me: “I hate to admit this, but I had one of those flaky breakfast croissants the other day? And it was freakin’ awesome!”
my patriotism:
my patriotism:
my patriotism: “I don’t even know who you are anymore, man.”
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Recent Comments
- In The Mailbox: 02.28.23 (Afternoon Edition) : The Other McCain on Hey, longtime pw readers…
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What, you’re too good for bagels now?
I had Freedom Toast and some EU Waffles.
“Croissant” means “crescent” (I think), which gives a clue as to the pastry’s origin. It was invented in Vienna after King Jan Sobieski of Poland saved Vienna from the second Siege thereof under the Ottoman Empire / Caliphate.
It was invented to commemorate the victory over the crescent, as it were.
As such, no good (read: patriotic) Westerner would object to the eating of a symbol reminding us of Western military supremacy over Islamists.
However, bagels would still be considered more Western. Especially with lox.
Yeah? Well tell that to my patriotism, Mushiloon!
my patriotism: “What, no cream cheese?”
SB: normal13
as in “perpendicular to”
If a guy is Joo-ish, is it even possible to be a patriot? I mean like aren’t there like conflicts or something?
Hmph. Next thing we know, you’ll be eating Brie. With a nice glass of Char-do-nay.
Say hi to your buddies Jacques and Dominique for me!
I am not patriotic. I don’t believe that American patriotism is a healthy thing for the U.S. or the world. It is too small a world anymore to set one country against another. Patriotism is basically a recipe for war. When the flags start waving (and it ain’t the Fourth of July) you can be sure the bombs will be dropping on some country that few Americans could point to on a map. I know that some say this is confusing patriotism with nationalism, but the two are intertwined in this country. American patriotism belongs on the scrap heap of empires of the past.
OK! Party’s just getting started, Capt. Bringdown arrived.
Better watch yourself, steve. Lest my patriotism get its hackles up and decides to strike you in the groin with its Jeff Gordon collectible beer mug.
Jeff Gordon? He’s the gay race car driver, right?
Which country? France? You have obviously never been around well-pickled Frenchmen on 14 July – or any other night, for that matter.
“La France, Elle est la patrie avec tout la glorie et le nation premier en tout le monde! Eeen we weel fight for heer – as soon as la vacance is over in Septiembre.”
Watch out pour “la Royale”, especially Le Charles de Gaulle. You have a good chance of seeing them if you are on the west coast of Africa.
France, too, I agree.
Jeff Gordon is NOT gay.
Christ, can’t a guy even drive around in a steely sleek streamlined rainbow anymore without being branded a meat lover?
That is a disjointed grouping of superficially related sentences, not a comment. SXP, if you’re going to try to bait us, the least you can do is not phone it in.
I guess it depends on where he puts his steely sleek streamlined rainbow, doesn’t it?
Oh, damn. France-bashing usually gets them around here.
Well, points to you for being a cut above average!
McGehee,
I try to take short attention spans into account. Here is a longer, more drawn out version.
http://theroguevoice.blogspot.com/2006/07/why-im-not-patriotic.html
By the way, let me plug “The Rogue Voice”, a local literary magazine from the Central Coast of California. Check it out and leave comments (the linked piece has been commented on extensively, so try our current issue, please. The editor loves comments.
Holy speedway, I refuse to believe Jeff Gordon is gay.
And croissants are even better with extra butter. New Zealand is my current fave. Sorry Denmark.
Wow, perhaps I’m starting a good rumor.
Just got back from two years in New Zealand, by the way. Very nice country. They are patriotic, but mostly when it comes to the “All Blacks”, their rugby team.
stevie-of-nobushwar
Read and learn:
Go look up the whole speech, stevie. Either take it to heart or please do NOT pass on your DNA. You are a biological dead end.
Sorry, Steve, the rumor is not new.
