# It's a Pretty Lame Protest if No One Gets Upset **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 24, 2017, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186 "2017-09-24T16:38:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/201 "2017-09-28T08:45:16Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > :rolleyes: > > It was a joke, **Johana**. Let us locomote to the lithic extraction site and propel matter earthward therein! P.S.: ^ **n**. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/202 "2017-09-28T12:44:38Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Let us locomote to the lithic extraction site and propel matter earthward therein! > > P.S.: ^ **n**. Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there! 😛 You totally fucking rock! ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/203 "2017-09-28T12:47:54Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Let us locomote to the lithic extraction site and propel matter earthward therein! > > P.S.: ^ **n**. Another good one. PS I actually like the quarry thing. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2017, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/204 "2017-10-01T05:15:59Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > In many cases I do NOT put my hand over my heart. And I often wonder if somebody is going to give me shit for it. > > But you know WHY I don’t? > > Because if I do, it is often the line between me not crying and crying A LOT. > > The flag and the national anthem mean THAT much to me. > > The American flag IMO represents a shitload of ideals and goals and accomplishments of perhaps one of the greatest social experiments this world has ever seen…with so many sacrifices of so many very good people who I can not even come close to measuring up too… > > I cried a bunch just typing this up. > > So, when some 1 percenter who is a 1 percenter doing the most fucking useless thing on the planet pisses on the flag with some half assed ill thought out protest… > > Yeah, I get fucking mad. Sorry that I’m late to this party; saw **billfish678** ’s post a few days ago but life and everything kept me from replying; have been thinking about it. **billfish678** , I’m afraid I just don’t understand your point, and I wonder if you would help me with it? (Full disclosure, I’m not an American.) I’ve heard this kind of statement before, and I’ve never understood it. The US was founded on dissent and free expression. That’s what I think of when I think of your history, and the 1st Amendment. Like any country, there are some good things and bad things and some middling things about the US, but your founding documents, the Declaration and the Bill of Rights, celebrate and protect individual liberties. They put into law the Enlightenment concept, “I may not agree with you, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” So why is it that when someone is protesting what that person sees as injustice, perpetrated by the US system, you say it is disrespectful to the flag? Doesn’t that flag stand for just that right, to protest for improvements in government? Didn’t ordinary US citizens sign up in droves in WWII to protect that right, of free people and free speech? Isn’t recognizing the right to protest fully consistent with that flag and what it stands for, rather than a sign of disrespect? I’m not trolling you, and I’m genuinely curious about why there is what seems to me to be a disconnect, between your heartfelt respect for the freedoms the US has protected, and your strong reaction against someone who uses those very freedoms to point out something that the US may not have done well. Or, as Carl Schurz, who fled political repression in his native Prussia and became a US Senator, once said: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” Isn’t that one of the highest forms of patriotism? To be willing to listen when someone says that the country is in the wrong and needs to be set right? You may not agree, but why do you disagree even with them trying to make that point? I’m just puzzled. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2017, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/205 "2017-10-01T12:05:48Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Let us locomote to the lithic extraction site and propel matter earthward therein! > > P.S.: ^ **n**. Don’t encourage him. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/206 "2017-10-02T03:24:37Z")
Here is [an example of willful ignorance](https://www.facebook.com/groups/nebraskamancave/permalink/756623657854905/?sale_post_id=756623657854905). And an opportunity to sell to people of a similar bent. It’s embarrassing. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/207 "2017-10-02T03:39:52Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Here is [an example of willful ignorance](https://www.facebook.com/groups/nebraskamancave/permalink/756623657854905/?sale_post_id=756623657854905). And an opportunity to sell to people of a similar bent. It’s embarrassing. That link goes nowhere. Did you post a link to a facebook page that’s not public? