TADA goes crazy over flag at half-staff

[algernonsidney]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384688/The-town-thought-supporting-Bin-Laden-Rope-malfunction-leaves-hotels-flag-flying-half-mast.html

http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/springfield-news/hotels-broken-flagpole-not-meant-to-honor-bin-laden-1153594.html

Sometime on Sunday, a rope in a flagpole broke. This left a flag flying at half-staff outside the Hampton Inn in Springfield, Ohio.

Later that day, Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was dead.

Unfortunately, TADA (Typical American Dumb Ass) was quite upset by the "gesture" of the hotel allegedly mourning the death of bin Laden. The hotel reportedly received dozens of phone calls.

The flag was fixed on Wednesday morning, and the calls finally stopped later that evening. Reportedly, "dozens" of TADA called the hotel over this flag.

Is there any hope for this godforsaken country?

[Greybird]

[...] Is there any hope for this godforsaken country?

Nope.

[IamBalSimon]

There sure seems to be a good deal of defeatism with regards to the Good Ship America. Are you guys just being flip, or have you seriously given up on The Good Ship America?

- Bal

[Greybird]

[...] Is there any hope for this godforsaken country?

Nope.

There sure seems to be a good deal of defeatism with regards to the Good Ship America. Are you guys just being flip, or have you seriously given up on the Good Ship America?

You want some statement that's less "flip"? I'm not sure that anyone asserting a metaphor of a "good ship America" — with collectivist premises of being trapped below decks by "defeatism," and an identification of individuals with "their" government, consensually supported or not — even deserves one. Yet I'll oblige you anyway, because I can't get to sleep yet:

The story cited shows so many of the faults of the mass-man (A.J. Nock's term) mentality, in one convenient news item, as to make it almost impossible to tabulate them. Here are only a few of the items of groupthink.

~ That a private business's choices, whether intended or not, are pertinent to and should be reported to the police.

~ That anything, period, not involving the imminent use of force is any of the business of the police.

~ That a temporal coincidence creates causation, especially in a political sense.

~ That a business's management, knowing the jingoistic (I'm not about to dirty the manager's word, "patriotic") tendencies of those around them, would be so stupid as to deliberately infuriate potential and future customers.

~ That the flag displayed is worthy of exaggerated reverence, to the point of personal trauma at such obeisance allegedly not being given by the hotel management.

~ That every such establishment hangs on the words of "our leaders" with sufficient attention as to avoid even the possibility of inadvertent offense, to the detriment of attention being paid to actually running the business.

All of this is indicative of the unreflective mindset that comes from what at least 90 percent of the residents of that city have experienced, as with everywhere else in this country — the holding pens / prison yards / State-pep-rally venues known as the compulsorily attended government schools.

This anecdote gives ample evidence that the habits of obedience, even to the tattered symbols of authority, are so entrenched as to make it impossible, in any short historical time frame, to modify them. Even to divert such people from supporting imminent personal, privacy, and fiscal disasters from State policies, let alone to rebuild any semblance of respect for genuine individual liberty.

Is there any hope, in the historical near term, to get enough people among the unreflective and the (properly) job- and family-attentive to transcend any of the fallacies listed above? So that they won't indulge in such reflex actions of stupidity?

And so that those running a peaceful private business don't have to add flaming, absurd ignorance to the burdens of the regulatory and taxation Leviathan that already threatens to bankrupt and criminalize their every action?

Only one answer that doesn't end up hopelessly over-optimistic, to the point of being inane or insane or both, is possible to those questions:

Nope.

[Rich Engle]

If you've ever been to Springfield, OH, none of this would surprise you.

"Flip." I've always disliked that word. It is so . . . underpowered.

"Don't be flip with me, young man!"

rde

Not a groovy hep cat.

[IamBalSimon]

Sigh...

While I agree with virtually every "reason" you gave for being disgusted with everyman, there's absolutely nothing new in this. This everyman you so despise is your next door neighbor. This everyman is most everyone in America, INCLUDING those who profess to be "reflective," as though that is some kind of moment-to-moment antidote that gives rise to the superman.

But this everyman, who has been with us since the beginning of this country; nay - who has been with us since the beginning of humanity; this everyman created and continues to create the Good Ship America. (And yes, I will continue to so call her that. And yes, I know I'm objectifying and personifying by using the metaphor "her.")