Fools! Who else would believe this nonsense?
argh
sorry for not closing the blockquote tag correctly…
Personally I love the Central Coast… Cambria being a favorite vacation spot, strolls along the beach, dinner as the sunsets over the waves, fine Central Coast wines…
too bad that would all go away with Sharia.
Darleen,
If Robert Heinlein says it at a Naval Academy lecture in 1973, then I must be mistaken. And all this time I thought that a world filled with nuclear weapons and overly patriotic countries was headed for doom. What do you think of Chinese patriotism, by the way? And who is Robert Heinlein?
For the record, I have no intention of passing on my DNA. It isn’t really bad DNA in my opinion, but I can’t say I’m that into raising a child, particularly one as miserable and whiney as I was. If you are in need of some donor DNA, though, and secretly want some from a fit lefty just past his prime with a Toyota Prius, then perhaps we can work something out.
Darleen, they might just be planning for that.
I keep thinking it’s a joke, but it just hasn’t appeared on snopes yet.
Yes Darleen, the Cambria Muslim community is soon to take over from the uptight, xenophobic Cambrian locals who feel entitled to cut in front of you in line at THEIR Farmer’s Market.
I also have a Harley, Darleen, if that works for you…
And who is Robert Heinlein?
a better man than you.
and, oh steve? Sorry, I’m not interested.
I love men.
I certainly hope he’s a better man than me, Darleen, because if the Naval Academy can’t get someone better than me to speak to them, then we are in a bit of trouble. By the way, Darleen, are you familiar with the Shakespeare line, “… the lady doth protest too much.”?
Do you like Pina Coladas? And getting caught in the rain?
Do you like Pina Coladas? And getting caught in the rain?
Yes and no.
I am into yoga and some say I have half a brain.
Fixed that for you, steve.
B Moe,
I might still be miserable and whiney, but I’ve improved over the years, so I guess it’s a matter of degree.
Thanks.
Speaking of sharia law, here’s some disturbing video via Hot Air.
Undercover at a mosque.
OK, so what’s the deal?
What if I really enjoy my freedoms–like eating bacon and bagels and lox, smoking cigarettes, shooting guns, saying whatever I want whenever I want, voting and drinking, being represented by a lawyer….
And, say, I can’t do any of those things together in any other country on the planet…
Can I go “Wooooooo!” and wave the flag of my favorite place?
If other people show up and try to take the things I like away from me can I go “Wooooo!” wave my flag and shoot them?
Why not? I really like doing my things in my place. I don’t wanna do your things in your place or have you do your things in my place.
I just really wanna do my things in my place and then go “Wooooooo! I like my place!”
Why is that bad? Why are you giving me trouble over it?
I like doing my things in my place and that makes me like my place period25
Well, hello lee.
Frightening, frightening video.
They kept saying kaffuur and that reminded me of something I came across recently on a cooking site.
It was for Thai food and they had a footnote for the kaffir leaves. They were no longer go to use that term because it was offensive to Muslims.
I’ve never lived there, but I’ve never met a Kiwi that has anything but raves for his country.
In fact, Americans have a unique penchant for bad-mouthing their own country to other foreign nationals. I’m quite convinced it doesn’t help our reputation abroad.
Hi Lunar. =)
Yeah, can you imagine what they think of us after two years of SteveXX?
MayBee, I’ve had that experience also.
It’s always weird, because they start off trying to say something complementary about another country.
Then, wham! They said something nice, so now they have to say something bad.
They do the same thing just visiting other states. It’s not enough to say something nice; it only counts if you say something bad about your own state.
Weird.
Lee,
No badmouthing was needed from me. Most of the rest of the world is quite disgusted with our current President and the war in Iraq. But, sure, I never defended him and never had a kind word to say for him and his adminstration. On the positive side, if it wasn’t for George Bush, I probably never would have left the country and hung out in beautiful New Zealand, which will always be a highlight of my life.
Your two years in New Zealand will always be a highlight of all our lives, SXP. I’m sure you want to go back. Why wait?
