Footy hooligans know deep down what the rest of us miss: those “innocent bystanders” would be drinking our beer and shagging our women if we weren’t putting them in the hospital. Those pesky dagos and krauts need to be taught a lesson before they try anything, see?
Weirddave, I take no offense at your post to me at all. I will explain my line of thought and then please be specific about where I am wrong. I am willing to be corrected.
First, jjimm posted this in response to you:
I interpreted this to mean that jjimm was saying that we (Americans) were sitting on our assess until D-Day. I was pointing out that we were involved in a war in the Pacific after the end of 1941. I said that it was a “more dangerous” war to our troops because 1) the number of those lost to the war in the Pacific was greater and 2) the POW camps were more brutal and deadly.
I still don’t see that any of those facts needed to be double checked before posting. I made no other claims beyond these obvious ones.
Perhaps I should have made my point, simple as it was, clearer.
Your response:
I am totally ignorant of any attacks by Hitler on Brazil!! But even if that were so, that had nothing to do with anything that I addressed.
Okay. Let me have it! What did I say wrong?
Addressing another issue: I love Europeans! I especially like Danes. And while I lived with a Danish family, they actually had people from Greenland to dinner and let them eat at the same table with them. 
In 1972 I spent the Christmas holidays in Odense, Denmark. The United States had started bombing North Vietnam but my Danish “family” had kept the news from me so that it would not spoil my visit.
On New Year’s Eve I went to a party of young Danes who were friends of my sweetheart. They had never met me before and I was afraid that they wouldn’t like Americans because of the war. But they stood around the table and raised their glasses to me and sang We Shall Overcome in English.
One doesn’t forget such kindness.
I apologise if I’m misreading but jjimm mentioned Dunkirk and you talk about D-Day. Does the only thing Dunkirk means to you is that it has a capital D at the front?
4 years before D-Day and 1 and a half before Pearl over 300,000 soldiers having been pushed to the French coast by German Blitzkrieg tactics.They sat on the beaches and waited for death/capture/rescue. They were rescued by Navy and private boats(many of which were crewed by civilians) in an amazingly brave and lucky action. This action saved the soldiers that the UK needed to survive in their fight against the 3rd Reich.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/765004.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/dunkirk/default.stm
Thank you, yojimbo, that is exactly what I was referring to. UK forces were also in action in WWI well before the US helped us.
LC already answered adequately, but I’ll just add that we’re no longer sore over the rape/pillage/Danegeld business… not since the boy Horatio came and royally kicked your arse. 
Yeah that Horatio fellow was a cheating bastard alright; took our pretty ships. And we can still see the result from your cowardly bombardments on some of our buildings here in Copenhagen. Of course I have to go down town to see it. All you need do is take a hard look in the mirror – you’ll probably see some traits gratefully left by your Viking overlords having their way with the fair maidens of England.
And oh, mascaroni. It’s the glorious Danes that make those sandwiches and they’re called smørebrød. That was a pretty stupid mistake - you sure you’re not American?
- Rune
Oddly, I look more Mediterranean than Viking. Dark hair, brown eyes, face that tans deeply in a warm summer - I remember being called a “wog” back in 1976, a slightly surreal experience for someone with four English grandparents… But my mother’s side of the family was Lincolnshire, bang in the middle of the Danelaw, so I shouldn’t wonder in the least if I had some hairybreeked pirate somewhere in the family tree.
Good thing too, because that part was a joke. 
Yojimbo answered the rest pretty well.
yojimbo: You are misinterpreting my statement. (No problem for me.) When jjimm said that we sat on our asses until we finally decided to help them out, I assumed that he was talking about the Allied invasion – which is generally considered the point at which Americans entered the actual combat in Europe. If I am mistaken about that, please correct me!
That had nothing to do with Dunkirk which also started with a D. Just a coincidence. Yes, I know about Dunkirk. Even some of us not as well-schooled in history have seen Mrs. Miniver.