Name one period in America's history that didn't have everyman as the majority of its population. Name one period or one place in humanity's existence where everyman didn't screw things up. And yet out of the muck from which we come (including you, me, and Ayn Rand), good things have also evolved; one of them being America.

You will not get me to go from your "ifs" to the "then America is done and there is no hope for her to be a good place." This isn't mere patriotism. This is perspective. You are welcome to your dingy, spiteful, holier-than-thou, glass is 99.9999999999999% empty view of the world (or is it only America that you are ticked off about). If this is what makes you happy, who the hell am I to stand in the way of your good time.

I don't expect to convince you. Your business. And God knows that there have been times that I have been unduly pessimistic, that I give up on people that I shouldn't give up on. But even though it's something that will make you snort in derision, even though you will despise me for saying it, I believe America remains too GOOD a place; has been too GOOD a force in the world; has created the conditions - despite everything you correctly bring up as wrong with America - for me to give up on her. I am NOT ready to find or create Shangri La, which in Rand's book was Galt's Gulch. I gladly remain an American. I can think of no other REAL place that I'd rather be.

-------------------------

As for the word "flip." Really? you're going waste your time and mine to come down on me for using a word like that? (sigh)

-------------------------

Maybe, over time, as we cross paths in OL, I'll provide you reasons to drop the so-unnecessary hyper-negativity. I don't have anything invested in doing so; it is NOT my job; it's not even a goal I have. Call it a hope or a preference. I'm willing to hope that someone like me, who REFUSES to give up on America - much like Eddie Willers (or even Dagney Taggert and Hank Rearden for most of Atlas) will give you reasons to reconsider.

If I ever see America truly falling the way she did in Atlas, well, I won't stay on the train in the middle of nowhere. But while there are forces moving us in the direction - we are not there yet. Not by a long shot.

- Bal

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... I believe America remains too GOOD a place; has been too GOOD a force in the world; has created the conditions - despite everything you correctly bring up as wrong with America - for me to give up on her. I am NOT ready to find or create Shangri La, which in Rand's book was Galt's Gulch. I gladly remain an American. I can think of no other REAL place that I'd rather be.

. . .

If I ever see America truly falling the way she did in Atlas, well, I won't stay on the train in the middle of nowhere. But while there are forces moving us in the direction - we are not there yet. Not by a long shot.

Bal,

I like you.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

People are generally too smart to be concerned with things they as individuals cannot control or effect especially when their time could be spent in personally productive pursuits. Right now we are living in an acceleration of history that seemingly compresses normal time. Ayn Rand compressed time in Atlas Shrugged. Many of us will witness what will be the result of a combination of technological advancement and world-wide economic debasement. Instead of moaning and groaning about the state of a world rapidly changing under our feet as if that world had no past and no future but represented an immutable, horrible, disgusting stasis like a decrepit septic system backing up into one's house, appreciate the natural dynamism of human existence and don't let you and yours be caught up in the machinery. If you have any surplus then fight for your freedom and other's freedom one way or another.

--Brant

[Rich Engle]

Sigh...

While I agree with virtually every "reason" you gave for being disgusted with everyman, there's absolutely nothing new in this. This everyman you so despise is your next door neighbor. This everyman is most everyone in America, INCLUDING those who profess to be "reflective," as though that is some kind of moment-to-moment antidote that gives rise to the superman.

But this everyman, who has been with us since the beginning of this country; nay - who has been with us since the beginning of humanity; this everyman created and continues to create the Good Ship America. (And yes, I will continue to so call her that. And yes, I know I'm objectifying and personifying by using the metaphor "her.")

Name one period in America's history that didn't have everyman as the majority of its population. Name one period or one place in humanity's existence where everyman didn't screw things up. And yet out of the muck from which we come (including you, me, and Ayn Rand), good things have also evolved; one of them being America.

You will not get me to go from your "ifs" to the "then America is done and there is no hope for her to be a good place." This isn't mere patriotism. This is perspective. You are welcome to your dingy, spiteful, holier-than-thou, glass is 99.9999999999999% empty view of the world (or is it only America that you are ticked off about). If this is what makes you happy, who the hell am I to stand in the way of your good time.