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/208 "2017-10-02T03:52:31Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > No I’m happy actually. > > I’m like the asshole you always hated that lives next to you that won the lottery. > > Snowflake. People like you make the protest worthwhile. Not you in specific. You’re not important. You don’t really matter. I mean people _like_ you, in _aggregate_, and if that word’s too big for you, my deepest condolences. After all, without people like you (again, the mid-sized whining mass), a protest wouldn’t be nearly as meaningful. Do you understand why? Of course not. The reason why is because it smokes out the morons. It brings people like you into the light, wheezing and shivering and puling like the day you were born, so the rest of us know to not associate with the sickly one, the damaged one, the one who can’t quite make it. See, before this little snit on your part, I didn’t know you from Adam’s off ox. You hadn’t registered on my screens. Same’s true for practically everyone else, BTW: You don’t even rate on the SDMB. Now, of course, I know you’re a completely worthless semi-lunatic with a mentality utterly dwarfed by a massive inferiority complex (_vide_ your snivel, above) and, therefore, someone I should watch. After all, if you take a side, it’s evidence that side is utterly nonsensical, and any evidence is good evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/209 "2017-10-02T04:03:56Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > That link goes nowhere. Did you post a link to a facebook page that’s not public? Yeah. Sorry. It’s somebody marketing a T-shirt that says: “I STAND BECAUSE THEY STOOD”. The background is a Nebraska shaped flag with silhouettes of military personnel. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/210 "2017-10-02T22:09:19Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Yeah. Sorry. It’s somebody marketing a T-shirt that says: “I STAND BECAUSE THEY STOOD”. The background is a Nebraska shaped flag with silhouettes of military personnel. Oh yeah, because we fought the Revolution to free Nebraska from British rule fought the Civil War to free Nebraska from slavery Fought World War 2 to defend Nebraska from German and Japanese forces Fought the Korean War to stop North Korean advances into Nebraska ROFLMAO ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2017, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/211 "2017-10-03T00:41:34Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Oh yeah, because we > > fought the Revolution to free Nebraska from British rule > fought the Civil War to free Nebraska from slavery > Fought World War 2 to defend Nebraska from German and Japanese forces > Fought the Korean War to stop North Korean advances into Nebraska > > ROFLMAO Well, Omaha _was_ a major nerve center for the Strategic Air Command during the Cold War. [Kind of a funny story about that](http://www.nebraskastudies.org/1000/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/1000/stories/1001_0132.html): > [@](#): > > SAC (now U.S. Strategic Command) had a mission to lead U.S. military operations in the event of a nuclear war. They needed the most advanced communications system possible. As a result, the local telephone company installed an incredibly large and complex telecommunications infrastructure, staffed with people who knew how to run it. It built a communications network that could stand up to a nuclear blast. Peter Kiewit Sons Inc. was the construction company that dug the trenches and laid the cable. > > Eventually, Kiewit realized that businesses might want access to all that bandwidth, too. For a risky $10 million, they built a high new high capacity telephone network in 1987. By 1992, Omaha became one of the first cities in the U.S. to receive a fiber-optic cable network. Omaha was wired with fiber optic loops and major trunk lines supporting the telemarketing operations. [More from the LA _Times_](http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-03/business/fi-13433_1_phone-call): > [@](#): > > Why make Omaha the telemarketing center? > > “For a number of reasons,” responds Terry Sanford, who oversees the 800 operation for Northwestern Bell. “The technology was here. We put in an inordinate number of lines years ago to provide the Strategic Air Command with the best communications system money could buy. This is a spinoff from that effort.” [And from the New York _Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/20/business/omaha-talk-talk-talk-of-telemarketing.html?pagewanted=all): > [@](#): > > Omaha’s drive to make a name for itself as a telecommunications center seems like an obvious strategy in retrospect. The decision of the Federal Government to locate the Strategic Air Command here after World War II made Omaha home to one of the world’s most advanced and secure phone systems. That endowed the region with engineers and workers who could also apply their knowledge to local public service. So we _had_ to protect Nebraska! It was the heart and soul of the American telemarketing industry, which was incidentally wired right into our nuclear deterrent! ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2017, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186/212 "2017-10-03T02:20:13Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > My personal feeling is that kneeling in silence is actually pretty respectful form of protest, and for anyone to get apoplexy over it says more about person demanding standing, suspending, and firing than the people kneeling. You can love your flag, your anthem, and your nation while also criticizing its failings or calling attention to things that should be changed in that nation. Demanding lockstep conformation is to promote form over substance, and is something I’d expect more in North Korea or the old USSR than from the United States. Like walling off a border? Or making the White House staff and cabinet sing the President’s praises? Trump is a wannabe Grand Poobah, without even the communist pretensions of a Stalin. I don’t think these protests were even about Trump; but he’s such an egomaniac, he’s injected both himself and his hostility toward the rights of labor, into this now. And it sounds like that’s what his end of it is about: the right to fire someone for any reason, regardless of a union contract. By making it about that, he’s got a lot more players kneeling. Trump isn’t just a racist; he’s an anti-labor politician, and don’t forget it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-pretty-lame-protest-if-no-one-gets-upset/797186.md?page=10)