Job centre evicts Jedi knight

[Darth Wong]

I don't have to because it would be a positive assertion on your part that the US is typical. The US being typical or representative is an underlying assumption to your whole point which means you must prove it not that I must disprove it. You made the assumption and I challenged you to prove it.

OK fine, you win. The United States is the fucking neurotic head-case of the First World. It obviously has severe mental and psychological difficulties as a general population which are massively unrepresentative of the First World in general, and since the United States is the First World's official nutjob, I should not have acted as if its monstrously bizarre behaviour is in any way indicative of western culture. Happy now?

[Questor]

I don't have to because it would be a positive assertion on your part that the US is typical. The US being typical or representative is an underlying assumption to your whole point which means you must prove it not that I must disprove it. You made the assumption and I challenged you to prove it.

OK fine, you win. The United States is the fucking neurotic head-case of the First World. It obviously has severe mental and psychological difficulties as a general population which are massively unrepresentative of the First World in general, and since the United States is the First World's official nutjob, I should not have acted as if its monstrously bizarre behaviour is in any way indicative of western culture. Happy now?

You know, speaking as an American, I'd like to point out that we ARE in a lot of ways the fucking neurotic junkyard dog head-case of the the first world. We can't even get most of the population to agree on statements like:

People should not die because they can't afford basic medications.

People should not starve to death in the middle of one of the most plentiful food producing nations in the world.

Editing textbooks to promote political/religious agendas, rather than to promote student learning, is bad.

Those are just three things that are strange about the US when compared with the rest of the so called first world. I do find this strange to be an argument here, as this seems to be taken as an article of faith in the rest of the board.

Even if we were to grant that the UK has a national obsession with Star Wars (something I'm not willing to agree with) you have to ask how that national peculiarity even gets above the noise floor when you have the spikes of weirdness that are the US national obsessions. We can start with people who go out to an outdoor stadium in freezing weather dressed only in jeans and body paint.

EDIT: This is not addressed to Mike so much as the people who might show up and argue with the "neurotic" comment.

EDIT AGAIN: Not to mention the whole "american = US" thing that I did without thinking in that post. How's that for hypocrisy?

[CmdrWilkens]

I don't have to because it would be a positive assertion on your part that the US is typical. The US being typical or representative is an underlying assumption to your whole point which means you must prove it not that I must disprove it. You made the assumption and I challenged you to prove it.

OK fine, you win. The United States is the fucking neurotic head-case of the First World. It obviously has severe mental and psychological difficulties as a general population which are massively unrepresentative of the First World in general, and since the United States is the First World's official nutjob, I should not have acted as if its monstrously bizarre behaviour is in any way indicative of western culture. Happy now?

Thank you for, therefore, also conceding that your first post was nothing more than America Bashing.

[Coyote]

In a country where Sarah Fucking Palin is seen as a serious political contender, people have to ask if we're not fucked up over here? WTF are people smoking?

But then there was Erich Haider and Jean LePen. To name a couple off the top of my head.

[Darth Wong]

I don't have to because it would be a positive assertion on your part that the US is typical. The US being typical or representative is an underlying assumption to your whole point which means you must prove it not that I must disprove it. You made the assumption and I challenged you to prove it.

OK fine, you win. The United States is the fucking neurotic head-case of the First World. It obviously has severe mental and psychological difficulties as a general population which are massively unrepresentative of the First World in general, and since the United States is the First World's official nutjob, I should not have acted as if its monstrously bizarre behaviour is in any way indicative of western culture. Happy now?

Thank you for, therefore, also conceding that your first post was nothing more than America Bashing.

Oooh, the mighty America Warrior triumphs again! See the glory, as he has finally proven that my response to a post making fun of Britain was to .. make fun of America! How uncalled-for! How could I do such a terrible thing? What righteous fury hath I called up for my dastardly deed!!!!!

Seriously, get the fuck over yourself. Frankly, I was doing both. CC was making fun of Britain for what he views as a cultural oddity which is pretty insignificant as western cultural oddities go, and I responded by showing that if there's a country with some real fucking cultural oddities, it's yours.

Oooh, so CC took a shot at Britain and I responded with some shots at America which, quite frankly, has a lot more to be embarrassed about (and if you can't admit that, then you've obviously covered your eyes and ears with your flag). So you turned the thread into a fucking long angry crusade to find me guilty of ... what, exactly? Tit for tat? Do you think you've embarrassed me somehow by proving that I did a tit for tat? Do you figure that if you catch me saying that I think Americans have spent the last six months proving to the world that they have their heads up their own asses, that I'll back away from that? What, exactly, have you been hoping to accomplish here?

[mr friendly guy]

Wow, this thread was certainly taken a different turn from what I expected after I posted it. But seriously, if Mike disagreed with CC's claim that the UK is culturally odd (for a country which claims to be civilised and "proper") people would be asking for examples, usually in comparison with some other country. He provided examples in the first post but since it was about America people focussed in on the American bashing part. Maybe if he just wrote comparatively to the Anglosphere instead of Western countries the nit pick would stop.

[Sarevok]

I had no idea the Brits were obessed with Star Wars. Is not Star Wars more of an American thing with it being closest to a true national mythology America has got ?

[His Divine Shadow]

I found CCs post to be of a good natured ribbing and I was surprised at the response, well no, I tell a lie, I was not surprised at all.

[CmdrWilkens]

You got on your high horse posting that such national oddities are common (or at least not uncommon) and that was all you were showing. I don't care if you want to go America bashing but you were ducking admitting it earlier in the thread. That is ALL I wanted to accomplish was to get you to stop ducking when you are engaging in bashing the US. If that is what you want to do then fine, its your board go ahead but don't pretend that what you are doing is something else.

[Darth Wong]

You got on your high horse posting that such national oddities are common (or at least not uncommon) and that was all you were showing. I don't care if you want to go America bashing but you were ducking admitting it earlier in the thread. That is ALL I wanted to accomplish was to get you to stop ducking when you are engaging in bashing the US. If that is what you want to do then fine, its your board go ahead but don't pretend that what you are doing is something else.

"High horse"? This from the guy who turned a couple of back-and-forth half-assed nationalist jabs into a witch hunt? Do you honestly not understand how it's possible to simultaneously say both:

1) This Jedi Knight thing is not weird at all, compared to all kinds of stupid bullshit we take for granted in western society.
2) Seriously, anyone from western society's official Psycho Country should not throw stones from his glass house about "weird".

... at the same time? But hey, you obviously think you've scored some tremendous victory here, or at least you must try to convince yourself that you weren't climbing up on some high horse yourself by spending a couple of pages trying to prove that I was doing either #1 or #2 but not both.

[Samuel]

Aren't the Imperial officers all played by British actors? Why would the British be obcessed about a movie where they are a ruthless empire that rules the galaxy with an iron fist?

[Artemas]

Aren't the Imperial officers all played by British actors? Why would the British be obcessed about a movie where they are a ruthless empire that rules the galaxy with an iron fist

Because they miss it?

[Garlak]

Aren't the Imperial officers all played by British actors? Why would the British be obcessed about a movie where they are a ruthless empire that rules the galaxy with an iron fist

Because they miss it?

Okay, but why then focus on the JEDI aspect of the movie?

[SapphireFox]

Okay, but why then focus on the JEDI aspect of the movie?

Because they don't want to be seen as evil ruthless dictators to the masses. However if they are more honest about that then they join the Sith which is also recognised as a religion in England IIRC.