There is a fairly large difference between making fun of a politician, or laws or whatever else you are whining about, and making fun of a child's name.
Palin's Motherhood in the media
- Thread starter Mark L
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Twin Fist
Grandmaster
Yeah, they wouldn't hate us if we just converted to Islam en mass and abandoned the Constitution in favor of Sharia law.
Oh dear it's upsetting because I make fun of a ridiculous name? If I called my daughter New York or Boston you'd be laughing your heads off! I've said nothing about the child herself, nothing about the mother or her politics and people are upset because of a name?
If you stay in your own country there's no reason for you to care what others think but of course that works both ways, we don't have to care what you think about us despite all the posts on here that show you aren't backward in coming forward on your opinions on other countries. You can't criticise others if you can't take it yourself.
If you stay in your own country there's no reason for you to care what others think but of course that works both ways, we don't have to care what you think about us despite all the posts on here that show you aren't backward in coming forward on your opinions on other countries. You can't criticise others if you can't take it yourself.
Exactly :lfao:
Glad you agree lol Now take a look at the following, an American who not just criticies my country he rips it up completely.
"The UK would be much better off getting rid of alcohol. According to the government Brits drink an unchristly amount starting at early ages and tend to binge more than most. We know exactly how effective Prohibition was in the States, but at least they could go back to closing times and keep the round the clock drinking down.
The justice system is broken; a directive last year from the Home Office to police departments stated that burglary, simple assault and most sexual assaults were not to be investigated as crimes. I've seen some high profile cases in the Telegraph and Times where it took over 100 crimes for someone to get a stiff sentence - an ASBO
On the other hand things like playing a radio where others can hear it is considered a serious intellectual property crime, and police can be called if you violate Council bans on taking pictures of children in the park, your own toddler that is. The prisons are absolutely full. Bans like these are an attempt to "do something" on the part of a society that's experiencing significant breakdowns and knows on some level that there isn't much they can do about it."
That's only one of many posts criticising my country , there are numerous posts telling us how stupid we are for following stupid politicians and how stupid our laws are...well you get the idea.
No Briton has come on here and badmouthed your country, your society, your laws or your politicians. We haven't taken a side in your elections and argued for or against anyone. Someone calls their kid by a funny name, we laugh at it, what did you expect? We laughed like hell at Posh when she called her son Brooklyn. Same thing. Who's laughing at the kid, not me I just feel sorry for any kid whose mother calls it a weird name, no we laugh at the parents. Why would you think we'd laugh at a child? that's what politicians are for!!
- Thread Starter
- #147
Tez,Glad you agree lol Now take a look at the following, an American who not just criticies my country he rips it up completely.
"The UK would be much better off getting rid of alcohol. According to the government Brits drink an unchristly amount starting at early ages and tend to binge more than most. We know exactly how effective Prohibition was in the States, but at least they could go back to closing times and keep the round the clock drinking down.
The justice system is broken; a directive last year from the Home Office to police departments stated that burglary, simple assault and most sexual assaults were not to be investigated as crimes. I've seen some high profile cases in the Telegraph and Times where it took over 100 crimes for someone to get a stiff sentence - an ASBO
Bans like these are an attempt to "do something" on the part of a society that's experiencing significant breakdowns and knows on some level that there isn't much they can do about it."
That's only one of many posts criticising my country , there are numerous posts telling us how stupid we are for following stupid politicians and how stupid our laws are...well you get the idea.
No Briton has come on here and badmouthed your country, your society, your laws or your politicians. We haven't taken a side in your elections and argued for or against anyone. Someone calls their kid by a funny name, we laugh at it, what did you expect? We laughed like hell at Posh when she called her son Brooklyn. Same thing. Who's laughing at the kid, not me I just feel sorry for any kid whose mother calls it a weird name, no we laugh at the parents. Why would you think we'd laugh at a child? that's what politicians are for!!
I don't recall any posts in this thread criticizing your country. If you've taken offense to such posts on other threads, maybe you could deal with them there. Otherwise, you're taking us off topic.
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Not recently, anyway. It has happened-though usually as an offensive response against our gun laws in defense of your own gun laws.
Go ahead and laugh, but don't expect us to-it's not funny.See this post, again, and recognize that we don't find it funny-that's all, for the most part. Partisans being what they are, some are just gonna get defensive about all things for their party. Over here, both sides have declared the other's families off limits, but that won't stop some from dragging stuff out-in Palin's case, stuff is probably going to get dragged out that has nothing whatsoever to do with her family, and they'll get defensive about those things too-(as though trying to ban books from the library, and then trying to fire the librarian when she refused to do so are in the least bit defensible in this country...
)Er....who's "Posh?" With a name like that, "Brooklyn" isn't such a surprise-and not a bad name for a girl-you wouldn't have blinked twice at "Brooke" or "Lynn"; she got both.
Again though, you should take it for granted that most Americans don't follow your media as much as you'd think, don't know most of the people in your government below the PM, don't have the vaguest notion how your government works, don't know anything about or follow any of your sports teams, might know vaguely that a band that they like is from England, but probably couldn't tell you where in England they're from, or what that means about them. We don't have many British restaurants over here-none in New Mexico, I think, a few on the coasts, maybe-the only one I really know of for certain is the Spotted Pig in Manhattan, and they serve Italian food as well. We don't get a lot of the books that you wind up seeing from the rest of Europe-and, I know it seems unfair since you probably get just about everything published over here, but, for now, that's the way it is.
