America, Fuck Yeah

[Patooka]

So no child is ever pressured into pledging allegiance? They all just spontaneously decide that it's something they want to do?

Help me out here. Are you saying nobody in the Australian government ever pressures a citizen to do something even though the law doesn't require him to do it? Or are you saying Australia is a totalitarian dictatorship too?

That's a pretty big leap. You might want to explain how you got to that conclusion. "The Australian government doesn't pressure its citizens therefore it is a totalitarian dictatorship." You're gonna have to walk me through that.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

So no child is ever pressured into pledging allegiance? They all just spontaneously decide that it's something they want to do?

Help me out here. Are you saying nobody in the Australian government ever pressures a citizen to do something even though the law doesn't require him to do it? Or are you saying Australia is a totalitarian dictatorship too?

That's a pretty big leap. You might want to explain how you got to that conclusion. "The Australian government doesn't pressure its citizens therefore it is a totalitarian dictatorship." You're gonna have to walk me through that.

He's not saying any of the sort. He is making an argument against bilby's argument against the US, while making no claims about Australia.

 

[Valjean]

This reverence for symbols over that symbolized is a dangerous pathology and an imposition on freedom of conscience. Compulsory opinions, loyalties, worship or reverence -- for a flag, country, religion, Prophet, book or Leader is tyranny.

 

[J842P]

Burning EU and other flags can now bring German jail term

Germany has made public burning of the EU flag or that of another country punishable by up to three years in jail, classing it as a hate crime.

The vote in the Bundestag (parliament) on Thursday makes defiling foreign flags equal to the crime of defiling the German flag.

The same applies for the EU anthem, Beethoven's Ode to Joy theme.

The act of defiling the Union Flag in the UK is not a crime, but France has made desecration of the tricolour punishable by a fine of up to €7,500 (£6,600; $8,000) or six months in jail.

Spain, Italy and Greece also have laws banning desecration of the national flag.

It's bewildering to me that countries considered part of the "free world" could be so, well, not free. The very notion that a person could face government penalty for saying something or destroying their own property is incomprehensible to this American.

Yes, the Germans are inherently anti-liberal. They are well known to highly value order. Not sure why anyone would find this surprising.

Austrians, on a whole, are a much cooler sort.

 

[J842P]

American school children are required to pledge allegiance to their nation and its flag.

That's some serious totalitarian dictatorship shit right there. Americans have no clue just how little freedom they have - a fact that unites them with the people of their President's favourite foreign nation, North Korea.

America? Fuck off!

Nah, you aren't required. But it is some banana republic shit, I'll grant you. Yet another terrible vestige of the lunacy that was the Cold War.

 

[bilby]

So no child is ever pressured into pledging allegiance? They all just spontaneously decide that it's something they want to do?

Help me out here. Are you saying nobody in the Australian government ever pressures a citizen to do something even though the law doesn't require him to do it? Or are you saying Australia is a totalitarian dictatorship too?

I'm saying neither of those things.

I am saying that one very good indicator of a country that is a totalitarian dictatorship is that its citizens routinely and publicly pledge their allegiance to it. And that pledges of allegiance are not a feature of a free society.

 

[Bomb#20]

So no child is ever pressured into pledging allegiance? They all just spontaneously decide that it's something they want to do?

Help me out here. Are you saying nobody in the Australian government ever pressures a citizen to do something even though the law doesn't require him to do it? Or are you saying Australia is a totalitarian dictatorship too?

I'm saying neither of those things.

I know; I was being sarcastic.

I am saying that one very good indicator of a country that is a totalitarian dictatorship is that its citizens routinely and publicly pledge their allegiance to it. And that pledges of allegiance are not a feature of a free society.

So by not requiring, but merely pressuring, children to do what actual totalitarian dictatorships require them to do, America has some serious totalitarian dictatorship stuff right there. Got it. But Australia, I take it, doesn't count as having some serious totalitarian dictatorship stuff right there, because the extra-legal pressure Australia's officers put on citizens is to do stuff other than publicly pledge their allegiance to it, yes? Well then, what sort of stuff is it that Australia's officers pressure citizens to do, when they want to get out of having to respect their countrymen's legal rights?

(By way of example, America's officers don't pressure citizens only not to exercise our legal right not to pledge allegiance; they also pressure us not to exercise our legal right to judge the law as well as the facts when we're on a jury. It seems to me that that one is a hell of a lot better grounds for crying "totalitarian dictatorship" than some dumb pledge symbolism. Do Australia's officers do any pressuring as execrable as that?)

 

[ZiprHead]

Germany arrests its citizens for Facebook posts. That doesn't happen in the US. And the US is hardly getting rid of Magna Carta - no one is saying we do away with jury trials.

Tesh allegedly communicated through a social media messenger with an acquaintance, making threats to kill Whitmer and Nessel on April 14. Later that day, the Detroit Police Department arrested Tesh at his home in Detroit, the release said.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2020/05/15/detroit-man-arrested-after-allegedly-threatening-whitmer-nessel/5199169002/

 

[laughing dog]

No, because there are magnitudes of difference between the two situations.

