy Birthday America
So what's your favorite thing about america?
Thought we could use a little patriotism for the US folk among us, since people usually rag on the country.
I'll start:
I like our freedoms: right to court, good legal system that allows self-representation in civil and criminal matters and the right to sue the governemnt, our consitution
I like our federal system, with the ability of states to make their own laws
I like our politicians which seem able to jump on any stupid idea as long as its popular- obviously good and bad, but definatly a reflection of our populace
What do you like about the US?
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Redstorm
Prince of Bugs




Registered: 10/08/02
Posts: 44,175
Last seen: 6 months, 28 days
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: johnm214]
#8594340 - 07/04/08 09:10 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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I like the fact that there is a direct relationship between how hard I work to improve my life and how much my life does improve.
I also like the fact that if I set realistic goals, all I have to do is bust my ass, those goals are achieved.
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: Redstorm]
#8594554 - 07/04/08 11:18 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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That I can write and say the most horrible things without having to answer to some asinine human rights commission if somebody's feelings get butthurt. A great rousing fuck you to all Canuck (and other) fascist thought police is strongly implied.
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johnm214



Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: zappaisgod]
#8594823 - 07/04/08 12:51 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Good point zappa.
Freedom of speech includes unpopular speech as well, at least in this country, and for the most part. Good damn thing too. Bad ideas are often popular at times, and we must be able to call them out.
Another good one Redstorm. Mobility is important. I like our public education system, and I'm pretty socialist in my views on it. I'm not for giving the schools everything they want, but everyone should get a shot at a basic education and chance. Then keep the taxes and regulations low so buisness and opportunity exist for people to give it a shot.

(also, in before commie america bashers)
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DieCommie


Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: johnm214]
#8594937 - 07/04/08 01:26 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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What do you like about the US?
Our propensity for self improvement is unmatched.
After inheriting slavery from the europeans it was rooted out in less then a hundred years. The cost of blood was enormous... the most bloody war in our history as well as the most bloody war man had ever waged to that date. Every generation in our country's existence has repeated that theme... the majority steps up to the plate and fights for the rights of the minority. Never before in the history of civilization has there been a country where the majority fights (and dies) for the rights of the minority. And we do it every single generation.
Its no wonder that oppressed people of all colors and creeds world wide flock to america like it is going out of style.
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TheCow
Stranger

Registered: 10/28/02
Posts: 4,790
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: johnm214]
#8595046 - 07/04/08 01:59 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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No fucking royalty. We told the king and queen they can go fuck themselves then put into our constitution that we will never have titles of nobility or royalty. I mean sure we have the Kennedy's, Bush's, the Walmart family, but Ill take those people over some asshole who has to be called 'Duke' to talk to him. Also I can still get into a bar fight with even the wealthiest and most powerful of motherfuckers and wont get hanged the next day as the law is the same for everyone. Amazing to me that other countries, for instance the Canadians haven't told the Queen where she can stick her scepter.
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Mycomyth
Demented Avenger



Registered: 03/19/06
Posts: 341
Loc: At the crux of the matter...
Last seen: 8 years, 2 months
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: TheCow]
#8595767 - 07/04/08 07:02 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
TheCow said: Also I can still get into a bar fight with even the wealthiest and most powerful of motherfuckers and wont get hanged the next day as the law is the same for everyone.
Not trying to bash or insult you at all, but you should really re-evaluate that statement just for your own edification.
Remember, brothers and sisters... No man is as enslaved as he who falsely believes he is free.
I'm not trying to bash America, either. Sure, we have a lot of freedoms here that other parts of the world lack, but we are by no means free in the dictionary definiton sense of the word. (see my thread titled "Just an old favorite song of mine from the 60's"). I love this country, it's just that it's government has gotten WAAAAY out of hand (now it's a monster and will not obey).
M
-------------------- Wave upon wave of demented avengers marched cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.
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TheCow
Stranger

Registered: 10/28/02
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: Mycomyth]
#8596029 - 07/04/08 09:19 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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so you quoted me as if you would respond, then just rambled incoherently about your own paranoia? Bold strategy sir
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thedefone
deus ex machina