We mostly just don't care. Sorry.
And don't bring up that whole "you can blow the world up, of course we're concerned thing." Either you're concerned, or you're laughing at what seems to you to be an unfortunate name choice (believe me, the fact that you're over there laughing your collective arses off about it hasn't even made the tiniest blip in the media over here-I'll say it again, we mostly just don't care, sorry. :lol: ). You can have it both ways, but you can't say that one is because of the other. There are a lot of reasons why you and I, and a lot of other U.S. citizens with me might not want Sara Palin anywhere near "the button," especially a 72 year old cancer patient and former POW's heart attack away from it, but for some reason all of those things haven't been discussed-we're stuck with her "motherhood" (irrelevant), her daughter's pregnancy (socially relevant, but totally spinnable) and her daughter's name (incomprehensible to most of the people voting.)
We get it-she named her daughter Tatas, and, apparently, her daughter has a pair-it's funny. Move on, now. Sure, we'll criticize your welfare system, your gun laws, what some see as your "political correctness," your quasi-socialism, whatever-feel free to do the same with us-just don't expect all of your criticism-or your jokes-to siginify anything to us, because-even though what we each speak resembles in some ways, the same language-it's not, and even though there's a fair amount of kinship between us, there's also an ocean and 300 years of becoming something different between us, and we are not the same.
Would you really feel any better about the Republican ticket if they, like the Democrats, put the young, much less experienced politician at the top of the ticket? At least we wouldn't worry so much about the whole 'heart-beat away' chant making us more nervous about the experience levels of the major party choices.
Also, the fun being had with the daughter's name by a couple people East of the Atlantic reminds me of the George Bernard Shaw quote about being "separated by a common language".
Rather than argue, can't we all just enjoy some Bangers, share some spotted dick and watch some football?
Oh ****, I see more confusion ahead now.
Damn common language where words mean something different.
Is it pop, soda, or a soft drink? Football or Soccer?
If it wasn't for Page 3, most of America would never check out a British paper. Some of us grew up on Benny Hill, Doctor Who, Dave Allen, and the BBC. Some of us can't spell BBC, and Dr. Who is their new managed health care doctor of the week. We're going on for pages about a girls name. If Palin's worst thing is to name her daughter something that someone else finds odd, then great. I personally could care less. It's not like she named her "Moon Unit" or "Dweezle" or "Xzyltique". I'm more concerned with her position on the issues that matter, and claims of corruption.
Oh ****, I see more confusion ahead now.
Damn common language where words mean something different.
Is it pop, soda, or a soft drink? Football or Soccer?
If it wasn't for Page 3, most of America would never check out a British paper. Some of us grew up on Benny Hill, Doctor Who, Dave Allen, and the BBC. Some of us can't spell BBC, and Dr. Who is their new managed health care doctor of the week. We're going on for pages about a girls name. If Palin's worst thing is to name her daughter something that someone else finds odd, then great. I personally could care less. It's not like she named her "Moon Unit" or "Dweezle" or "Xzyltique". I'm more concerned with her position on the issues that matter, and claims of corruption.
grydth
Senior Master
You're right - there are any number of major issues, but what gets the coverage? Here's the "stories" I just saw before coming over here: Iran wants Obama to win (How many electoral votes do they have?); McCain will start a race war (Ya mean NASCAR vs the Preakness?); and Obama's mama was unwed (Now THERE'S a great reason not to vote for him!).
With trivia like the above getting the attention, how much will we hear about corporate welfare... or Iraq.... or Iran.... or Russia.... or preserving American jobs....
- Thread Starter
- #152
What do you mean by "coming over here"? Where can I look at these stories? It'd be interesting to note the choice our enemies would like us to make, and why, in electing our President.
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grydth
Senior Master
I meant I was checking out another site, Newsmax, before signing on here.
"News" stories on our enemy de jour's supposed preferences in US elections have been around since the Cold War (at least).
"News" stories on our enemy de jour's supposed preferences in US elections have been around since the Cold War (at least).
If you want a foreigners view (and earlier post reactions suggest you don't but I'll take the risk), it would behove all taking part in this discussion to draw breath, lift their eyes from their own particular party 'sacred cows' and listen to what your compartriots such as maunakumu are saying.
Modern Politics (deliberate capitalisation) is 'figure-head' electing to keep the mass of the population relatively quiet. Don't kid yourself otherwise.
Modern Politics (deliberate capitalisation) is 'figure-head' electing to keep the mass of the population relatively quiet. Don't kid yourself otherwise.
grydth
Senior Master
Solzhenitsyn was saying even more than that 30 some years ago at his speech at Harvard University. Yes, and he was speaking about the West, not the USSR. The barrage of trivia drowns out the people and issues we should be hearing about.
I advise doing a search and reading that speech.
I advise doing a search and reading that speech.
- Thread Starter
- #156
Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I am interested in what citizens of other nations think, but that doesn't mean that those opinions will sway me the least little bit in how I vote or in what I ask of those elected to represent me.
Archangel M
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Theres a difference between "listening" to others opinions and pandering to them. I want my politicians to have MY countries best interests in mind.
Yup. And sometimes, you can only know what our best interest are by listening to community as a whole. Many of our current economic problems stem from NOT doing this.
