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Your troops aren't protecting your rights. I don't understand that at all. Hell, I'm not sure your troops can't even protect their own rights so I don't see how they can protect anybody else's. Look at that poor dude who leaked stuff to wiki. Amnesty International is worried about him. That should say something.
Your military has glaring problems.
It is concerning.
(Not the best sources, but I wanted you to know this isn't just my opinion.)

Frankly at the rate your rights are being dissolved I'd worry less about what some Polish person thinks and more about how you're going to prevent your country from collapsing in on itself. Planned Parenthood looks like it's on its last legs, the disparity between rich and poor is ever-rising, your healthcare system is shocking, the union system is dwindling, your minimum wage is horrifyingly low, Wall Street continues to do what it did before the collapse, and your government is bought and sold. I can understand why that Polish person is taken aback. I am taken aback. Constantly. And your pledge is creepy.

I mean, I don't know if Poland is any better, honestly. But I don't see why expression confusion regarding your comics makes them "ungrateful". I don't get them either.

My country has a very small military. We sold off most of our air-force planes and we have, like, one ship in the navy. No one wants to invade us. Why? Because we're cool. Also because there's this thing called the UN which would probably be all frowny. Besides, your military isn't at home. They're not at home defending your borders from attackers. They're off in the middle east in a couple of ******** wars.

So! What rights is the military protecting? How are they protecting them?

I'm not referring to the economy here. I know it's about to callapse, what I am saying is without our military we would have already been taken over. I mean look at all the s**t going on in the middle east. The stupid presidents can't keep their frickin' nose out of there! How many people think Vietnam would have invaded us? How many people think the Japanese would have invaded us during WWII? I do, but since we have a fighting force, they saved us from the fight coming on to our soil. What would have happened to the American people if we had been invaded? It would be like WWII on our soil.

Our troops do protects us and our freedom. Sadly, considering they're spread all over the world doing the president's bidding, people think we can't defend our homeland and are too busy invading others. The Iraqis that we have met want us to be there. They like us because we're defending them. I'm sure the Libyan rebels are happy we're helping them, but that's going to turn in to what happened with Bush Sr. and the Taliban...

Hey, I didn't say they were reasonable ideas, but if Vietnam had the power, I guarantee they would have tried. Who is to say they won't? There are so many countries that are pissed at the U.S. We used to be a SuperPower, but now we're just the nosy neighbors who want to control everything... I do not agree with what the U.S. has been thinking collectively for the past decade or so.

Disclaimer: I got into another rant on this one. The last couple weeks I have grown increasingly dismayed regarding the US and its political bollocks. It makes me very angry, because the US is like an enthusiastic dog in a small room: it wags its tail and knocks over a table. What the US does affects the rest of the world, whether we like it or not.

One of the reasons no one really likes the US right is that you keep bitching on about being "the land of the free" and "the land of opportunity" and so on while your actual opportunities are sucked into the black hole of Big Business. Your rights and your economic powers are interlinked when it comes to things like healthcare. You should have the right to proper healthcare. You should have the right to a decent education. These things are being stolen, for example with organisations like Planned Parenthood going down the shitter. PP provides cheap healthcare services that are hard to find in many areas if you are on a low wage. (Don't get me started on the "war on abortion". Apparently the life of a foetus is more important to some politicians than the life of the mother, or in one particular horrifying case, of the abortion provider. I'm concerned that this is reflective of underlying misogyny.)

Equality - be it financial, gender, whathaveyou - is related to happiness. The wider the economic disparity, the worse off things are for everyone, not just the very poor. The more your wages fall, the more public funding is cut, the less you can save. If you're one payday from being out on the streets, from having no food or no power, there's nothing you can do but keep on working and paying too much in taxes and insurance (if you even HAVE insurance) while you get nothing back, until you retire and oh no! your 401k has been poorly invested by rich ******** who don't give a s**t if you live or die, and now you have nothing and you have to keep working until you're 90. And so long as you're chained to the work wheel, there's less you can do to speak up about it. Fewer marches you can attend, because you have to work two jobs to make ends meet. In some companies, striking for better pay, more work rights or even better basic health and safety will only get your place of work moved to Mexico.

You're due a worker's revolution, and hey, more Americans have guns than have pets so you should be well set, but you won't have a revolution because your government has managed to drill into everyone's heads that socialism = fascism, capitalism = what jesus would do, and you should be happy to live in the LAND OF OPPORTUNITY.

Looking again at that comic you detailed, I'm still failing to understand it. You have the right not to stand, but I'm going to guilt you into it anyway? What? Is this a removal of rights via the back-door? Patriotism enforced through guilt or something?