Registered: 10/06/07
Posts: 1,883
Loc: Gondwana
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: TheCow]
#8596332 - 07/05/08 12:12 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Constant innovation.
Name one other culture that as thoroughly altered humankind in the span of 200 years as dramatically as has America. That innovation is technological as well as cultural. The cotton gin, mass production, the telegraph, iron ships, the light bulb, AC vs. DC, internal combustion, radio, flight, the Panama Canal, television, nuclear power, Apollo, computers, and the internet were all developed and perfected in the U.S. over the last 200 years. Rome had the Legion, or something? When there was no NW passage, we essentially built it with a trans-continental railway. Emancipation, suffrage, and civil rights have all happened while maintaining the Union.
America was the first nation founded on democratic principles.
Beat that.
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I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
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Disco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR

Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 2,601
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: johnm214]
#8596610 - 07/05/08 05:06 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Happy belated birthday, USA.
A few things, though:
Quote:
DieCommie said: What do you like about the US?
Our propensity for self improvement is unmatched.
After inheriting slavery from the europeans it was rooted out in less then a hundred years. The cost of blood was enormous... the most bloody war in our history as well as the most bloody war man had ever waged to that date. Every generation in our country's existence has repeated that theme... the majority steps up to the plate and fights for the rights of the minority. Never before in the history of civilization has there been a country where the majority fights (and dies) for the rights of the minority. And we do it every single generation.
Its no wonder that oppressed people of all colors and creeds world wide flock to america like it is going out of style.
Slavery was legally abolished in the US more than 30 years after it had already been abolished in Britian and Canada (US slaves would try to escape to Canada. Also, in the war of 1812, freedom was promised to US slaves by the British, resulting in many US slaves joining the British lines), and almost a century after it had been declared unlawful in England, and 72 years after Canada had passed its Act Against Slavery. A war wasn't needed in Britian and Canada to end slavery.
Quote:
TheCow said: Amazing to me that other countries, for instance the Canadians haven't told the Queen where she can stick her scepter.
The queen has no power in Canada, her role is ceremonial, and her official duty is to attend ceremonies, wave, while looking regal and old. The Canada Act of 1982 severed all remaining legal dependance of Canada on the UK. Canada is only a monarchy through a technicality of formality.
Quote:
thedefone said: Constant innovation.
Name one other culture that as thoroughly altered humankind in the span of 200 years as dramatically as has America. That innovation is technological as well as cultural. The cotton gin, mass production, the telegraph, iron ships, the light bulb, AC vs. DC, internal combustion, radio, flight, the Panama Canal, television, nuclear power, Apollo, computers, and the internet were all developed and perfected in the U.S. over the last 200 years. Rome had the Legion, or something? When there was no NW passage, we essentially built it with a trans-continental railway. Emancipation, suffrage, and civil rights have all happened while maintaining the Union.
America was the first nation founded on democratic principles.
Beat that.
Virtually none of those things originated in the US, or were developed by US talent. Some of those things weren't developed in the US either. Either Britain or Germany has probably altered the world most with innovation in the last couple centuries.
AC power - Nikola Tesla (Croatian) Nuclear Power - nuclear fission discovered and developed by Enrico Fermi (Italian), Otto Hahn (German), Fritz Strassmann (German) Apollo - Soviets spawned the space exploration field Radio - field spawned by Clerk Maxwell (Scottish), developed further by David E. Hughes (English), Heinrich Hertz (German), Jagadish Chandra Bose (Bengali), Nikola Tesla (Croatian), Alexander Stepanovich Popov (Russian), Guglielmo Marconi (Italian), Edwin Armstrong (US) Telegrpah - Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring (Prussian) James Bowman Lindsay (Scottish), others also listed under Radio Panama Canal - a Spanish creation and failed French project, which was later brought to fruition by the US Flight - motarized flight was finally successful with the Wright brothers, but many people from many countries had previously built gliders, and attempted to build motarized flight vehicles. George Cayley (English), Otto Lilienthal (German), and others pioneered human flight before the Wright brothers. Television - Willoughby Smith (English), Paul Gottlieb Nipkow (German), Philo Farnsworth (US), John Logie Baird (Scottish) Iron Ships - Isambard Kingdom Brunel (English) built the first fully iron ship. Before him, ironclad ships had long been built by the French and British navies. Internal Combustion - Internal combustion was in development before the USA existed. Important contributors are Christian Huygens (Dutch), Francois Isaac de Rivaz (Swiss), Nicolaus Otto (German), Karl Benz (German), Rudolph Diesel (German) Mass Production - Venice, Italy invented mass production with ships from pre-manufactured parts and assembly lines. Computers - Charles Babbage (English) is the originator of the concept of a programmable computer. Konrad Zuse (German) created the first functional computer.
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EntheogenicPeace
Scholar