I don't expect to convince you. Your business. And God knows that there have been times that I have been unduly pessimistic, that I give up on people that I shouldn't give up on. But even though it's something that will make you snort in derision, even though you will despise me for saying it, I believe America remains too GOOD a place; has been too GOOD a force in the world; has created the conditions - despite everything you correctly bring up as wrong with America - for me to give up on her. I am NOT ready to find or create Shangri La, which in Rand's book was Galt's Gulch. I gladly remain an American. I can think of no other REAL place that I'd rather be.

-------------------------

As for the word "flip." Really? you're going waste your time and mine to come down on me for using a word like that? (sigh)

-------------------------

Maybe, over time, as we cross paths in OL, I'll provide you reasons to drop the so-unnecessary hyper-negativity. I don't have anything invested in doing so; it is NOT my job; it's not even a goal I have. Call it a hope or a preference. I'm willing to hope that someone like me, who REFUSES to give up on America - much like Eddie Willers (or even Dagney Taggert and Hank Rearden for most of Atlas) will give you reasons to reconsider.

If I ever see America truly falling the way she did in Atlas, well, I won't stay on the train in the middle of nowhere. But while there are forces moving us in the direction - we are not there yet. Not by a long shot.

- Bal

It's done like this, Sporty Pants: *sigh*

Elements like these are old flaming traditions that go back before you either A: drained down your mother's leg and still managed to crawl off somewhere and attempt consciousness, or B: (and this is stretchy) got scooped out of the vat you were grown in, and put-to-market.

Did you break a clammy sweat over those last two PPs? Were you impassioned, Grasshopper? Were you feeling the hot, sick wind of it all?

Your shiq<--(that is not a typo but you wouldn't even know why I do that) is like when you watch a semi-aware drunk attempting to make stew; that is, whatever is in the cupboard, they dump in there--then (then!) they actually expect people to compliment them on their cooking. The F.N. work alone was enough to make me sick up what was a very nice dinner.

I mean, Heavens-to-Betsy (whore that she probably was) I have not seen the likes of the goo you write in years.

Get a grip on it, man. Find the voice. Find something that doesn't taste like regurgitated hamster vomit (not that I have ever tasted it but I can only imagine it is, above all, bitter).

Go read something tranquil, maybe. Cummings. Something. Fucq.

rde

Finally Snapped After Months of Reading This Stink-Worm

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Finally Snapped After Months of Reading This Stink-Worm

Rich,

Bal hasn't been posting for months.

He recently joined.

I'm confused...

Michael

[Selene]

Finally Snapped After Months of Reading This Stink-Worm

Rich,

Bal hasn't been posting for months.

He recently joined.

I'm confused...

Michael

Yep. I have just re read this thread three times and I am also confused.

[IamBalSimon]

It's done like this, Sporty Pants: *sigh*

Elements like these are old flaming traditions that go back before you either A: drained down your mother's leg and still managed to crawl off somewhere and attempt consciousness, or B: (and this is stretchy) got scooped out of the vat you were grown in, and put-to-market.

Did you break a clammy sweat over those last two PPs? Were you impassioned, Grasshopper? Were you feeling the hot, sick wind of it all?

Your shiq<--(that is not a typo but you wouldn't even know why I do that) is like when you watch a semi-aware drunk attempting to make stew; that is, whatever is in the cupboard, they dump in there--then (then!) they actually expect people to compliment them on their cooking. The F.N. work alone was enough to make me sick up what was a very nice dinner.

I mean, Heavens-to-Betsy (whore that she probably was) I have not seen the likes of the goo you write in years.

Get a grip on it, man. Find the voice. Find something that doesn't taste like regurgitated hamster vomit (not that I have ever tasted it but I can only imagine it is, above all, bitter).

Go read something tranquil, maybe. Cummings. Something. Fucq.

rde

Finally Snapped After Months of Reading This Stink-Worm

SIGH...

[IamBalSimon]

Finally Snapped After Months of Reading This Stink-Worm

Rich,

Bal hasn't been posting for months.

He recently joined.

I'm confused...

Michael

Yep. I have just re read this thread three times and I am also confused.

Clearly, I've hit some nerves... Perhaps it just feels like months to Richard. There really isn't anything I want to do or even say about it. Just let him vent his spleen till he's done.

