# Have You Pledged to Serve Jimmy Joe Meager Today? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 9, 2009, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394 "2009-09-09T05:34:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/41 "2009-09-09T18:26:54Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > For serious? Or have I been whooshed? You’ve been whooshed. For one thing, **Carol Stream** is a guy. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/42 "2009-09-09T18:37:38Z")
I was sure Carol said it was a woman. Ah well. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/43 "2009-09-09T19:07:07Z")
I’ve pledged to serve a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc when I get home from work today, if you must know. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/44 "2009-09-09T19:34:52Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Unless you’re implying that private citizens doing service for the country (like what my buddies **Jimmy Meager** and his wife **Carol Stream** are complaining about) is unconstitutional, though, I don’t get your point. No, not at all. Private citizens doing service for the country is a good thing. Community service is great. What I’m saying is, it’s a bad thing; it’s historically been a dangerous thing, to pledge loyalty or service to an individual rather than to a country or the country’s laws. I’m not saying that Ashton Kutcher is going to be the head of a private army loyal to President Obama or anything, but the phrase “I pledge to serve Barack Obama” is, in theory at least, pretty creepy and carries some pretty nasty connotations. ---
**Author:** ![Xan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ac8455/32.png) [@Xan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xan)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/45 "2009-09-09T19:36:46Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > No, not at all. Private citizens doing service for the country is a good thing. Community service is great. What I’m saying is, it’s a bad thing; it’s historically been a dangerous thing, to pledge loyalty or service to an individual rather than to a country or the country’s laws. > > I’m not saying that Ashton Kutcher is going to be the head of a private army loyal to President Obama or anything, but the phrase “I pledge to serve Barack Obama” is, in theory at least, pretty creepy and carries some pretty nasty connotations. You said it better than I ever could. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/46 "2009-09-09T20:30:58Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > No, not at all. Private citizens doing service for the country is a good thing. Community service is great. What I’m saying is, it’s a bad thing; it’s historically been a dangerous thing, to pledge loyalty or service to an individual rather than to a country or the country’s laws. > > I’m not saying that Ashton Kutcher is going to be the head of a private army loyal to President Obama or anything, but the phrase “I pledge to serve Barack Obama” is, in theory at least, pretty creepy and carries some pretty nasty connotations. It’s hard for me to get a grip on what you’re saying. Originally, you said that soldiers “carry out his orders in so far that his orders are consistent with the law and the Constitution”. When I asked you how those soldiers determine whether his orders are consistent with the law and the Constitution, ElvisL1ves answered (correctly) on your behalf that the courts martial would make that decision. But now, you’re on about a civilian who has pledged himself to another civilian — a thing that happens every day, when people get married, or draw up contracts, or just make promises to friends. I think you should take into consideration exactly what President Obama represents to Ashton Kutcher. Yes, a pledge to serve the president can be a dangerous thing (setting aside that his entire administration has done exactly that). But it is not intrinsically “creepy” as you call it. It’s creepy if there’s something creepy about the person to whom one has pledged his loyalty, but what is creepy about the President? He took over a country plunging into depression, despised all over the world, and losing its sense of direction. He has worked every day against blindly determined opposition, doing more in a few months than some presidents have done in eight years. He cares deeply about his family and his country. Pledging to serve Barack Obama is pledging to serve not only a man who cares about his country, but the man who leads it. You make it sound like Obama is Hitler or something, and that’s just ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/47 "2009-09-09T20:54:22Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > No, not at all. Private citizens doing service for the country is a good thing. Community service is great. What I’m saying is, it’s a bad thing; it’s historically been a dangerous thing, to pledge loyalty or service to an individual rather than to a country or the country’s laws. Oh, OK. Perhaps if Ashton and Demi had a little footnote crawler saying ‘so long as Barack Obama’s agenda is constitutional. No person is above the law.’ I think it’s understood. I mean, you really don’t expect a soldier to answer every order with ‘Yes, sir, I will do my best to fulfill your order so long as the means to that end, or the end itself, are not or will not be in contradiction with the constitution,’ do you? I think the message in the video is especially important these days, if we want to end the divisive politics that have defined us at the national level for the past two decades. Remember, we’re all Americans, and he is the president. Maybe you didn’t vote for him, but he is the boss, and let’s see what we can get done. Nevertheless, I could see where “I pledge to serve Barack Obama” could sound a little creepy to some people. ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_Stream](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@Carol\_Stream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_Stream)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/48 "2009-09-09T21:51:37Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > You’ve been whooshed. For one thing, **Carol Stream** is a guy. Do you troll other posters, questioning their gender, or is it just me? ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/49 "2009-09-09T22:05:29Z")
😕 Wasn’t there some clusterfuck of a thread where people tried to (metaphorically) pin your gender down or something like that? It was some comment in one thread that lead to another that lead to a Pit thread. But that’s all fuzzy in my mind: I didn’t follow too closely–I generally don’t relish personal feuds, and I think one of your points in that thread was something along the lines of _what the fuck difference does it make?_ In general agreement, I left off. But I think that opened the door for honest confusion and the possibility that **Miller’s** comment wasn’t snarky. 'Course I could be wrong… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/50 "2009-09-09T22:56:43Z")
