How does the World view America these days?

jfc that's a psychedelic freak out zone right there

  On 7/11/2020 at 7:45 PM, apriorion said:

Oh yes: where I currently live (middle-of-nowhere farm country Midwest) those have been common enough to begin with, but they’ve been increasing, along with the flags with a red line, which I guess means “first responder lives matter”, too. It’s such an unsophisticated rhetorical move to shift the focus to a different, comfortable Fox News talking point, casting the whole discussion as a merely verbal dispute or equivocation. Then again, the most discourse you’ll get out of these people is that shouting you have from that meathead redneck in his pickup truck. 

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To add some commentary to this:

First, I want to make it very clear that I think the Thin Blue Line flag is very stupid. Even prior to it get turned into what is essentially a replacement of the Confederate flag, it was still basically a way for people to virtue signal how much of a bootlicker they are.

With that in mind, I want to make sure it's known that the idea of the "Thin ____ Line" flags was ever to be synonymous with "____ Lives Matter." There is no "Red Lives Matter" for fire fighters, there is no "Green Lives Matter" for EMTs (if I am wrong, please point me to where I can read about this). The ingrained culture with Americans and their love of Police Culture seems pretty rooted in our deification/role-modeling of those that serve in any form of armed services. Does this role-modeling apply to Fire Fighters (red line)/EMTs (green line)/Search & Rescue (orange line)? Yes, but to much lesser extent; these civil servant roles don't hold as much of a machismo culture (anecdotally) nor cultural divisiveness (I would not be surprised if there is still some).

American Fire Fighters are not funded like American Police Departments are. Just like American schools aren't funded like American Police Departments.

Americans typically treat their police departments like a paramilitary because they honestly are, nearly 1/5 police officers are military veterans.

I only bring this up because I play sports with a lot of EMT/EMS workers and Fire Fighters, a team of which is comprised mostly of Fire Fighters such that their jersey is a combination of the Thin Red Line flag and what normal American bunker gear looks like (that bright yellow suit). They've had this jersey for a couple of years, its intent isn't "FF lives matter," it's "we're American Fire Fighters." As an aside, I'm completely aware that a few of them are complete "ALL LIVES MATTER" shitheads, which is inexcusable.

Should these virtue signaling flags be retired? Yeah, probably. I personally find it interesting how willing people are to "violate" a flag they hold so dear. Proper flag code is like the only thing I retained from Boy Scouts.

Again, if anyone has any corrections to anything I said, by all means.

  On 7/14/2020 at 5:48 AM, xyrofen said:

To add some commentary to this:

First, I want to make it very clear that I think the Thin Blue Line flag is very stupid. Even prior to it get turned into what is essentially a replacement of the Confederate flag, it was still basically a way for people to virtue signal how much of a bootlicker they are.

With that in mind, I want to make sure it's known that the idea of the "Thin ____ Line" flags was ever to be synonymous with "____ Lives Matter." There is no "Red Lives Matter" for fire fighters, there is no "Green Lives Matter" for EMTs (if I am wrong, please point me to where I can read about this). The ingrained culture with Americans and their love of Police Culture seems pretty rooted in our deification/role-modeling of those that serve in any form of armed services. Does this role-modeling apply to Fire Fighters (red line)/EMTs (green line)/Search & Rescue (orange line)? Yes, but to much lesser extent; these civil servant roles don't hold as much of a machismo culture (anecdotally) nor cultural divisiveness (I would not be surprised if there is still some).

American Fire Fighters are not funded like American Police Departments are. Just like American schools aren't funded like American Police Departments.

Americans typically treat their police departments like a paramilitary because they honestly are, nearly 1/5 police officers are military veterans.

I only bring this up because I play sports with a lot of EMT/EMS workers and Fire Fighters, a team of which is comprised mostly of Fire Fighters such that their jersey is a combination of the Thin Red Line flag and what normal American bunker gear looks like (that bright yellow suit). They've had this jersey for a couple of years, its intent isn't "FF lives matter," it's "we're American Fire Fighters." As an aside, I'm completely aware that a few of them are complete "ALL LIVES MATTER" shitheads, which is inexcusable.

Should these virtue signaling flags be retired? Yeah, probably. I personally find it interesting how willing people are to "violate" a flag they hold so dear. Proper flag code is like the only thing I retained from Boy Scouts.

 

Again, if anyone has any corrections to anything I said, by all means.

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Sure, but again, these flags are often paraded as a reply to black lives matter, at least where I live. While perhaps it wasn’t meant to express “blue lives matter”, that’s effectively the rhetorical force in many disputes, at least around here. 

