USA.. A-okay

[jenniferluv]

I may not be an educated person with a doctorate. I may be just your average everyday working joe/afterhours jane. But with over forty years of adolesent through adult observation time behind me as well as having the "great opportunity" to live in the bible belt after many years in yankee-land and several more years in the "liberal" areas of this country I can honestly say that there is one main item that directs the way people behave/believe, good or bad, conservative or liberal, and it just happens to be one of the main reasons this country was founded. Religion. organized religion to be exact. We are belted with the "right way" of thinking from our childhood through adulthood with what the leaders of whatever organized religion you happen to belong to have decided is right and correct. Only when we are past the midpoint in our lives do we generally begin to question the "correctness" of what we have been subtly force fed by our religious leaders all of our lives. ERGO, I claim no organized religion to guide my life. God and I have worked that one out very nicely. I do the best I can to be the best person I can be without forcing my views on others and God will tell me how I've done when the time comes. We were given free will by Him and I'll be damned if I will capitulate to the "rednecks", "homeboys", or othrt malcontents or do-gooders who wish to change me because I will answer to no one other than Him in the end.

[Jamie M]

Wow , some very interesting replies , thanks.

I guess I've been quite shocked by some of the points that have been raised. I asked the original question as in my mind America , being the 'Land of Freedom' , seemed like an ideal place to be for a CD. So then , to find some of the stories and accounts I did was quite surpising.

Obviously as many have mentioned , it's not all doom and gloom but I guess I had totally underestimated some of the problems that you face there. For example that of religion. In the UK religion and TG issues don't seem to be a problem at all. Maybe that goes back to the rather more relaxed attitude of the Church of England ( being as it was formed to allow Henry VIII his many divorces hithertoo underheard of ). Like Jennifer , I don't really consider myself a christian although I do believe in a God and worship in my own way.

As for the discussion on relative distances, that's one that I guess none of us over here can ever really get a grip on. I live roughly on the south coast of the UK and I regard anything beyond London to be 'Up North' , much to the chagrin of some of my 'Northern' friends.

[Drucilla]

I think there is a much broader issue and trend in the US. It's whole ultra conservative movement that is being lead by the Bush White House.
What I see is less tolerance for anything that represents a deviation from the views and beliefs of the far "right wing". Examples recently are :
-Teri Shivo (sp?) case where Congress got involved in very personal decision making
- The whole Janet Jackson caper that lead our country leaders into turmoil over what a lot of us consider a non-event.
- The censorship of a broad range of TV and radio programs forcing some off the air --like Howard Stern.
- The whole "right to life " issue and the extream view the right wing has.
- The fuss Gay marriage is causing.
- etc. etc.
I really don't see this getting better (meaning more tolerant ) until we get a change in leadership in Washington.
Sorry for the Political rant ---but it's a big concern for me.
In this enviroment it's little wonder that some of us feel that public acceptance of crossdressing might be less than ideal.

[Jamie M]

- The censorship of a broad range of TV and radio programs forcing some off the air --like Howard Stern.

When did that happen then ? I must have missed that , if anything the UK seems to be going the other way , people on TV and radio gatting away with more and more all the time.

[Drucilla]

Howard Stern is moving from broadcast radio to satallite radio at end of year. They have stopped tapping his show for rebroadcast on TV. He cited the censorship and fines he gets as the main reason for his move. Of course, the bazillion $$$ that he is getting could be a factor as well !!

[Sweet Jeanette]

I claim no organized religion to guide my life. God and I have worked that one out very nicely. I do the best I can to be the best person I can be without forcing my views on others and God will tell me how I've done when the time comes. We were given free will by Him and I'll be damned if I will capitulate to the "rednecks", "homeboys", or othrt malcontents or do-gooders who wish to change me because I will answer to no one other than Him in the end.

I am a redneck crossdresser, which lives among rednecks, and I feel as you do!---In the bit you wrote above, I believe very strongly that way too!---You have said, what I feel too. ---Thanks for saying, what (Im sure) a lot of us out here feel too. --------Hell Yes!

[Sweet Jeanette]

I'm guessing that's the moist charcoal? :whistle:

Im at a loss. ----Charcoal?-

[Tristen Cox]

I KNOW what to look out for, and what to avoid!!!

So you don't avoid the wet charcoal then?

[Sweet Jeanette]

So you don't avoid the wet charcoal then?

I am Totally Lost now!---Please explain to (Dumb) me,---Charcoal?