Useful at most progg sites, but counterproductive here.
McGehee,
There are some family and financial considerations at the moment, but I imagine I’ll be back there. Did you find the expanded version of my anti-patriotism screed more to your liking?
good to see you back and blogging again, jeff.
Well, I give you kudos for this. All those people who said they would move to Canada are still here.
Oh, I think I’ve met you on the internet before, either here or at JOM. You are…a nurse? Or something in a union?
Anyway, ever try to bash New Zealand to the New Zealanders? That’s another truism. Other people looooove to bash the US to an American, but they sure don’t want to hear an American bash their country.
ut, sure, I never defended him and never had a kind word to say for him and his adminstration.
You can stand up for America without standing up for Bush. I hope you at least did *that*.
I, for one, await the times when everyone who thinks that America defendending itself is a bad thing leaves toot sweet. Please go, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass when you do. More room for the rest of us.
And if you’re one of those persons who asks, “What happened to my America?” and you are against the private ownership of guns (and hence, determination of your own defence instead of letting the state take care of that issue), look in the mirror and realize you are the problem. Feel free to leave at your, and our, earliest convenience.
</end drunken rambling>
Excuse me if I don’t take you at your word on that. Im not as susceptible to propaganda as some.
Even if true, I cold give a flying fuck what most of the world thinks about us. Like the president, I think it’s more important to do what’s right than popular.
Besides, from the polls I’ve seen, most Iraqis are glad we went there. What does it matter what those backwater Kiwis think of our response to terror gone too far?
Lee,
Without getting into your other arguments, I certainly hope you wouldn’t take my word for it and would dust off that passport and visit some other countries. I think travel is always a great experience, and you will get a little bit of a different perspective on things.
cranky-d,
What do you think of gun ownership for the people of Iraq?
Except that he came back, lunarpuff.
Given that Steve XXX mentioned some ”…family and financial considerations…”, I’d guess that his parents cut off his allowance.
STRAWMAN ALERT!!! STRAWMAN ALERT!!!
All hands, man your battle stations, and prepare to execute anti-thread diversion maneuvers.
May Bee,
I’ve been trolling around the internet for years, so you might have run into me. What is JOM? I’m a psychiatrist, for the record.
Just a comment, Steve. Bad choice of words. Really bad.
Steve,
My parents are Canadian, and I grew up there. Interestingly, anti-Americanism was rampent then, in the ‘70s. My fifth grade teacher tried to make me feel ashamed of being a citizen of the US, but my patriotim saved me from being humiliated. I begged my parents to let me move to my Uncles place in Wyoming to go to high school.
I mean, can 20 million illegal immigrants be wrong?
I may not agree with steve, but I don’t believe he’s been obnoxious or anything. Not a troll in my book.
Plus, a couple of years ago, I was looking into moving to NZ. Not to get away from the US, but I wanted a small coastal town where I could make a decent living and hang out at great beaches in my down time.
NZ was begging for people with skills and making it easy to live there and it’s pretty tough to move to Australia.
I love SoCal, but it can be pretty brutal.
I doubt it’s you, because this guy was a big fan of union rules in NZ hospitals. Apparently Bush was evil because he didn’t have something similar going here in the US. Otherwise, same story. NZ was great, Kiwis are anti-American, he and Kiwis loved to talk about how great NZ was and America was not.
Too bad you never met him, you guys could have been pals.
“Real” Jeff,
Not sure where the “strawman” comes in. He said that I should be in favor of gun ownership and I asked whether he would be in favor of gun ownership for Iraqis. The point should be obvious. It would only be a strawman argument if most conservatives were not really in favor of gun ownership and I came up with a conservative strawman who was in favor of gun ownership to show the contradiction in his position (assuming he was against it for Iraq).