[Rich Engle]

Perhaps I was not clear, I misaddressed.

IamBalSimon, on 10 May 2011 - 10:45 AM, said

That should do it.

rde

Well, it gets rough when you are pointing heavy guns

[Rich Engle]

SIGH...

No, still not quite it. Caps doesn't emphasize the exasperation levels. It has to be more, uh, sotto voce. I'm sure Italian musical terms are probably inherently evil (and maybe even Catholic sometimes) but that one is the best descriptor.

Let me break it down for you, meat missile.

1. ~sigh~

2.*sigh*

These are the best ones, esp. when treated like PP's. If you get bored, you can use (occasionally) things like

>sigh< and so on. But, this is tedious business, and I am not sure if it is worth the trouble.

Either way, you son-of-two-strangers, you are not using it properly. Perhaps this will help expand your bullshit vocabulary; it has come to the aid of many. I am convinced you will find resonance in this (as a writer, or, perhaps, scrawler):

rde

Jesus try to keep up, boys . . .

Edited May 11, 2011 by Rich Engle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Perhaps I was not clear, I misaddressed.

IamBalSimon, on 10 May 2011 - 10:45 AM, said

That should do it.

Rich,

Actually it doesn't. You merely linked to the same thing you quoted before.

You said you have been reading Bal's posts for months and that they have made you exasperated enough to pop, but he has not been posting on OL for months and what he has posted here has been polite.

Something does not compute.

Do you guys know each other from somewhere else?

From the view out here on the outside looking in, the level of hostility and insults is hard to grok.

Michael

[IamBalSimon]

Perhaps I was not clear, I misaddressed.

IamBalSimon, on 10 May 2011 - 10:45 AM, said

That should do it.

Rich,

Actually it doesn't. You merely linked to the same thing you quoted before.

You said you have been reading Bal's posts for months and that they have made you exasperated enough to pop, but he has not been posting on OL for months and what he has posted here has been polite.

Something does not compute.

Do you guys know each other from somewhere else?

From the view out here on the outside looking in, the level of hostility and insults is hard to grok.

Michael

Thank you Michael. I don't know Rich from a termite infested hole in a tree. So far as I know, I've never met him in real life. There really is no need to come to my defense. I've suffered insults and tirades from CUSTOMERS who's opinions actually matter to me.

Oh - and Richard: sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. What's going to be your retort now? This should be fun.

- Bal

P.S. - Richard: that video was very funny. I did not expect that. Not that it matters.

Edited May 11, 2011 by IamBalSimon

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bal,

Rich is a very good man with a very big heart.

I don't know what's happening right now, but I hope things work out where you get to know him better.

He's well worth it.

As to what's happening right now, it's just one of those days, I guess...

When they happen, a cigar is not just a cigar, but looks like a stick of dynamite--with a stink bomb included--disguised as a cigar.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

As far as I can tell Rich was pissed off by one post--one I didn't think much of either--and he defaulted to an imaginary army of previously unexpressed anguish and anger to re-enforce his point, and one and all, including me now, have been yammering and yammering about it since.

--Brant

a good guy?--not if you're kicking your dog; not if you're mushing mush

[IamBalSimon]

Bal,

Rich is a very good man with a very big heart.

I don't know what's happening right now, but I hope things work out where you get to know him better.

He's well worth it.

As to what's happening right now, it's just one of those days, I guess...

When they happen, a cigar is not just a cigar, but looks like a stick of dynamite--with a stink bomb included--disguised as a cigar.

Michael

Michael, thank you for sticking up for Richard. That speaks well of you.

In the short time I've been here, you and a few others have made me welcome, which I appreciate. I will keep an open mind about Richard, but I will make my own evaluation. I leave it up to him to determine if it's worth getting to know me better, as I had no prejudice one way or another prior to being insulted in a variety of ways. It's not a big deal, but the ball is clearly in his court, not mine.

- Bal

[william.scherk]

. . . meat missile . . . son-of-two-strangers . . . bullshit vocabulary . . . scrawler . . . Sporty Pants . . .

drained down your mother's leg . . . scooped out of the vat you were grown in . . . semi-aware drunk attempting to make stew . . . make me sick up . . . regurgitated hamster vomit

Rich, my brother, this is all a bit over the top, I think. Bal Simon has some hope for America. Steve not so much. You -- I dunno. I cannot read your heart or mind, just your words, and am left wondering what the fuck you are ranting about.