  On 7/14/2020 at 6:26 AM, apriorion said:

Sure, but again, these flags are often paraded as a reply to black lives matter, at least where I live. While perhaps it wasn’t meant to express “blue lives matter”, that’s effectively the rhetorical force in many disputes, at least around here. 

I agree. The blue line flag is now the calling card of "well I can't fly my confederate flag anymore."

For what it's worth, I'm from Oregon. We have a reputation of being very liberal, and it is in the populated areas of the Willamette Valley, but the rest of the state is country as all hell. If I drive 20 miles east or west, or when I'm between cities going north-south along I5, everything is super conservative and aggie-oriented.

Yeah, the coincidence of the rise of the thin blue line flag and the general (though slow-burning) acceptance that the confederate flag is racist is a bit suspicious. 

Glyphosate found in several popular brands of hummus, wtf

https://www.yahoo.com/news/weed-killer-thats-linked-cancer-040100665.html

Found by a group of nutty luddites, safe to ignore probably. There's no real evidence linking glyphosate to cancer either.

  On 7/13/2020 at 6:42 PM, timbre monke said:

Would make for a good Fallout location

I think that was a GoldenEye level

  Quote

Public health officials have announced that a squirrel in Colorado has tested positive for the bubonic plague.

"Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, and can be contracted by humans and household animals if proper precautions are not taken," officials from Jefferson County Public Health (JCPH) said in a statement released to the public.

https://www.jeffco.us/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1275

  On 7/14/2020 at 9:13 PM, caze said:

Found by a group of nutty luddites, safe to ignore probably. There's no real evidence linking glyphosate to cancer either.

read this as "nuddy luddites" and can't shake the image of nudist luddites and what their lives must look like. 

  On 7/13/2020 at 6:37 PM, Nebraska said:

https://6abc.com/presidents-statues-virginia-hidden/5579369/#:~:text=field in Virginia.-,The 42 presidential heads sit decaying in Croaker%2C Virginia near,tourist attraction called Presidents Park.

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BrandNewSentence

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a man who was involved in the creation of the park was also hired to destroy the presidential heads by putting them in a stone crusher

Americans are experts of THICC MEAT. I know an old dude from Alabama who lives here and he made the best steak I ever ate. I wasn't even aware that people are able to eat such THICC slices of meat and it was the meat of a supposedly happy cow, not some tortured soul's from a meat factory. Maybe cows fabricate their own home-made problems, too, when they are too happy, just like us, but I don't think that they are THAT dumb.  I like thiccness of meat imo

  On 7/14/2020 at 10:50 PM, Rubin Farr said:

I think that was a GoldenEye level

Oh yeah, Mission 10.

  On 7/14/2020 at 11:04 PM, Nebraska said:

https://www.jeffco.us/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1275

What are the chances that a squirrel would be given the bubonic plague test?

in 2020 we've learned anything is possible.

  On 7/15/2020 at 5:26 AM, Nebraska said:

in 2020 we've learned anything is possible.

 

 

 

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bunch of MAGA racists gonna go out and try some "ethnic" beans. 

Also reddit photoshop battle of Ivanka and beans.

PsBattle: Ivanka Trump holding a can of Goya

https://imgur.com/gallery/af0qAwg

entertaining, confusing, enraging. 

The American Left continues to eat itself whole:

https://www.leftvoice.org/if-there-is-to-be-any-future-for-the-u-s-left-we-must-break-with-sanders-and-the-democrats

  On 7/15/2020 at 6:07 AM, ignatius said:

entertaining, confusing, enraging. 

 

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I'd love to live there. Everybody seems so nice.

But seriously, I'm sure not everyone is like this... I hope... and if so then...

  On 7/15/2020 at 5:26 AM, Nebraska said:

in 2020 we've learned anything is possible.
 

 

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The most frustrating thing is the inevitability of her claiming to be the victim when Daddy is either dead or in prison, turning her back on her current weird MAGA mob and trying to get in with the “liberal” mainstream crowd.

  On 7/15/2020 at 11:26 AM, tec said:

The most frustrating thing is the inevitability of her claiming to be the victim when Daddy is either dead or in prison, turning her back on her current weird MAGA mob and trying to get in with the “liberal” mainstream crowd.

Yeah, I think Trump being the narcissist he is, never considered the public vitriol his family will face after he’s long gone.  Some will suck the Fox News tit undoubtedly, write bullshit books, take bullshit speaking gigs, try to martyr their fucked up father, maybe try to build public monuments to him?  (I’d help pull that shit down)  Fingers crosses they’ll get spit on in public.  If they’re smart they’ll stay in hiding, and better lawyer up.

(Direct answer to thread title)

  On 7/15/2020 at 11:23 AM, MaartenVC said:

But seriously, I'm sure not everyone is like this... I hope... and if so then...

Yep.

Yep.