Registered: 10/04/05
Posts: 3,926
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: DieCommie]
#8596931 - 07/05/08 10:13 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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---
Edited by EntheogenicPeace (03/10/21 05:18 PM)
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Mycomyth
Demented Avenger



Registered: 03/19/06
Posts: 341
Loc: At the crux of the matter...
Last seen: 8 years, 2 months
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: TheCow]
#8597066 - 07/05/08 11:13 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
TheCow said: so you quoted me as if you would respond, then just rambled incoherently about your own paranoia? Bold strategy sir
No rambling. I, in fact, thought it was quite coherent. No paranoia, either. I'm just a realist. I don't think that our government is "out to get me", or anything of that nature. Just that it doesn't have the best interest of the people at heart anymore, and that sir, is a dangerous thing.
But seriously...if you honestly believe that the law is the same for all, then I would never dare to trample on your right to believe it. I will simply refuse to believe it with you.
M
-------------------- Wave upon wave of demented avengers marched cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.
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DieCommie


Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: Disco Cat]
#8597420 - 07/05/08 01:14 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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.
Edited by DieCommie (11/16/16 10:14 AM)
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Luddite
I watch Fox News


Registered: 03/23/06
Posts: 2,946
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: Disco Cat]
#8597439 - 07/05/08 01:20 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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DiscoCat ranted:
Quote:
Slavery was legally abolished in the US more than 30 years after it had already been abolished in Britian and Canada (US slaves would try to escape to Canada. Also, in the war of 1812, freedom was promised to US slaves by the British, resulting in many US slaves joining the British lines), and almost a century after it had been declared unlawful in England, and 72 years after Canada had passed its Act Against Slavery. A war wasn't needed in Britian and Canada to end slavery.
If it wasn't for slavery, you wouldn't be here.
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thedefone
deus ex machina

Registered: 10/06/07
Posts: 1,883
Loc: Gondwana
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: Luddite]
#8597649 - 07/05/08 02:50 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Hey, Disco Cat.. way to be needlessly contrary! By the way, you are almost entirely wrong in your contradictions.
I predict this thread degenerating into an epic bitch-fest!
God Bless America!
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I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
Edited by thedefone (07/05/08 03:00 PM)
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: johnm214]
#8597797 - 07/05/08 03:36 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Fuck patriotism as practiced by the uneducated.
So what's your favorite thing about america?
The mountains, the meadows, the forests, the wildlife, the deserts and canyons.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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d33p
Welcome to Violence

Registered: 07/12/03
Posts: 5,381
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Last seen: 11 years, 3 days
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: Icelander]
#8597849 - 07/05/08 03:54 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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rofl at discocat and ep's responses in this thread
I like America's right to keep and bear arms. Yesterday, I was firing some grenades out of my m203 for the 4th .
-------------------- I'm a nihilist. Lets be friends. bang bang
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Disco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR

Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 2,601
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: DieCommie]
#8597938 - 07/05/08 04:30 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
DieCommie said: How could canada abolish slavery before the US when canada wasnt even a country?
Upper and Lower Canada.
Quote:
Virtually none of those things originated in the US, or were developed by US talent. Some of those things weren't developed in the US either. Either Britain or Germany has probably altered the world most with innovation in the last couple centuries.
Its hilarious how you twist that list. I will only comment on a few... Tesla was in fact an american, and made all his great inventions in america. In america, all citizens are american no matter where they are born.
I didn't twist a thing in that list. Tesla was Croatian talent, moved to Hungary before the US, where he worked in the same field and invented things, as he later did in the US. The USA enabled many great inventions of his, but it didn't spark his intellect and creativity. As I previously said, some of those things were developed in the US but not by US talent.
Example: Alexander Graham Bell was Scottish, moved to Canada, where started his work on the telegraph and telephone, and continued to work on it both there and in Boston, US. He is still Scottish talent. And that adds to my assertion that Britain has innovatively shaped the world the most with in the last couple centuries.
Quote:
Apollo - Soviets spawned the space exploration field LOL no shit, that doesnt mean they get credit for apollo at all.
They have credit for sparking the age of space exploration, but I didn't suggest that they have credit for Apollo's technical achievements.
Quote:
Panama Canal - a Spanish creation and failed French project, which was later brought to fruition by the US Right, the others failed at doing it and the US succeed.
You're just repeating exactly what I said. It was failed before the US succeeded, but was not a US innovation.
Quote:
Flight - motarized flight was finally successful with the Wright brothers, but many people from many countries had previously built gliders, and attempted to build motarized flight vehicles. George Cayley (English), Otto Lilienthal (German), and others pioneered human flight before the Wright brothers. Yea, lots of people did attempt it, but they didnt succeed. Like the canal, they failed and americans succeeded.
People did succeed though. Look up Otto Lilienthal:
"Otto Lilienthal was a pioneer of human aviation who became known as the German "Glider King". He was the first person to make repeated successful gliding flights. He followed an experimental approach first established earlier in the century by Sir George Cayley. Newspapers and magazines in many countries published photographs of Lilienthal gliding, favorably influencing public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines becoming practical reality after ages of idle fantasy and unscientific tinkering."
"To invent an airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything." - Otto Lilienthal
Quote:
Computers - Charles Babbage (English) is the originator of the concept of a programmable computer. Konrad Zuse (German) created the first functional computer. What I assumed he meant was electronic computers, because they are the ones that had such an impact on the world. I would say the greatest invention of the 20 century was the transistor, which was invented in the US.
I read "Computers," and I responded as such. If he meant electronic, then that's an English innovation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer "The Colossus machines were electronic computing devices used by British codebreakers to read encrypted German messages during World War II. These were the world's first programmable, digital, electronic, computing devices."
The transistor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Edgar_Lilienfeld
Julius Edgar Lilienfeld (April 18, 1881 – August 28, 1963) was an Austrian-Hungarian physicist. He was born in Lemberg in Austria-Hungary (now called Lviv in Ukraine).
From 1900 to 1904 he studied at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin. In 1905 he started to work at the physics institute at the University of Leipzig. Lilienfeld attained the habilitation in 1910.
Among other things, he invented the field-effect transistor (in 1925) and the electrolytic capacitor in the 1920s. He filed several patents describing the construction and operation of transistors as well as many features of modern transistors. When Brattain, Bardeen and Shockley tried to get a patent on their device, most of their claims were rejected due to the Lilienfeld patents.
"Legal papers from the Bell Labs patent show that Shockley and Pearson had built operational versions from Lilienfeld's patents, yet they never referenced this work in any of their later research papers or historical articles." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_transistor
Quote:
Nuclear power, you were both wrong. The Russians developed nuclear power first.
No I wasn't wrong. I said who discovered and invented nuclear fission, and there is no nuclear power without nuclear fission. The Russian's nuclear power came after that.
Quote:
thedefone said: Hey, Disco Cat.. way to be needlessly contrary! By the way, you are almost entirely wrong in your contradictions.
I predict this thread degenerating into an epic bitch-fest!
God Bless America!
Haha, you and others just made it a bitch-fest, my response was objective. But I guess that's your way of saying "doh!" is it? "By the way... you're wrong!" That's remarking on your knowledge base, because I wasn't wrong in anything I said. Look stuff up. It's disappointing that people could be so ignorant and naiive as to believe that all great things must have come from their country, just because... it's their country.
By your attitude, if Russia Day came around, and a Russian was seen claiming that Russia is great because it invented the cotton gin, you'd not say anything and let them continue believing a lie?
Why celebrate your nation's birthday by telling false stories of it being better than other nations? Finding your country's worth in comparing it to others' suggests an inferiority complex.
Edited by Disco Cat (07/05/08 10:05 PM)
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Disco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR

Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 2,601
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: Icelander]
#8597949 - 07/05/08 04:35 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: Fuck patriotism as practiced by the uneducated.
So what's your favorite thing about america?
The mountains, the meadows, the forests, the wildlife, the deserts and canyons.
Mine too.
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Minstrel
Man of Science


Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 1,974
Loc: Hogtown
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Re: Obligatory Independance Day Patriotism Thread [Re: Disco Cat]
#8598253 - 07/05/08 06:39 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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America, since I don't live in it, is one big reality TV show. That's not something to love (I don't even watch TV).
America, for it's innovating & inventions throughout the 20th century is to be loved for bringing us closer to our Brave New World. Hail Our Ford.
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