> [@Carol\_Stream](#): > > Do you troll other posters, questioning their gender, or is it just me? Hmm. Interesting question. Let’s break it down. Does identifiying you as a male count as “trolling” you? Well, since the comment was in no way directed at you, it’d be hard to see how I’d be trolling _you_. I could conceivably be trolling **FinnAgain** , but only if I was consciously giving out false information with an intent to create discord. Since I genuinely was under the impression that you were a guy, the accusation of trolling fails on the first part. Since misidentifying your gender has zero potential to create any kind of discord, the accusation _also_ fails on the second part. Moving along, we have the method by which I was purportedly trolling you, by “questioning your gender.” Well, that’s a bit tough to do, since you are bizarrely coy about stating your actual gender. If you had come out and said, “I’m a woman,” and I said, “I don’t think you’re a woman because a woman wouldn’t say X, Y or Z,” then I’d be questioning your gender. All I did was make a statement of (what I believed to be) fact. I may have been incorrect, but incorrectly identifying your gender is not the same as questioning it. Which brings us to the last part of your question, which is if I only do this to you. As I have demonstrated, far from _only_ doing this to you, I didn’t _even_ do this to you. So your insinuation that I have singled you out for some particular form of unfair treatment, once again, falls flat. Which means that, in a single sentence, you have failed to get anything correct four separate times. For anyone else, this could be perceived as quite the achievement, but as we all know, this level of incompetence is entirely par for the course when it comes to your “contributions” to this board. All that being said, if I was, indeed, wrong about you being male, I apologize for the error, and will undertake not to repeat it in the future. Which endeavor, I might add, would be greatly facilitated if you’d just come out and say which gender you would prefer to be identified as. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/51 "2009-09-09T22:59:17Z")
> [@Carol\_Stream](#): > > Do you troll other posters, questioning their gender, or is it just me? Surely you can’t be serious. ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_Stream](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@Carol\_Stream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_Stream)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/52 "2009-09-09T23:30:15Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Does identifiying you as a male count as “trolling” you? Well, since the comment was in no way directed at you, it’d be hard to see how I’d be trolling _you_. That’s retarded, you stupid troll. If you talk about someone on a message board, you’re “directing” your comments, if not to her, then certainly about her. Shall I post in random threads you’re in, commenting on your heterosexuality? ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/53 "2009-09-09T23:33:16Z")
> [@Carol\_Stream](#): > > That’s retarded, you stupid troll. If you talk about someone on a message board, > you’re “directing” your comments, if not to her, then certainly about her. Shall I post in random threads you’re in, commenting on your heterosexuality? Well, _something_ is retarded in this post but I’m sure you and I won’t agree on what. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/54 "2009-09-09T23:39:00Z")
Dude, you’re a guy that calls himself _ **Carol** _. It’s going to cause some confusion. Heterosexuality doesn’t have anything to do with it. But what do I know? My daddy named me [Sue](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M89c3hWx3RQ) ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/55 "2009-09-09T23:42:46Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > Dude, you’re a guy that calls himself _ **Carol** _. It’s going to cause some confusion. Heterosexuality doesn’t have anything to do with it. > > But what do I know? My daddy named me [Sue](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M89c3hWx3RQ) You know you’re asking for it. Now _you_ are the troll! FWIW, I have seen Carol admit she’s female. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/56 "2009-09-09T23:49:23Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > You know you’re asking for it. Now _you_ are the troll! > FWIW, I have seen Carol admit she’s female. Oh crap. I was sure she was a guy, hence the post. I wasn’t trying to troll. I honestly _did_ think she was a guy. **Carol Stream** , you have my apologies. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/57 "2009-09-09T23:53:04Z")
> [@Carol\_Stream](#): > > That’s retarded, you stupid troll. If you talk about someone on a message board, you’re “directing” your comments, if not to her, then certainly about her. Obviously, it’s “about” you, in that you are the subject of the alleged troll. But you would not be the _target_ of the troll, because I would not be trying to confuse _you_ about what your gender really is. For example, a classic troll would be posting, “Hitler was right!” in a thread about the Holocaust. In that instance, despite the fact that Hitler was mentioned by name, no one is trying to troll Hitler, they’re using Hitler to troll someone else. Similarly, in this case, if I had been trying to deliberately deceive **FinnAgain** about your gender, I’d have been using you to troll him, and not trolling you. Of course, you ignored the rest of that paragraph, where I explained why what I posted couldn’t be considered a troll in the first place. I can only assume, based on your posting history, that any post that contains more than two sentences overloads your goldfish-sized memory, and the excess length is instantly disregarded. > [@](#): > > Shall I post in random threads you’re in, commenting on your heterosexuality? I can’t imagine why I would be expected to care if you did this. > [@Biggirl](#): > > FWIW, I have seen Carol admit she’s female. I could have sworn I saw a post where **Carol** talked about his/her/its wife. I suppose there’s always a chance **Carol** is a lesbian, but I think gays already have enough problems, without having to count her as one of our own. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/58 "2009-09-09T23:54:59Z")
I’d like to congratulate Carol Stream on her graduation from the Starving Artist/Rand Rover School of LET’S MAKE THIS THREAD ABOUT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/59 "2009-09-09T23:56:59Z")
Could **Carol** be confused? **Miller** wasn’t the one who brought **Carol’s** name up in the thread, **Miller** was responding to \*\*FinnAgain \*\*(post 40) who was in turn responding to **bup** (post 34). At least I _think_ that explains it. I mean, AFAIK **Miller** is not offensive, so there must be some way out of here. There’s too much confusion… ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394/60 "2009-09-09T23:58:21Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I could have sworn I saw a post where **Carol** talked about his/her/its wife. I suppose there’s always a chance **Carol** is a lesbian, but I think gays already have enough problems, without having to count her as one of our own. And I’ve seen her cop to a husband. And I’ve also seen her get huffy when people assume she’s a female. I’ve seen her get huffy about a lot of crap. Oooh! Maybe she’s a hermaphrodite! How’s that for questioning your gender, **Carol**? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-pledged-to-serve-jimmy-joe-meager-today/509394.md?page=4)