This is just a regular, run-of-the-mill point of debate. One of the biggest arguments for the 2nd Amendment has to do with the possibility of fighting off foreign (or even internal domestic) invasion, so the paralell to Iraq is at the very least a fair basis for debating the issue. He could say why he thinks that situation is different or maybe he thinks gun ownership for Iraqis is okay, but there is no strawman there.
Alas, it is bedtime for me, so I won’t be able to respond, but thanks for the entertaining evening, all.
Lunarpuff,
e-mail if you plan to go to NZ and I’ll give you some advice on places to go, etc.
lunarpuff, you missed where he called us all racist yesterday? oh, and recommend we go enlist.
Here that, Darleen? A perfessional man! Quite a catch if you don’t mind dickless.
If there were no patriotic wars then we’d still have religious wars, wars of conquest and (don’t forget!) global thermonuclear wars.
maggie, I saw that. I don’t agree with him, but I still don’t think he was obnoxious. Whethe I like it or not, his argument is going to be a part of the affirmative action discussion for a really long time. I don’t think he made much of a rebuttal, but I thought he was rather civil.
Asking about gun ownership by Iraqis (indeed, for most of the Middle East) is like asking about water rights for fish. Further, the paralell breaks down immediately because the overall situation in Iraq is vastly different from the USA at anytime in our history.
For example, I’ve had extensive discussions with Australians who pooh pooh any attempt to argue against their gun control laws using our 2nd Amendment as a premise. As I was told (correctly), Australia has a different history and different need for weapons. Not the same thing.
This holds true for Iraq as well.
Oh, and……
A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. To “set up a straw man” or “set up a straw-man argument” is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, because the opponent’s actual argument has not been refuted.
You attempted to misrepresent cranky-d’s position through a bait-and-switch, whereby you don’t refute his argument (or at least ignore it), but still make a point (of some sort).
But, hey, it could just be a non sequitor. I’ll give you that much.
steve, you make a point about the conservative POV on guns. What do you think about the liberal POV?
Should all guns be confiscated? If so, how do you propose to do that in Iraq?
I’m assuming the usual things done in Compton might not work.
maybe I’m just irratable.
no, no, I’m pretty sure that his linking to goarmy.com was obnoxious.
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you irritable maggie.
Now, what am I missing with that link? I didn’t see it in his comments, but it looks like a legitimate link.
the goarmy link was completely obnoxious, maggie.
I remember being in Manila in 1990 when there were daily Yanqui Go Home riots every afternoon around 4 p.m. outside the US Embassy; there was a similar crowd of people there every morning, only this lot were queueing for Visas to get into the Great Satan.
I am not American but I have spent over 35 years as an expatriate and I can tell you this much:
No matter how much noise the newspapers and television may make about the filthy Yankees and the lousy British, 90% of the people you meet love America and Britain and would give their eye teeth to be allowed to live in either.
And they despise people who talk their own countries down. Much as they may envy our ability to do so without having our ears nailed to the floor.
ha ha, yeah, spending an hour on the phone with tech support to confirm that my new toy is broken will do that to me.
steve’s nobushwar email addy probably doesn’t help my opinion of him either.
but thank God for some small favors today.
Completely true, furriskey.
I skimmed thru the commenets agaia and this time clicked on <a href=”http://theroguevoice.blogspot.com/2006/07/why-im-not-patriotic.html” target=”_blank”>
Now steve, I still maintain that you have been quite civil here, but that link is just plain ugly.
You automatically think war if people wave flags any other day than July 4th?
No free speech? You obviously don’t frequent bookstores much.
No more tired, huddled masses coming in? Not in any border states obviously.
ISOLATIONISM? WTF?
Bush critics were pretty worried about this before he took oath, but to bring up isolationism now…
WTF??!! He’s many things, but isolationist is not one of them.
steve, are you really believing this stuff?
I still maintain your’e a civil guy, but do you really buy that article?
Auuggh! I still can’t find that goarmy link.
Found something else though. Above. Didn’t click thru the first time.
here ya go lunarpuff.
Gotcha.
I stand corrected. That was decidedly not civil.