I don't feel sorry about soliders who go off and then come back disabled, because it's a war and frankly you should anticipate that sort of thing when you enlist. I do feel sorry about soldiers who go off to war and are shafted by politicians who don't care if they get paid, who come home wounded and find out there's s**t all to support wounded veterans, or vets with PTSD, or vets who can't find jobs because hey! there aren't many jobs and all your experience is in shooting wogs. (Towel-heads? What's the general middle-eastern racial slur in America?)

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For everyone interested in the investment bank collapses of 2008, Inside Job - watch it before it gets removed. It's a damn good film.

I agree with most everything you said. We all feel this way, and we are fighting for what we deserve, but how are we supposed to do anything when the government has too much power. Becuase they seriously have way too much power right now... And to many of us right now socialism = communism. Everyone in the military is pissed with the current president and all the changes he wants to make. The military is really the biggest group that is getting screwed over right now. And if there is a revolution, the government will be scrounging around for people to protect them since the military will either be standing idle or on the opposing side.

I think the comic is more of an awareness comic. Like "you have the right, but let me tell you what it cost some people". Our military volunteers to put their life on the line, but not many people appreciate them. I am actually very surprised by how many people do thank my husband. One person even bought us our pizza and another practically bought us our expensive dinner. But then you get the ones who scoff and stare at him with malice. And those people are usually the ones causing problems.

It is hard for supporters of causes to have their voice heard. But it is so simple for those opposting and slandering us to have their heard... It's very crooked. We used to be a proud country, but these ignorant and idiotic voices are what the world, and Americans, are hearing.

Governments only have as much power as we're willing to let them get away with. We could call for impeachments and recall elections but we won't. We're too apathetic for that. We complain a lot but don't ever actually do anything. and the military (at least the active military, veterans support and aid is deplorable) isn't the group that really getting screwed. Would you like to know what's going on in Michigan right now? The governor has decided the best way to fix our massive budget problem is to tax the poor and the old, and give breaks to big corporations. He's also cutting chunks of student aid and unemployment, and attacking unions, a la Wisconsin. The people getting screwed here are the common workers and those with the least. It's making me sick! And you can't lay that all at the feet of Obama, who currently has his hands somewhat tied by the Republican controlled House. Personally, I think they all suck.

I'm not saying I don't have a huge amount of respect for our soldiers and veterans. My dad's a Vietnam vet and I've volunteered at the VA hospital and those people deserve our respect and our care for what they've sacrificed and seen. But I don't have to respect the pointless wars that kill and maim so many young men and women or the establishment that doesn't want to give them proper care when they return scarred inside and out. I respect and revere the American ideal but the country we live in is far from that. And as the comic point out, people have fought and died for our rights (including the right to ignore the pledge of allegiance). But what better way to honor that sacrifice than to exercise those rites? If you have some objection to the pledge or anything similar, I would prefer you sit it out. At least you seem to actually be considering the matter. How is it more respectful for millions of school kids to recite it by rote every day without any understanding or care of the meaning of the words. They don't teach what it's about. They just teach empty syllables. That's not respect. Also, I agree with San. The pledge of allegiance is kinda creepy.


If you want to read something that makes me feel patriotic, then check out this bit of speechifying by FDR.

But in the entire country, the military is one of the largest groups that is being screwed. Yea, there is no middle class anymore so the poor are being screwed even more. But those people have a bit more of a choice than the military. Their governer is definitely crooked, so why don't they ban together to get him out? The military can't say anything or else we'll get discharged or demoted. We could lost everything for saying we don't like Obama. What is the worst that will happen to a civilian if they say "you suck. Get out"?

I do not agree with this war right now. It feels like another Vietnam, which I know many others have said. It seems pointless and we stuck our noses in where they did not belong. There were no WMD's, which many of us doubted anyways.

I do not agree with the wording of the pledge. Pledgeing to a flag, which I know is a symbol, but it is specifically "I pledge allegiance to the flag" Um... No. We should pledge allegiance to the country, not the symbol of the country. But it does say "and to the Republic, for which it stands", but America isn't a republic. We're not even really a Democracy anymore... Either the pledge needs to be reworded or the country needs some major change, but I think the religious aspect should be looked at. "One nation under god", considering there are man different religion in the U.S. and we have a right to our religion, but the pledge does seem to say, "no, you still have to be Christian" And I'm going to stop picking it apart because I will keep going... But it does feel like brainwashing, having to say it every day. I was glad that in high school we didn't repeat it every day. But being respectful and sitting quietly, or standing with your hands behind your back is better than throwing a fit.