Maybe jjimm is the one to explain at what point he thought we were sitting on our asses and at what point we got off of our asses – since all I was doing was trying to interpret what he was talking about when he used that expression.
jjimm, During Dunkirk, Americans were not at war anywhere. If you want to describe that as “sitting on our asses,” okay. (shrug) December 1941 – Americans were at war = off their asses. June 1944 = Allied invasion in France included U.S.
Weirddave: Then both you and yoyimbo and jjimm misunderstood my post. Why would any of you think that I would confuse D-Day with Dunkirk?
At any rate, thank God you were joking about Hitler and Brazil. It is wicked to make an old woman think she has senile dementia.
Zoe,
Americans did not fight the Axis powers prior to Dec 7, 1941, it is true ( formally that is, ever hear of the Flying Tigers? Volunteers fought with the UK also), but there was a whole lot of war in Europe between Pearl Harbor and D-day. American troops took part in the invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy, while thousands and thousands of airmen died to keep up “round the clock” bombing against Germany, even though Britain steadfastly maintained that “it couldn’t be done”. Well, we bloody well did it, and “bloody” is the operative word here, suffering horendous losses of bombers while waiting for fighter technology to catch up and provide point to point escorts for the “big friends”. Merchant marine seamen and countless “tin can” sailors bore the brunt of Germany’s ferocious U-boat wolf pack attacks, dying in wholesale lots to keep vital war supplies flowing to Great Britain. Saying that D-day was the point when American forces entered the war in Europe is not only completely, 100% wrong, it does a tremendous diservice to the tens of thousands of Americans who died in Europe prior to D-day.
Weirddave, on the day that I was born (July 14, 1943) we were quite literally saving the asses of the British 8th: George Patton and the 7th had been told to cover their flanks in Sicily. I had known that at one time and forgotten.
None of my history classes even touched on WWII.
It is a tremendous disservice only if I am unwilling to be corrected or to learn something new.
Well OK.
This entire argument began with my offhand clarification to an offhand remark of Weirddave’s that “Without the Yanks [the English] never get off their island”.
Which clearly isn’t true, since the Brits (not just the English) were fighting in Europe in both World Wars long before the US committed land-based troops there. In our minds, WWII started in 1939, and WWI started in 1914. I do not denigrate the sacrifices that the US or its soldiers made on our behalf (and the behalf of fighting tyranny) before then, nor (as I said originally) when saving our asses.
Does that clarify things sufficiently?
I got advice for you:
Stop being such a pussy, and quit complaining.
If you really care what Europeans think, then either go and talk to them and show them by example of go whine somewhere else. Something tells me you were offended by Janet Jackson’s boob. The best thing about Euopeans is they aren’t afraid to tell you the truth. That’s a damn good quality sometimes.
In America you can sue someone for even looking at you the wrong fucking way. I don’t know how America got to be the land of personal responsibility by its own acclaimation because if you go to Europe people actually don’t seem to blame everyone for their own misfortunes.
Chances are that if you managed to find your way to the SMDB and have racked up as many posts, then you probably aren’t in the included group of unthinking masses. Now use that noggin to realize that it is probably true for everyone else there too.
Only coda I would add is that I was talking post 1940, in that context my “wouldn’t get off the island” remark is true, however I was vague enough with my original statement that jjimm’s correction is a fair (if annoyingly pedantic-“Hey, we colonized America, we were off our island then!”) one.
Sense of humor, bah. I think the OP is right on.
There are certain accepted conventions in humor, among which is that one is allowed more lattitude in joking about one’s own group than about other groups. Erasticity, imo, crosses that line by having it as a sig. It’d be fine if he mentioned the Mencken attribution in the proper context of a specific post, but to have it under every single post he does is uncalled for.
I mean, look at the result! Yet another reference to Hitler.
So…um…why’d you bump this, SoP?
Only because I was scrolling through a search I had done on a completely different subject…I forgot I was not in a forum… i feel very small and dumb…sorry everyone
Let’s close this puppy down, then.