If first responder night was just fire department and EMT itd be infinitely better, fun fact a bar in my city banned that type of event since the fire chief nearly got into a fight with the police chief.

“I stand for the flag. I kneel for the cross.” –A phrase uttered only by people who have never once knelt in front of a cross, ever.

I’ve also noticed a direct correlation between people who wave around “Blue Lives Matter” flags and people who think police officers should essentially be paid poverty level wages. They’re often the same group of people. And yes, the irony is completely lost on them.

Now I have to tell a story. And this actually happened. Eons ago, I got a wild hair and decided to run for my local city council. At that time, the city was pushing a small tax increase to fund raises for the police and fire departments, where the average salary was like $9/hr for a patrolman. It was not a great wage even then. I literally had people with “thin blue line” bumper stickers yelling at me because “I make $9 an hour. Why should they be paid better than me?” I quickly learned that there is a large – or larger than I would have expected – percentage of the population that supports the “police” as a concept as long as it means they get to feel morally superior. When it comes to actually supporting the people who are the police, they don’t give two shits.

It’s possible to think that police, firefighters, and other public servants in hazardous occupations should be compensated well AND be held to high moral and ethical standards. Mind blowing. I know.

I’ve known many rednecks who were good people. If you aren’t hurting people, you do you, friend! Also, chunk those punkins!

Hashtagnotallrednecks.

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What is and is not political is defined by oppressors. Their crosses, punisher skulls, and blue lives matter stickers are not political. The atheist symbol, antifa arrows, and black lives matter stickers are political. A keffiyeh is a political statement, but an IDF shirt isn’t. “Political” functionally means “talking about your oppression or the oppression of others.”

JSYK, using special characters to write “political” like that doesn’t work with screen readers. Best case scenario it skips the word entirely, worst case it reads out the name of each special character individually.

Yeah. It’s fucking sad.

Yeah it was before bush was re-elected during the age of prime jingoism

It was not

Mindless self indulgence?

Its usage in the song is not derogatory. It’s meant to highlight the offensiveness of it and to cast the speaker as one of the disenfranchised of America.

It’s controversial, I suppose, but it’s meant to make a point. Changing it would just diminish it.

As the other commenter said, it’s not derogatory. He’s taking a word that’s been used to belittle and dismiss him and people that share his views, owning it, and using it to fire back against those that would use it against him in that way.

Basically, “Call me gay* (ok, like that’s supposed to be a bad thing? Watch me call myself gay lol) but at least I’m not a dumb idiot follower of the redneck/MAGA agenda.”

To me, it’s like a more sophisticated “I know you are but what am I?”, if you will. He’s so unphased by the label that he uses it for himself with little hesitation, thus stripping its power as an insult against him. Hence why he fires back with a new, more critical put-down. It’s meant to hit them (someone that would call someone else gay or a faggot* as an insult) where it hurts, in the same way that person has meant to hurt others by using those terms derogatorily. He’s literally naming and shaming the bigotry of the time.

*And yes I know the term faggot has some nasty origins, but it was colloquially just a much more rude/derogatory way to say “gay person” when this song came out. I highly doubt the majority of people that used it were actually thinking that critically about it. The song itself at least very clearly does not mean it in the original sense.

The guy singing it is openly bisexual so it’s not bad imo

You should hear him sing King for a Day.

The line between russian propagandists and MAGA idiots is indistinguishable.

Republicans are that stupid though so I can see some being real.

Nah, I’ve got a family member who voted for trump and loves RatM. They honestly think the lyrics support conservative ideals, and advocate for violence against people who would change the country from the “good ol’ days.”

I hope you don’t mind Unix systems, cuz you should avoid Windows after a statement like that.

But he’s wearing an EAR RING AND MAKE UP!!!

That’s his own hair, for Christ sakes!!!

Dude, they’re a punk band, or at least they were. That’s literally the point of the genre

I quit listening to Green Day because it was impossible to escape When September Ends. Couldn’t go out in public without hearing it somewhere.

Maybe punk just isn’t your thing

All art is political

It’s funny to me…I didn’t say they were bad, I didn’t say I didn’t like them, I didn’t say anything except for that they clearly took their music in a more in your face, political direction. That’s fine, I support them making that choice. I get that punk is inherently political, and that most music has hints of it. When I started listening, when 1039 came out - I was too young to understand what the music was about. Then came kerplunk and dookie. Dookie has many songs that are just about boredom, wasting time, or girls. Same thing for Insomniac and Nimrod. You cannot argue that EVERY song on those albums was political, it’s just not true. They became a pop-punk alternative band. That’s great, they still make great music, I just choose other styles and genres. Downvotes aren’t hurting me, but it seems excessive for sharing my thoughts.

For the record, I was a ride or die fan in the 90’s. 5 shows, one of them I waited by the outdoor stage for 3 hours to get a good spot. I had my art featured on the earliest version of their website, back in the AOL days. I still love the music I grew up with. Bands style, peoples preferences change…I just don’t want to think about the broken world when I listen to music anymore.

I guess this is the best place for this comment: about two years back my friend (who is a hardcore conservative, just not trump is God crazy and he doesn’t know about qanon), myself and two other guys (they’re all moderate or liberal) went to go see Rage Against The Machine for like the first time in 20 years. During one of the songs where he raps about humans living shitty lives because they can get ahead, there were posters all over saving things like "save the kids ". “feed the children”.

My conservative buddy looked at me during the time the posters were up and was he like "WTF is this shit?*

They should have kept “hold office”. The rhyme works better, “works forces” isn’t a saying so it seems really forced, and apparently no one would have noticed anyway.

Yea that’s all fine but when they get surprised that Green Day has a little something more to say after preforming American idiot it’s a bit funny.

America is a nation of immigrants. So how on earth would an “American name” look like? They are literally the most american names possible without being indiginous.

The top one (Vas) looks to be Greek and the other looks to be Polish.

Yours is even worse, kiddo. Put down the stones.

I realize that.

What language change to be current?

reminds me of the line in Hey Ya! by OutKast:

“y’all don’t wanna hear me, you just wanna dance”

Say it if you like. Doesn’t reflect well on you if you do decide to.

-__-

You can say the N word all you want. No law against it. Just prepare to get punched in the mouth a lot.

Or any century Chinese.

Agreed. No matter which era you like whether 90s Green Day or Post-American Idiot album, Green Day still great band and great live performer, their live performance are treat especially when they were playing faster live. You can see them on youtubes, my favorite is live version of Paper Lantern (specifically Chicago 1994)