Apparently, there are some.

Mass incineration of innocent people is only funny when it happens to someone else in another country.

I've heard a couple over the years.
None funny enough for me to remember, but they're out there sure enough.

It's not quite the same for Brits though, as it did happen in someone else's country. In fact the only "joke" I am aware of about the 7 July Tube bombing in London was read on here. I didn't find it funny, but that's more to do with the awful stereotyping rather than the subject matter. Well, maybe the subject matter, I rode the Tube every day after all and those streets were in my home town.

Thus this thread was created to explore this. I think it's an excellent thread topic, makes people think about why it's okay to make jokes about John Denver the day after his death, but not other tragedies.

We got over it last time.


Only because we allowed it to.

We were not feeling invincible during Vietnam but instead of laying down we took a shot at the moon. I've never seen America as invincible, but I've always seen her as resilient.

That's such crap. I can't believe you're taking this line. I'm furious. Start with the loss of 251 stories of the most prime office space in the country and the devastation of the travel and airline industries. "We allowed it to," I don't think so. In fact "we" prevented the destruction of the White House because passengers onboard Flight 93 were not content to sit back and let their fate be decided for them. That's the attitude you find elsewhere in the world. In most of it, actually.

You want a culture that reacts to that with "Oh well, these things happen!" You want to tell people "Get over it!" And yet you want a culture that makes itself, if not the rest of the world, safe for freedom and democracy. This culture does not and can not exist. The Jacksonian vibrancy of the American people, which made the country what it is, also informs its reaction. When we are hit, the instinct is to react with killing blows. We are the ones that take back Flight 93. Meet that with pride, not cynicism.

What UT said. Total load of bullshit.

Pearl Harbor, who gives a crap. Right?

resiliency allows us to reassemble the airline business, and redistribute the office space and financial industry's infrastructure.

but for the most part, the people allowed the government to use the media to shape our expectation of what personal liberty we enjoy ....because of the reaction we had to the invasion.

It's ok for them to pull you out of line at the airport or a sporting event and pat you down. It makes sense to us because we see the scary potential results of NOT allowing it to happen. If it was 1991 and you were treated that way in an airport, you'd have been irate.....

in fear, we sacrifice our freedom.
to feel safe, we submit to authority
we're too busy working to see it
we'd rather watch TV than hear it

I understand your point but the reality is that many of the freedoms we enjoy allowed us to be vulnerable. Many of our freedoms are our source of weakness. Unless you live where you have the real threat of death and destruction you can't understand the need for heightened security actions. I don't like it either but it is a new fact of life. Life after the attacks on 9/11 in this country will never be the same and that is a fact we will all just have to get use to living with.

I think it's quite the opposite... you notice the pat-down at the airport because it's a change. The restrictions on your freedom that have been there all along? Not noticed.

You could skip the airport pat-down by going there nude, but you'd be arrested. Why? You haven't done anything to anyone else. Other people are offended, but they don't have a right not to be offended.

Before the pat-down, you were still subject to marginally constitutional requirements in order to fly. Very few people objected. Penn Jillette used to carry a business card-sized bill of rights, engraved in bronze, in his shirt pocket when going through airport security. When asked to remove whatever metallic object was causing the metal detector to go off, he would take out the bronze card, hand it over, and say something like "I'm giving up my rights in order to get on this airplane."

The loss and gain of rights changes over time, but it's nice to remember that we gain rights without noticing. There was a time when it was considered obscene to air the sound of a toilet flush over the radio. There was a time when it was illegal to brew your own beer. You still can't hunt or fish in many places without a license. Gun rights? There's a tough one.

The pat-down is minor to me in comparison.

plus.....you like it. perv

Hmmm.

We don't have "rights" like you do.
We had to have a passport to fly to NI, despite it being part of the UK, pre 9/11.
We had the Blitz, the Troubles and the Lockerbie bombing to deal with, way before merkins got scared.

We don't have a "Get over it" culture as we're far to the left of the US. But we do have a "Get on with things!" culture, especially as regards to unnatural disasters. You want to hurt us? Fuck you - join the queue. We were a target pre-Claudius, and out last conqueror was William the Bastard. We were here when you rose, we will be here when you fall.

Oh, we will be here as well. I doubt we will fall. But since we have not had to endure much of the strife at home like you guy have over many years, we will have to get use to changes in the way things are done and compromise to remain safe.