Random Punter
9.3K posts

Random Punter
@RandomPunter24
A pessimist is rarely disappointed.
Bergabung Mart 2022
52 Mengikuti47 Pengikut

The most interesting part of the red card saga isn't the ruling. It's how differently Americans and Europeans process the idea that they might have been wronged.
Europeans are fundamentally different from Americans in one particular way: they expect life to be aggravating and at times unfair. It's just a fact of moving through the world. I joke that in Europe, the customer is always wrong. You didn't read the fine print. The only pharmacy in town is closed every other Tuesday for three hours, and even if the times weren't posted, that's still your problem. Too bad if you want the bill, because the waiter's on his union-mandated half-hour smoke break, and you're just going to have to wait.
To quote the great Mark Knopfler: sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug. There's something freeing in that. Things are less in your control, so there's less angst in managing your expectations.
In America, things couldn't be more different. We simply can't accept a wrong left unrighted.
The flight attendant sneezed handing you a drink on your one-hour flight? 15,000 frequent flyer miles. Didn't like your appetizer? A replacement is on the way, and the whole course comes off the bill. There's a reason our interstates are lined with trial lawyer billboards.
Europeans have turned complaining into a continental pastime with no expectation that the universe owes them a remedy for their grief. You gripe about the train being late, your friends nod solemnly and everyone goes back to their apéro. In America, we launch a full-blown investigation of the train system, sue the government (and its contractors) that allowed for the tardiness and hold a Congressional hearing on the state of national infrastructure.
So to an objective observer, the red card shouldn't have happened, and VAR was a travesty. To Americans, our star player shouldn't be unfairly banned from a match we couldn't afford to lose for a card he so obviously didn't deserve.
Who cares that FIFA used a little-used reversal to fix it. Who cares that other people are mad about it. We. Were. Wronged. It was unjust. It must be corrected. We would accept nothing less.
Europeans waxing poetic about the sanctity of the game are, of course, talking about a governing body whose last tournament host was decided via confirmed cash bribes — one that imposed dress codes on women, shrugged off widespread allegations of modern slavery and reconfigured the entire tournament calendar to suit the host country. Which is exactly the point. If you've made peace with all of that, at least enough to watch the tournament four years later, a probationary suspension isn't actually a scandal.
Maybe that's the real divide. Over millennia, Europeans have made peace with being the bug. Americans have never once considered it, and apparently, we're not about to start now.

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@HeliJoc @ellencarmichael Where did you pull the 75% from? 😂
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@ellencarmichael They got used to 75% of matches being decided by penalty kicks but didn't stop for a second and wonder if they haven't let the "sport" part get over-ruled by a comical injury flopping spectacle of third world low character advantage gaming.
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@ellencarmichael In America it’s always somebodies fault, but never yours, and you’ll seek to profit from it without no regard to morals.
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@DennisYu4life @allinkid Betting on “soccer” has been part of the fabric of British life for about 100 years. We just don’t go for spread betting, we prefer accumulators as there’s so many games.
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@Schwalm5132 Waving the British flag 🇬🇧 is grounds for instant arrest
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Now wave your country's flag in front of it.
I'll wait...
No Context Brits@NoContextBrits
America is 250 years old. This pub is 1,466 years old.
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@Casey__Jones2 @Schwalm5132 Luckily that’s not true, there’s an England flag outside my house right now.
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@Schwalm5132 When it is against the law to fly your country's flag in your own country, you don't have a country.
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@bpmurphyesq @Schwalm5132 They left England so they could be free to persecute people of different religions. The English wouldn’t tolerate their strict religious sect so they fled to Holland, then the new world.
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@Schwalm5132 There's are reasons why so many people left Europe for America.
Free speech. Right to bear arms against a tyrannical givernment are just a couple.
What did Europe give to the world the last 2 centuries? Communism. 2 world wars. Thanks, but no thanks. 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲
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@AmericanwomanU1 @bennyjohnson @FLmom4freedom In the mean time you keep yourself battle ready by shooting at each other.
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Exactly.
Love this quote.
“You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.”
This quote, “a rifle behind every blade of grass” captures a real strategic truth….the United States has long had high rates of private firearm ownership and a cultural tradition of armed self-defense. During WWII, millions of Americans owned guns (hunting rifles, pistols, shotguns), and the government encouraged civilian marksmanship. An invading force would have to face not just the U.S. military but absolute widespread guerrilla-style resistance across a huge, diverse continent.
A heavily armed U.S. population will make an invasion extremely difficult. An armed citizenry serves as a deterrent to tyranny and foreign invasion and it powerfully symbolizes the idea of a “nation of riflemen.”
A US Patriot will do our duty to protect the land we love and have fought so hard to preserve and defend our Freedom and Liberty. God Bless America! 🙏🏻🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸

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@Wirbo_ @dawson_kent @ryanvisconti Some would argue that without your French and Dutch allies, you’d have been British a lot longer 🤷🏻♂️
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@dawson_kent @ryanvisconti without the lend lease act youd be speaking german rn lil bro
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@BlastyBrowning You’re not realising the relevance of how dumb calling for the scrapping off offside would be. I’d get shouted down for calling for the NFL to scrap the line of scrimmage and let players stand where they want at the snap.
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@reformexposed Can we get a tax rebate as we’re not sending children to school, or taking maternity/paternity leave?
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Ex-Reform candidate suggests people without children should pay more for their mortgages
independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
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@pearce_rp3231 @PolitlcsUK It’s better than going by car I guess 🤷🏻♂️
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@b6wkfgpn5t @SeeDeeMcLeod @BROKENBRITAIN0 What institutions have been told it’s a racist flag and by whom? Every institution? Really?
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@RandomPunter24 @SeeDeeMcLeod @BROKENBRITAIN0 Try arresting men with England flags in London, going to an England cricket match. They calling the national flag fascist. Try telling every institution it’s a racist flag. The persecution is on par with the early phases of Nazism.
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@b6wkfgpn5t @SeeDeeMcLeod @BROKENBRITAIN0 Thank you, that one school acted wrongly and has since realised their mistake and apologised. Bloody Nazis 🤬
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@b6wkfgpn5t @SeeDeeMcLeod @BROKENBRITAIN0 Can you give examples of the England flag being treated in identical fashion to how the Nazis treated the German flag in the 1930s? Is the Union Jack being treated similarly? Will they be knocking my door to take my flag?
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@RandomPunter24 @SeeDeeMcLeod @BROKENBRITAIN0 And you’ll find that the England flag is being targeted in an identical fashion to that of the German flag. Interestingly, the government of the day was an identity-Marxist communist government that rendered Germany under occupation.
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@b6wkfgpn5t @SeeDeeMcLeod @BROKENBRITAIN0 Apologies, I assumed it was a replica of the Ginger Spice dress, not a long dress.
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@RandomPunter24 @SeeDeeMcLeod @BROKENBRITAIN0 As for the short dress, the dress was not short, and was longer than most skirts.
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