I apologize. He seemed civil on this thread!
no need to apologize…. trolls are sneaky like that sometimes. ;D
Oh dear, Steverino’s back. Hi-yo!
The Rogue Voice, Huh? (Can’t you just hear them capitals? Man, I love a good preachy rag!)
Sounds like a hoot. Maybe even a holler.
Sneaky indeed! And I can certainly be quite the sucker.
Now, that was my first venture into the Rogue Voice. I just read the one post, but I’m guessing it’s rather Fiskeish?
This was my favorite comment over there:
hmmmmm, they may have something there. I suspect it’s just cause he’s better than the rest of us.
Yeah. The first comment (and a positive one) was from somebody taking the last name of Chomsky.
Nothing else needed.
It’s easier to cheer your team on when you know what game they’re playing.
It also helps if your team knows what game they’re playing.
Calvinball makes for a poor spectator sport.
I’m pretty sure lots of stuff seems tastier during the third consecutive blizzard.
Proximity makes the mouth grow moister.
Auuuggrrrrrrrrhhhhhh. I did not know. I don’t believe I’ve encountered him before and he was a decent guy on this thread.
I’m reading more of the Rogue and aaauuugggggggggrh!
Of course calvinball is no good for spectators.
But it’s cool to pick a spectator to teach them calvinball!
Not that I did that here.
I don’t believe I am the only one posting here who needs no advice from Steve on the benefits of joining the Army. I suspect however that he would be less of a puckered anus if he had taken his own advice instead of becoming a shrink. If you weren’t crazy when you went in to see him, you certainly would be by the time you came out.
Oooooh!!! Calvinball! I wanna be the goalie!
That, or I’ll hold the ball for the punts.
New Zealand is that country that’s shaped like a boot, right? It’s kicking France, iirc.
This steve ex-pat guy is a parody using every moonbat cliche he can grab onto, right?
Please tell me he’s not serious.
Maggie,
You still have power lines up, or are you posting on battery power? Since the global warming cult is so good at predicting melting ice caps in far away places like Greenland, I want them to look into their crystal ball and predict when the ice cap on the central plains of the U.S. will melt!
Erm – I have a missing toe.
Yes, because it’s on a blog I’ve never seen.
Here are some extracts from a letter to this week’s Spectator magazine by Dr Duncan Anderson, Head of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Where I hope my nephew is paying attention to his lectures.
“I served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, living and working with some 3,000 Iraqis, both Shiite and Sunni, helping train the Iraqi army”…..”at the moment there are 140,000 US troops in Iraq. Fewer than 4,000 are involved in training missions, but this small number has had real success”…..
“Yes, life today in Iraq is uncertain, and it is hard, but there is hope. Under Saddam and the Baath regime, there was none. To simply walk away, as (Corelli) Barnett would have us do, would be to invite disaster of unimaginable proportions. Shawcross says that we must stay the course, and he is right. It will cost lives- British, American and Iraqi- but if a stable, prosperous Iraq emerges, they will not have died in vain.”
I read a lot on the web about President Bush’s stupidity. Forgive me if I decline to subscribe to that view. Bush has seen the threat and has decided to address it. Stand by him. The last time the USA ditched a President Bush, the consequence was that repulsive serial adulterer and liar William J Clinton. Please, don’t do it again.
But if the French know how to do anything, it’s cook.
No shame in Cresent rolls at all. Go drink your Bordeaux and dine on the Cote de Beouf with Chantrells and finish it off with a nice Cognac.
So let me get this straight: A shrink who drives a Prius thinks patriotism is stupid and Jeff Gordon is gay. Somehow, I just can’t bring myself to care about any of that. Sorry.
Croissants are tasty. In Desert (Storm) Clean-up, we had a pastry chef in the chow hall who made them with a little bit of some sort of cheese in them. Just a hint, not overpowering, and damn they were good.
I have admire your unselfishness in taking the time to make this web site.