[Tristen Cox]

Some one get me a beer...

Ok, you redneck, folla?

You like stand outside dressed grillin' without a care, good so far?

Now you said you know to watch out for, soz'

I said(in response to your statement) "the damp/moist charcoal"(which don't burn)

Geddit?!

I was being smart @$$, figured you would have caught on though with explanation. T'was funny!

*Hijack off*

I heard that Jen

[Sweet Jeanette]

Some one get me a beer...

Ok, you redneck, folla?

You like stand outside dressed grillin' without a care, good so far?

Now you said you know to watch out for, soz'

I said(in response to your statement) "the damp/moist charcoal"(which don't burn)

Geddit?!

I was being smart @$$, figured you would have caught on though with explanation. T'was funny!

*Hijack off*

I heard that Jen

Ha! ---First off, the grill is not totally in the open! ---It is on my sunporch, which is Almost wide open to the intersection! ---Second: ---I know what to watch out for as far as: ---Having my right pinkie fingernail painted shimmery pink with a Butterfly ring on it, when I walk into a beer distrubutor right after 5 PM, ---FULL of oilfield hands that are getting theirs too! --------Not a real kosher thing to do! ---I can walk after midnight in sandals & pretty painted toes , ---but be prepared to hit the "Barditch", if a car comes by!!! --------I figured you were being "Smart", and I like it!) ---But like most rednecks, I am slow to comprehend!----I think you like to play with me this way!!!

[Tristen Cox]

It has it's moments

[MistyCD]

I look at it this way. The book on the Statue of Liberty reads "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" Welll unfortunately a few thousand nuts and whackos came in with them!!!

LOL Misty

[Rachel_740]

I saw a documentary on Queen a while ago and in one of their videos, they were in drag. The song and video was apparently very popular in the UK, but in the US, it almost devastated their popularity. I guess the people in the UK are just more tolerant of this sort of thing.

Miss Pinchy,

Although things like Queen video's, men in drag on telly etc are acceptable over here, crossdressers/transexuals are viewed totally differently.

Anne

[Helana]

I don't know about your last paragraph. While the Americans were fighting Indians, British soldiers were all over the world looting and killing native people of other lands. Maybe the English acted like gentlemen while they were on UK soil, but outside of the UK they were more like barbarians, conquering other people's lands.

I was refering to domestic conquests. British stories of heroes, conquests and internal wars mostly date back 1,000 years to the mythical deeds of King Arthur, Robin Hood etc. For the last 400 years the British populace have been either farmers or factory workers.

There are pleanty of Macho heroes in UK history, Nelson, Montgomery, Kitchener, Wellingtom, Gordon, Wolfe and James Bond for a fantasy figure.

None of these are macho heroes - they are all "gentlemen" from the elitish classes who won battles with cunning rather than charging gung-ho and leading from the front. This can be mostly clearly seen between the opposing personalities of Monty and Patton. British troops loved Monty because he planned everything in minute detail and was a quiet spoken gentleman while Patton charged at German lines without planning and disobeyed orders which made him an American hero. Similarly compare the gentleman Bond to the American heroes potrayed by Arnie and Sly and the opposing ideals of what constitues a hero between traditional British and American cultures is clear. However as the world becomes smaller these distinctions become more blurred.

But today, it is the people of all these countries, especially France, Germany, and most in the UK who complain about the US's involvement in Iraq. I don't think any European coultry has a leg to stand on telling the US what is right and what is wrong, when they themselves have done so much more damage to the world in violence.

The devastation brought by 2 world wars has made the whole of Europe much more liberal in comparison to America. The Iraq issue is a good example between how a macho, go-get-em attidude is supported in the American culture in comparison to the liberal, standoff-ish attidudes of Europeans who prefer dialogue and war as a last resort.

The cowboy hero is a myth, maybe in the older generations, but very few of todays young people care about cowboys, especially John Wayne. If there is a violent idol in the US today, itis of the rappers gangster images, not cowboys.

I agree cowboys are an outdated model but they fact that cowboys have been replaced by even more violent, sexist, macho characters indicates that the macho factor is increasing, not decreasing.

In the not too far past it wasn't all that safe to go to a football match because of hooligans. These guys travel everywhere just to cause mayhem, yes, these are those non-violent English I hear about.

The difference is that football holigans were never idolized or considered role models in any shape of form. Aggression is not a celebrated quality in Britain and football hoolganism has been largely stamped out. Another example is gun ownership which is a fundamental right in America but gets no support in Britain/Europe.

