And there’s been conflicting reports in this thread regarding Dallas, Little Rock, and Chicago that state otherwise. Why should anyone believe you?
Good question, let me have a go:
(1) The US is a large and diverse country.
(2) Unless I’m wrong, the three places you mention are relatively large.
(3) I am in a rural area (or near one).
Thus:
(A) It is not improbable that things may be different where I am from those places. Testimony about them may be compatible with differing testimony about here.
(4) We should exercise, ceteris paribus, a principle of charity when evaluating the testimony of others.
(5) I have not been dishonest on this board.
Thus:
(B) Assuming that not much is at stake, you should prima facie believe what I have to say, albeit not put too much faith in it.
And from (A) and (B):
You should prima facie believe what I have to say. In particular, nothing else said here appears to contradict it.
That’s why.
pdts
I have to say, I am in a very liberal part of a pretty liberal town that makes up part of a ridiculously liberal urban area, and I can count 4 US flags on my block. One of them is nicely matched with an “Impeach then both” placard. There were a lot more on display when I lived in Nashville.
The only reason there are not 5 is that I haven’t had a chance to put my flagstaff up. And mine is a US flag, though not the current US flag.
Probably because we’ve got… eyes. There are three car dealerships across the street. They’ve all got flags. There’s a subdivision next to my apartment complex, and I’d guess 1 in 5 houses has a flag hanging off the front. There’s a fat guy downstairs whose pickup truck has a flag sticker that covers the entire rear window.
Incidentally, Cisco, when did your brain start leaking out of your ears? I didn’t think you could possibly be serious when I read your first post.
Do tell. Is it a pre-Alaska-and-Hawai’i flag? A repro of the original flag – I think you could buy those for the Bicentennial. Or do you know something we don’t yet?
It is (I believe) the original one - obviously a reproduction. I got it for giving money to Colonial Williamsburg.
13 stripes, and the Union Flag in the corner instead of the stars. I have just found out it is called the Grand Union Flag…
I always thought it was kind of appropriate for someone in my situation, as an Anglo-Scot in the states.
Works for me. Sounds like we got off on the wrong foot.
We did? Why? When? Where?
I am a little lost here…
The simple fact is that we’re so used to them, we don’t see them anymore.
Recently, an English friend pointed out the American tendency to flag-ify. I told him that I didn’t think that there were that many flags around. Shortly thereafter, my son learned about flags in kindergarten, and took it upon himself to point out every single flag we encountered.
They’re EVERYWHERE!
Please note: I do not live in a rural area, or the South, or an area with a big military influence. In fact, this area is the polar opposite of a place where you’d expect to see the flags a’wavin’.
You goofball :rolleyes: . I’m talking to the OP.
It isn’t false in my experience. I’ve lived in Texas, Colorado, California, Arkansas, Virginia, and I’ve traveled to all of the south western states, and most of the southern states and seeing an American flag sitting on the outside of a place of residence is not a common occurrence. Even outside the city I’m more likely to see a Confederate flag than I am an American flag and the Confederate flag ain’t exactly super common.
What exactly is a large proportion of houses with U.S. flags? 1/5th? 1/10th?
Marc
I have a Gadsen flag hanging in my office.
Marc
Well color me relieved… 
Hey, I had a flag up on my house in the SF Bay area! Then again, it was a mishmash of the Gay flag and Old Glory… It made me happy, and I’m sure pissed off the Republican Right… So it did its job…
To the OP - the woman was a fucking bitch - you have every right to tell the truth about what you thought…
Here in Canada, I’ve actually had someone start screaming in the middle of a College class to “Shut up you fucking American!”.
I’m in school here, and a group I was in was doing a very light, comedic presentation, and as one of the jokes, I made a comment about people saying “aboot” instead of “about”… And that was when a student sitting in the class started screaming at me.
Most of the people around me were horrified at the way the idiot was behaving… (her - not me!)… I was only allowed a pass when the other students in my group started yelling back that I was Canadian too… (Dual citizenship saved the day…)
I figured after a couple of years here, I would be allowed to make a joke, but guess I was wrong… So Canadians have their sore points too.
Oh, and maybe in Quebec there aren’t many Canadian flags, but here in Toronto they’re everywhere…
Probably 1/10th… and that’s a lot.
I see a lot of irish flags, all over the place.
… kinda weird, cause I’m in America.
Just doesn’t ring true. For several reasons.
You were coolly dispatching your opponent with your rapier wit, yet your friend “dragged you away”.
Perhaps you were a bit more aggressive than you would like to have us imagine.
You weren’t saying anything insulting just “different strokes”, right…yet you refer to a “flag-fetish” in your OP. Perhaps you were a bit more loud and offensive in your discussion of things wrong with America than you would like to admit.
You hopped on “limey wuss” as “racist abuse”, in the pit, mind you…I think your ability to characterize conversations may be similarly off kilter.
Your own admissions of “low tolerance” and “competitive in conversation” make me think that you want to WIN this battle after the fact much more than you want to report it accurately.
So, like I said, I don’t trust your report.
I’d like to hear how the not-so-drunk bar patron would describe the exchange.
I suspect there was plenty of assholery to go around.
You have absolutely no reason to give a shit what I think, however.
Proceed.
You seem to have misunderstood me in several places.
Not quite - I was being sarcastic, and I was winning, but we were both getting quite heated. I certainly wasn’t cool or rapier-like. As I said, she got me angry.
About being dragged away, what happened is this:
- we argued
- silence ensued, me and my friends drunk up and went to leave
- as we got up to leave, I went in to deliver the rather crappy Iraq line
- my friend pulled me away, telling me to let it go
I really don’t think so.
I don’t see how this follows. “America has to me what seems like a fetish for the flag”, said quietly. Hardly loud and offensive.
I think it was ‘limey pussy’, actually. And I think that IS racist - compare with ‘Jap pussy’.
I see where you’re coming from, but I’m confident enough that I was totally in the right that I don’t need to embellish it. It’s rare, I think, to have things gone so entirely one-way.
I would like to hear it too, to be honest, but I’m 90% sure she was embarrassed about it the next day. I certainly would be if I’d behaved like she did - just like I’m embarrassed that I had to go in for one final remark rather than just move to another bar.
pdts
Does it make a difference? How drunk would you have to be to involve yourself in a stranger’s private conversation? It seems pretty out of line no matter what the OP was saying. Unless she was being really disruptive or threatening someone, I can’t imagine butting in like that, even if the OP was being offensively anti-American. I’m hardly a shrinking violet or afraid to get into it with someone; I do however think that eavesdropping and then acting on the overhead conversation of strangers automatically puts you in the wrong, barring egregiously extenuating circumstances. Do people who aren’t drunk and/or assholes really do this, and feel justified?
Exactly.
Exactly again. The OP states that the other patron “wasn’t obviously very drunk”.
So why did she do it?
She’s just a crazed jingoistic, flag-waving, American bitch who goes around bars listening in on conversations for foreign accents to pounce on…or…maybe it didn’t quite go down like it has been presented.
Doesn’t add up.