FOURTH OF JULY

[Mousefire]

As long as you have that avatar, I will be reading your posts in Bandit Keith's voice...IN AMERICA!

I meant for it to be like that... IN AMERICA!

[BEST TRYNDAMERE PLAYER]

Fuck.

[Integrity]

how can you talk so freely about America after talking about the tour of France just yesterday?

Because we keep winning.

EDIT: well, 'cept Contador but he's a jerk anyway.

Edited July 4, 2010 by Integrity

[peener weener]

HAPPY AMERICAN DANMAKU DAY

LOL.

[Defeatist Elitist]

Oh... Well, that's actually a much more complicated explanation... Although it mostly boils down to politicians need to leave waging war to our generals and stay the fuck out of the way.

They haven't learned their lesson either since they're giving the military a bunch of shit in Afghanistan today...

More like due to media coverage and guerrilla warfare. The American defeat in Vietnam was practically an inevitability. It wasn't really due to politicians interfering, unless by that you mean politicians going "oh shit this looks bad, uh guys, maybe this wasn't such a great idea should we stop?"

[Parrhesia]

On the Fourth of July 1806 we set sail from the sweet cove of Cork

We were sailing away with a cargo of bricks for the grand City Hall in New York

'twas a wonderful craft, she was rigged for and aft and oh, how the wild wind drove her

She stood several blasts, she had twenty-seven masts and they called her the Irish Rover

We had one million bags of the best Sligo rags, we had two million barrels of stone

We had three million sides of old blind horses hides, we had four million barrels of bones

We had five million hogs, and six million dogs, seven million barrels of porter

We had eight million bails of old nanny-goats' tails in the hold of the Irish Rover

There was awl Mickey Coote who played hard on his flute when the ladies lined up for a set

He was tootlin' with skill for each sparkling quadrille, though the dancers were fluther'd and bet

With his smart witty talk, he was cock of the walk and he rolled the dames under and over

They all knew at a glance when he took up his stance that he sailed in the Irish Rover

There was Barney McGee from the banks of the Lee, there was Hogan from County Tyrone

There was Johnny McGurk who was scared stiff of work and a man from Westmeath called Malone

There was Slugger O'Toole who was drunk as a rule and Fighting Bill Treacy from Dover

And your man, Mike McCann from the banks of the Bann was the skipper on the Irish Rover

For a sailor it`s a bother of life, it`s so lonesome by night and by day

When he longs for the shore and a charming young whore who will melt all his troubles away

All the noise and the rout swillin` poitin and stout, for him soon is done and over

Of the love of a maid he is never afraid, that ould salt from the Irish rover

We had sailed seven years when the measles broke out and the ship lost it's way in the fog

And that whale of a crew was reduced down to two, just meself and the Captain's old dog

Then the ship struck a rock, Oh Lord! what a shock, the bulkhead was turned right over

Turned nine times around and the poor old dog was drowned, I`m the last of the Irish Rover

[Inactive Account]

~wanders into topic~

So this is my first July 4 as an official Disenchanted Angry Possibly Communist College Student (also known as a Damn Hippie) and it was... pretty lame. I don't even like hot dogs. People are blowing shit up outside my house. What the hell.

[Fayt Zelpher]

So this is my first July 4 as an official Disenchanted Angry Possibly Communist College Student (also known as a Damn Hippie)

You too? I thought I was the only one.

[Inactive Account]

It's also awkward because I spent it, as always, with my mom's family. Who are all varying degrees of conservative.

The US does a lot of things right (or rather, better than other countries), and I'm pretty glad of some of them, but it also does a lot of things wrong, and I don't think we should afford the sort of worship that seems to go on on the 4th to a political institution.

(And it kind of pisses me off when they want to have all the hymns be "God Bless America" and the like in church on the 4th, too. After (at least in my church's case) preaching all the rest of the year that God doesn't care what country you're from. Separation of church and state doesn't only go the one direction in my book.)

[/rant]

I was pretty quiet during the festivities, to say the least. No use getting myself disowned.

[Altera the Hun]

More like due to media coverage and guerrilla warfare. The American defeat in Vietnam was practically an inevitability. It wasn't really due to politicians interfering, unless by that you mean politicians going "oh shit this looks bad, uh guys, maybe this wasn't such a great idea should we stop?"

Bullshit. The exact same thing is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we're handling it far better than in Vietnam. Both get a crapload of negative media from anyone NOT Fox News when the slightest bad thing happens (American mortality rate is historically low in both wars, yet people still bitch about it) and the terrorists use a crapload of Guerilla Warfare. The difference is that Petraeus and McChrystal are a shitload more competent commanders and Congress doesn't want to fuck with Petraeus, who's now in command in both countries and is telling them to take their ridiculously overbearing rules of engagement and shove them up their asses.

[Defeatist Elitist]

Bullshit. The exact same thing is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we're handling it far better than in Vietnam. Both get a crapload of negative media from anyone NOT Fox News when the slightest bad thing happens (American mortality rate is historically low in both wars, yet people still bitch about it) and the terrorists use a crapload of Guerilla Warfare. The difference is that Petraeus and McChrystal are a shitload more competent commanders and Congress doesn't want to fuck with Petraeus, who's now in command in both countries and is telling them to take their ridiculously overbearing rules of engagement and shove them up their asses.

Ah yes, except the whole thing about how there is far less negative press because of embedded journalists, how this time they're not just killing people indiscriminately, and this time the guerrillas are less competent. Over 50,000 American Soldiers died in Vietnam, and less than 4500 have died in Iraq. The death rate in Vietnam was one of the many factors involved in the huge discontent of the time.

I mean, in a way you are right. It was due in many ways to the incompetence of the US commanders that casualties were so high (it was also due to the North Vietnamese being far better trained and more capable than extremists in Iraq or Afghanistan). It was also due to political pressure and the social situation that the troops were withdrawn. I just think it would be somewhat inaccurate to state that the reason America lost was because of political intervention, because there were many reasons, and I don't really think that was so much of a cause as a result or response.

Edited July 5, 2010 by Dark Elves Suck

[Strawman]

The United States of America is terrible. I greatly dislike it here. Mostly because of the people.

But I do like fireworks!

[Parrhesia]

~wanders into topic~

So this is my first July 4 as an official Disenchanted Angry Possibly Communist College Student (also known as a Damn Hippie) and it was... pretty lame. I don't even like hot dogs. People are blowing shit up outside my house. What the hell.

You too? I thought I was the only one.

Next year I'll be in what the ACT persists in calling College (really it's for two years, the step before university), so I guess that'll make three of us.

[Oblivion Knight]

Ugh, fourth of July wasn't anything special, the neighbors just decided to send of fireworks that sounded like gun shots,(probably why I heard police sirens), my ears still hurt from hearing so many and they stopped 4 hours ago, it being 4 am now. Argh, I understand patriotism, but why to they have to launch firecrackers long into the night messing up working citizen's sleeping schedules on work nights?

[Integrity]

There weren't any fireworks here. We had a really quiet 4th. So I slept instead. :o

There WERE fireworks for The Shared Night of the Third and Fourth, though.