The issue is not whether one nation is more violent than another- all nations have fought wars and have shameful pasts, but how aggression and other macho attitudes are accepted by society today. It seems to me that American society is far more accepting and accommodating to macho behavior than Europeans which does not bode well for CDers.

We are all the same people and we all can have our appetite whetted for violence but America has a huge entertainment industry based around violence primarily produced to satisy American tastes and which subsequently gets exported around the world.

[Helana]

The average person in the street gets what a gay person is, they get what a transexual person is, what they dont get is why a normal hetrosexual male would want to dress up as a woman. CDers are the least understood section of the sexual/gender spectrum and thus face the largest hurdle to acceptance.

[Lauren_T]

While the Americans were fighting Indians, British soldiers were all over the world looting and killing native people of other lands. Maybe the English acted like gentlemen while they were on UK soil, but outside of the UK they were more like barbarians, conquering other people's lands.

Amelie, while Americans were fighting Indians, the English, some of whom were in fact doing terrible things indeed, were also bringing education and trade with many indigent people whose descendants today have a considerably better quality of life than they would've otherwise, due to their country's Colonial past. Primitive is better than Western culture, in the minds of many products of Western culture. The primitives themselves, however, do not always agree.

While those horrible Dead White European Males certainly have to bear responsibility for many many gratuitous deaths through the years, I suggest that if you tallied up the number of indigent people killed by British armed forces back to Magna Carta, it would not approach the number of indigents slaughtered in sub-Saharan Africa in calendar year 2004, by sub-Saharan Africans. It pays to put these things into perspective The English influence on the rest of the world, despite their detractors, has made much of the world objectively better than it would've been without it. Or to put it another way, miserable though many Third World countries may be, the people would have shorter, more brutal lives than they have now, had the English never found their way there. Singapore, Hong Kong, India would not be global powers, for merely three examples.









_________________________
'Not many people know that.'
~ Michael Caine
:topic:

[Elinor]

Amelie I must disagree with your view of the British Empire/History in the main it came about not by conquest but by commerce.
The British behaved no differantly than Americans in the US going west in the past or today.

Germany at the turn of the 1900s wished for its own empire and built ships to go to war. It could only be with the Royal Navy that it wish to go to war with.
In the end we went to war as you say to defend Belgum.

Hitler desired to rule the world the UK went to defend Poland and stood alone in the fight against fascists.

The UK was the world policeman and America did not like it!
Today its turned and America is now the world's policeman which we in the UK find funny: welcome to our world, how do you like it?

We have been there, now its your turn brother, lets see you make a better job of it.

Iraq: It was not a danger to our wellfair no W of M.D.
Now if the U.N. had said this madman must go most of us could go along with it. If he had something to do with 9/11 okay lets get him but it was not so.

Saddam killed far more muslems than any other man and yet it seems the west are losing the propaganda war.
While you and I are sitting at crossdressing sites others are watching people getting their heads chopped off and getting warmed up to kill all western values. True or false the USA is seen as interferring and only interested in OIL. The USA supports bad people because its in Americas interest to do so and not to bring demorcracy to them.

Russia built Hitlers war machine and he turned on Stalin.
The west gives weapons to people who in turn use them on the west.
History repeats its self offen and we never learn.

The British army in the main was native to the land with only British officers in command. A great deal of Irish men made up the British army Wellington was in fact Irish who went on to become the Prime Minister of the UK.

While some Irish worked for Nazi Germany in World War Two many hundreds of thousands worked in british factorys working for the war effort, many more thousands fought in the services.

A great many Irish fought in the american civil war not knowing what the hell it was they were fighting for as they only just walked of the ship.

Most muslems are okay its that young impressionable are taught to think differently to us. As Paul Revere won the propaganda war for America today America is losing it. The internet is a powerfull weapon.

Anything can be turned for example.
Australians used to hate to be thought of as being descended from convicts but today they take pride in it, but I leave you with this thought.
A lot of them are desended from the guards too.


Smart muslem Paul Reveres are working hard to turn young impressionable men in Britain, America as well as in Muslem countrys. We in the west are losing the propaganda war.
Oh one last thing the Irish potato famine was a blight began in America traveled to europe then Ireland where it was the main staple diet of the people. The UK goverment did a bad job perhaps in handeling the problem they are guilty of being useless but not guilty of introducing the problem or intending to kill off the people.
Rant over!
Sorry to get side tracked girls.