The magnitude of the difference is the point. It is indeed far worse for a country to outlaw homosexuality than to outlaw flag-burning. You have no trouble recognising that criticism of the outlawing of homosexuality is warranted. You wouldn't dismiss it as a nothingburger as you did in your post. For the same reason, you ought not dismiss the criticism of the outlawing of flag-burning. The difference is only magnitude.

First, I did not dismiss anything or call it a nothing burger, so please read more carefully to avoid these straw men. Second, if the magnitude of the difference is the point, then one can clearly think the higher order offense is more important then the lower order one.

This appears to me a strange value to hold. The fact that you live in a country that once had slavery does not mean you cannot criticise the slavery of other countries.

Indeed, even if America had flag-burning to be illegal right now does not somehow make criticism of Germany's flag-burning prohibition less valid (unless you yourself legislated to make flag-burning illegal in America).

If you read Trausti’s criticism, it ends with “The very notion that a person could face government penalty for saying something or destroying their own property is incomprehensible to this American.” My point was and is that US citizens really have no moral superiority in this issue, especially when the President(whom Trausti supports) uses his bully pulpit to call for punishment for a person who expressed his freedom of speech by kneeling during our national anthem.

 

[bilby]

I'm saying neither of those things.

I know; I was being sarcastic.

I am saying that one very good indicator of a country that is a totalitarian dictatorship is that its citizens routinely and publicly pledge their allegiance to it. And that pledges of allegiance are not a feature of a free society.

So by not requiring, but merely pressuring, children to do what actual totalitarian dictatorships require them to do, America has some serious totalitarian dictatorship stuff right there. Got it. But Australia, I take it, doesn't count as having some serious totalitarian dictatorship stuff right there, because the extra-legal pressure Australia's officers put on citizens is to do stuff other than publicly pledge their allegiance to it, yes? Well then, what sort of stuff is it that Australia's officers pressure citizens to do, when they want to get out of having to respect their countrymen's legal rights?

(By way of example, America's officers don't pressure citizens only not to exercise our legal right not to pledge allegiance; they also pressure us not to exercise our legal right to judge the law as well as the facts when we're on a jury. It seems to me that that one is a hell of a lot better grounds for crying "totalitarian dictatorship" than some dumb pledge symbolism. Do Australia's officers do any pressuring as execrable as that?)

What Australia does or doesn't do is irrelevant to the question of whether what the US does is good, bad, or indifferent.

The OP suggests that the US stands as an example of freedom, in contrast to that of Germany. This is nonsense - both nations have serious problems with authoritarianism in some areas; While neither is an example of the most extreme authoritarianism in the world today. Both are pretty free by international standards, and are incredibly free by historical ones.

America is nothing special in this context. Nor, irrelevantly, is Australia. Why you would imagine that I might leap to defend Australia I don't know - perhaps you assume that I am a blindly patriotic tribalist and can be goaded into emotionalism by criticism of my home nation by foreigners. If so, you are mistaken.

Australia's history as a penal colony has left us a legacy of authoritarianism that survives to this day. So does America's (and her history as a major slaving nation adds to that) - but many Americans love to pretend that it ain't so. Pointing out that that's an error cannot be refuted by whataboutism.

 

[Bomb#20]

What Australia does or doesn't do is irrelevant to the question of whether what the US does is good, bad, or indifferent. ... Nor, irrelevantly, is Australia. Why you would imagine that I might leap to defend Australia I don't know - perhaps you assume that I am a blindly patriotic tribalist and can be goaded into emotionalism by criticism of my home nation by foreigners. If so, you are mistaken.

You missed my point in bringing up Australia. My fault for not explaining myself, I guess. I wasn't goading you into emotionalism and had no notion that you would leap to defend Australia; you're obviously no patriot. No, this is about perspective. You appear to have ridiculous notions of America, presumably due to not having lived here. So I tried to draw your attention to the fact that the U.S. is very much like Australia; and I expected your familiarity with Australia to make it obvious to you that comparing Australia with North Korea would be ludicrous.

The OP suggests that the US stands as an example of freedom, in contrast to that of Germany. This is nonsense - both nations have serious problems with authoritarianism in some areas; While neither is an example of the most extreme authoritarianism in the world today. Both are pretty free by international standards, and are incredibly free by historical ones.

America is nothing special in this context.

Every country in the free world is pretty free by international standards, incredibly free by historical ones, and AFAIK has serious problems with authoritarianism in some areas. In that sense America is nothing special, true. But that's hardly a reason not to compare free world countries with one another and point out areas where one is doing better than another; and maybe, when you add up all the areas, even imperfect America might still turn out to still be something special. So if you object to an overall characterization of one as freer than another because there are some areas where it's less free, then (a) that's hardly grounds for ridiculously overblown rhetoric about totalitarian dictatorship, and (b) oh for the love of god at least come up with an example of Germany being freer than America that isn't as perspective-challenged as offering pressuring children to recite the pledge as a counter to putting people in jail for desecrating a flag.