Is there some unstated oath of America Is Fucked/Doomed that I forgot to swear? I think, raddled old Canuckistani socialist monster that I am, that the USA is not fucked, it just has its share of stupid dumbfucks. And Bal, in my opinion, is not one of them.

[Rich Engle]

As far as I can tell Rich was pissed off by one post--one I didn't think much of either--and he defaulted to an imaginary army of previously unexpressed anguish and anger to re-enforce his point, and one and all, including me now, have been yammering and yammering about it since.

--Brant

a good guy?--not if you're kicking your dog; not if you're mushing mush

That's right.

[Brant Gaede]

Many SF are also ranger. In the 60s SF also wanted to be ranger to up their combat capabilities. Today SF training is much tougher than when I was in in the 1960s and I doubt if SF is now second class in any respect to ranger. You needed and need more brains to be SF than ranger. SF tend to be more operationally autonomous than ranger. That is, the medic has his job to do, the heavy weapons his, the intelligencer his and officers don't tell them what to do respecting their specialty, they merely state the objective or mission. Not only did I run medical patrols I did psy-ops, an officer's job, even before I made Sergeant. I volunteered for Vietnam to escape garrison duty at Ft Bragg. I couldn't stand garrison duty. I wrote a note to Billie Alexander in Washington, DC, asking her to get me out of there. That woman had the power. Once some officer told a sergeant he was stuck where he was and get used to it. Billie unstuck him in a transfer that had never been done before. Man, those were the days. Just as I was too smart in 1966 to stay in country, I was too smart in 1967 to stay in Vietnam and the army. I had seen the morgue in Nov. 1966 at the AF base in Saigon--a long row of empty marble slabs save for the two American KIA one of whom got a bullet between the eyes standing next to me and the other three machine gun bullets across the chest because the Vietnamese boat driver wouldn't keep the Johnson outboard motor running. The shitty Johnson, built to military specs and painted military green. The civilian Evinrudes we had were great! Anyway, we went into Cambodia six days later and kicked ass.

--Brant

and I got to meet Dwight David Eisenhower (13 consecutive nights in Georgia, 1965), William Westmoreland (an ass, Abrams was a general), Sean Flynn, Jennifer Jones and the 4.2 mortar, but I only fired the 81mm

[Rich Engle]

Many SF are also ranger. In the 60s SF also wanted to be ranger to up their combat capabilities. Today SF training is much tougher than when I was in in the 1960s and I doubt if SF is now second class in any respect to ranger. You needed and need more brains to be SF than ranger. SF tend to be more operationally autonomous than ranger. That is, the medic has his job to do, the heavy weapons his, the intelligencer his and officers don't tell them what to do respecting their specialty, they merely state the objective or mission. Not only did I run medical patrols I did psy-ops, an officer's job, even before I made Sergeant. I volunteered for Vietnam to escape garrison duty at Ft Bragg. I couldn't stand garrison duty. I wrote a note to Billie Alexander in Washington, DC, asking her to get me out of there. That woman had the power. Once some officer told a sergeant he was stuck where he was and get used to it. Billie unstuck him in a transfer that had never been done before. Man, those were the days. Just as I was too smart in 1966 to stay in country, I was too smart in 1967 to stay in Vietnam and the army. I had seen the morgue in Nov. 1966 at the AF base in Saigon--a long row of empty marble slabs save for the two American KIA one of whom got a bullet between the eyes standing next to me and the other three machine gun bullets across the chest because the Vietnamese boat driver wouldn't keep the Johnson outboard motor running. The shitty Johnson, built to military specs and painted military green. The civilian Evinrudes we had were great! Anyway, we went into Cambodia six days later and kicked ass.

--Brant

and I got to meet Dwight David Eisenhower (13 consecutive nights in Georgia, 1965), William Westmoreland (an ass, Abrams was a general), Sean Flynn, Jennifer Jones and the 4.2 mortar, but I only fired the 81mm

Thanks for sharing that stuff, Brant. I enjoyed reading it. The animation is mostly just funny stuff. It could have been the other way around for all that. . .