What makes you think this? Has anybody ever said this to you?
Do you walk up to a guy in a pickup truck and ask him why the flag? Does he respond “Well, I like America more than you, Commie!”
Seriously. You’re projecting.
I didn’t give any money to cancer research this year. If I see someone with a cure cancer sticker on thier car I think. “Hey, that’s nice. They probably donated money or did a walk for cancer or something.” It wouldn’t even occur to me to think that they are sticking it in my face that they did more than me to cure cancer and I should be insulted by it. That would be nuts, right?
If you see somebody with a flag on their car and the words “I love America more than those fucking Democrat traitors.” Then I’m with you. I’d join you in mocking the dumbfuck who puts that on thier car. But, if it’s just a flag. It really isn’t about you. Sorry.
Gotcha again. Well, feel free to be annoyed, then. Og knows I’m occasionally annoyed by random things myself. Although I can’t think of anything I see people wearing that really annoys me…
Ain’t HDTV neat, though? The thing I notice is the wrinkles on all the actresses my age whom I had previously thought (before I had HDTV) were so much more well-preserved than I am. I love HDTV!
Has anyone said those words to me personally? No. Has the attitude been expressed? Certainly, but since you weren’t there at the time I don’t know that I can convince you of that. I don’t think that everyone who displays a flag does so with the “I love America better than you do” mindset but I do believe that some of them do. Again, you weren’t there so I don’t know that I’ll convince you so if you want to think I’m projecting then so be it.
Seriously, it’s in the top ten. In fact it’s pretty much number one. Not the lapel pins specifically but the whole overly patriotic thing. Name one other country where anywhere near that amount of citizens regularly wear their national flag on a daily basis (during sporting events etc excluded).
Just to be clear, i ain’t anti-American myself but i do think your country has one seriously huge PR/image problem and this kinda shit is a big part of it. Of course having the world’s most incredibly stupid politician as prez really hasn’t helped much.
Actually, i’m interested now. I posted this because there seemed to be so much disagreement with the OP. You guys do know this is a problem don’t you?
A problem for whom? Otto’s post is sarcastic, but accurate nonetheless. If I wore head-to-toe red white and blue every day of my life, I truly wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if the entire world (including other Americans) thought it was overly patriotic, gauche, and tiresome. A problem for you is not necessarily a problem for me. And your opinion to the contrary, I will continue to assume that most people from outside the U.S. are far more concerned with matters of foreign policy and economics than they are with matters of fashion. Not incidentally, they have a lot more sound basis to complain about the former, seeing as how it affects them, than they do about the latter, which doesn’t.
Some people just don’t feel the kind of connection to their homeland as you do. Personally, I don’t feel particularly connected to any one country as being “my home” that I’d be proud of. I’m just not patriotic. Then again, I’m not very religious either.
I don’t really care if one wears a flag pin as long as they’re not trying to patronize me while doing so. (I’ve had people sneer at me “missing something” on certain national holidays because I wasn’t dressed as a tacky reproduction of the flat. I wouldn’t say it’s common, but it does happen.) Besides, it’s nobody’s business why I wear or don’t wear something.
That’s the number one problem? Worse than, say, our unprovoked war of agression on a weaker nation? Or our high-handed foreign policies? Or our history of supporting dictators who would put American interests above the lives of their own people? It’s not the damage dealt to the enviroment by our affluent lifestyles, which is wholly disporportionate to the size of our population? Or our almost total disinterest in the long term effects of said damage? The number one problem people in other nations have with the US is that we have too many flags?
It isn’t a problem for me at all. Why should i care? I’m simply pointing out that your screaming patriotism is taken by the rest of the world as arrogance, the standard ‘we’re the greatest nation on earth’ bullshit. Again, i repeat, i’m not anti-american, but i understand the way the rest of the world see you guys and this in my opinion is one of the most significant reasons why. If you don’t think behaviour that makes the rest of the world hate you and want to inflict acts of terrorism on your innocent people then fair enough, ignore my comments.
I did realise that posting this view in a thread dominated by Americans was never going to be popular, but i thought SDMB posters to be big enough to take the comments in the spirit intended.
And if you think my point had anything to do with fashion you are missing it entirely. Also, if you really believe that the vasy majority of the people recruited into terrorism understand your foreign policy and econimics you are kidding yourself. To the average schmoe on the street, image is everything.
I don’t think anyone has failed to take your comments in the spirit intended; I think people think your comments are stupid. Displays of “screaming patriotsim” like wearing a small flag pin in the lapel – which is, after all, the subject of this thread – have fuck-all to do with why some people hate America and Americans. If you want to talk about larger issues of national arrogance like, say, starting wars and ignoring international opinion, fine. But that’s not what you said. You said “Those lapel pins are probably on the top 10 list of reasons why the rest of the world hates America.” How you got from lapel pins to “screaming patriotism [taken as] arrogance” is beyond me.
But since you have given me leave to ignore your comments if I think you’re full of shit, I will take your advice and do so.
Oh, right. It’s not the troops on Saudi soil; it’s the lapel pins. I think that’s covered at great length in the madrasas. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=rocksolid]
And how much do you think your average American knows about these things?
[QUOTE]
More than you do, apparently. I don’t believe I am missing your point, which seems to be that aggravation about perceived arrogance, as demonstrated by such minor things as how Americans dress, causes terrorists to blow us up. Disagreeing with your point – indeed, thinking that your point is moronic – doesn’t mean we haven’t understood it.
I believe that it’s not so much the flags in a literal, physical sense but what they represent - an unwavering, outward and guilt-free display of heart-felt jingoism that may be complicit in the other infractions you mentioned. That’s not to say that everybody who flies the Stars and Stripes in their yard would support aggressive foreign policy or what have you, but it would make sense to correlate strong patriotism with an isolationist, ‘we always do the right thing’ stance.
I do look at American patriotism with beard-stroking curiosity, it’s just so…American. I mean, the flag has to be one of the best designs ever; the bald eagle - an outstandingly marketable symbol; the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, etc. - it’s all there and it’s fresh, refined and full of youthful zeal. From where I sit, the UK is the envious grandfather to the United States’ restless teenager (who’s perhaps a little shortsighted but enjoying his time in the limelight, nonetheless).
Truly, a fascinating country. I’d love to revisit as an adult. And get me some hot American babe lovin’.
The problem with this view is that displays of “love of country” are, like so many things, on a continuum, and that continuum doesn’t start and stop with “jingoism.” A small display of patriotism of the lapel pin variety can only be associated with jingoism if any display, no matter how small is a display of jingoism. This is IMO where, if Americans are guilty of going too far in one direction, Europeans tend to go too far in the other. It’s like there simply cannot be any such thing as patriotism at all, that you cannot in fact both love your country and not love some of the things your country does. Or, at least, if you feel it, you wouldn’t want to say it or show it. This attitude is as puzzling to many Americans as overt patriotism is puzzling to many Europeans. Many Americans – heck, probably most Americans – do, honest to God, believe they live in the best country on earth. Is that attitude potentially annoying when displayed before our “older” international brethren? Probably. Does it make people want to blow us up? No. I’m not saying people don’t want to blow us up, but that isn’t why.
I stand for the national anthem. I fly an American flag outside my house on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Though those displays may indeed by unwavering, outward, and guilty-free, they aren’t necessarily jingoistic. I think to a certain extent, people see what they want to see in such gestures.
I was going to put ‘for want of a better word’ in parentheses after ‘jingoism’. I didn’t want to overuse ‘patriotism’, and was hoping a more liberal definition of jingoism could be applied in this case. Tis a minefield, this game of words.
This is coming from a guy who for years as a civilian wore a US flag patch on the sleeve of his shirt, so please take the following as you find it.
When I was in Europe in March of 2002 I snapped some shots of a few Americans touring the Arc de Triomphe. At the time I thought it was pretty funny and conspicuous for them to wear street-bought county-fair-style ponchos complete with a stylized Eiffel Tower and a big-ass cursive “Paris” underneath. I was disguised as usual as a tourist from Québec.
Later on in the trip when I showed the pics to my cousin in Chatham, he said almost the exact thing as rocksolid: “That’s why they hate you, mate.”
Something welled up in me. I knew I was being defensive but I still said “they hate us because some of us buy street shit in Paris?” And he sez “it rains everywhere. Only a Yank would think that it doesn’t.”
It doesn’t mean Europeans aren’t total wankers, because by and large they are. It just means they had better History lessons than us.
But see, emotions I can understand in this situation include amusement, puzzlement, exasperation, maybe even contempt. But hatred? I don’t get it. And if people think such piddly shit is worthy of hatred, I really don’t see that as my problem as opposed to theirs, even if I’m wearing the ugliest poncho the world’s ever seen.