did that just symbolize the falling of the merican empire?

Who cares? It's only *insert countries name here*.

Symbolism rocks.

>> ^lurgee:

did that just symbolize the falling of the merican empire?


Nah, it would have had to have dragged everyone else down with it.

I don't get it. Everyone in the band stopped playing, nearly simultaneously, when the flag fell? Why?

Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave ...

That is the line it fell on!

>> ^DuoJet:
I don't get it. Everyone in the band stopped playing, nearly simultaneously, when the flag fell? Why?
(Psst...did you forget to check the sarcasm box? There is no spoon band.)

Does anyone stop to think why the hell are we staring at flags like they're amazingly important and significant. I'm beginning to feel abnormal seeing the number of wide-eyed flag-waving Brits on the tv. They really buy into this nationalistic crap.

The whole Olympics is a stupid outdated nationalistic joke.

Nobody watches global individual sport championships but for a couple of weeks they go insane supporting "Their countries team".

Half the Athletes trained in other countries or by coaches from other countries, wearing sport tech researched and developed in other countries.

>> ^Deano:

Does anyone stop to think why the hell are we staring at flags like they're amazingly important and significant. I'm beginning to feel abnormal seeing the number of wide-eyed flag-waving Brits on the tv. They really buy into this nationalistic crap.


Look, you can go the pessimistic route and say that the games are just the Colosseum all over again, placating the masses by entertaining them with a grand spectacle.

OR, you could enjoy it and see it as encouraging some pride in achievement, hopefully showing some good sportsmanship (almost every games there's some great example of someone being a great sport over winning), and getting kids excited about sport. Considering obesity these days, anything that gets kids excited about participating in sports is a good thing.

My kids have been running race after race after race around our house during these games as the eldest is obsessed with Usain Bolt. There's also a lot of basketball being played as the Australian basketball teams are doing well. And the kids are also going extra hard in their swimming lessons the last two weeks.

So lighten up a bit, let yourself get carried away with the moment. I for one have been getting almost tearing over OTHER country's victories, and our competitors close victories moreso than wins by my country (maybe because Australia has had ONE gold only so far... amazing!)...

You can bemoan how much money goes into training these athletes, but I'd take money being spent having people compete in games and at peak physical fitness any day over it being spent on military spending.

>> ^raverman:

The whole Olympics is a stupid outdated nationalistic joke.
Nobody watches global individual sport championships but for a couple of weeks they go insane supporting "Their countries team".
Half the Athletes trained in other countries or by coaches from other countries, wearing sport tech researched and developed in other countries.


So? They're still representing their country.

>> ^Deano:

Does anyone stop to think why the hell are we staring at flags like they're amazingly important and significant. I'm beginning to feel abnormal seeing the number of wide-eyed flag-waving Brits on the tv. They really buy into this nationalistic crap.


So, in your opinion there should be no national boundaries and no national teams? We should be just a huge dispassionate group, representing nothing but ourselves? Your comment makes you sound as if you have no loyalty, affinity, or pride for the country where you were raised. Very sad

I love the Olympics...organized sports is the highest our society has risen collectively. I enjoy every olympics, it isn't even about the medals, it's about the stories and the athletes and their countries. Dammit we're all Humans! Lets compete for fun and showcase our abilities!

>> ^Deano:

Does anyone stop to think why the hell are we staring at flags like they're amazingly important and significant. I'm beginning to feel abnormal seeing the number of wide-eyed flag-waving Brits on the tv. They really buy into this nationalistic crap.


The reason to wave a flag is to support your "team" at the olympics, and perhaps for the home country to show the athletes how welcoming and encouraging we are towards their efforts. We're there, we're making noise, we're helping people get to events. Foreign friends are telling me "You're welcoming and friendly even if you don't know the answer." This is the most british i've seen britain in years and i'm loving it.

We're a small country and we're 3rd in the tables and top based on relative size. That's something to be pleased about and we've not had much to be pleased about recently. We also come from independant countries, and that makes us even smaller and more divided so when we wave a british flag, sometimes it's to show that we've come together and we're there to support each other.

I see people chatting to each other about the olympics in the street, and why's that a bad thing? Anything that brings us closer together has got to be good. I want people to take pride in this country because i want it to stop being a shit hole.

Even socialist USSR celebrated their athletes and competition. Today we have something worse than socialism...political correctness that says no one must be allowed to shine brighter than any other person. These curmudgeons want to remove any pleasure from human life. In fact, they prefer that human life stop so that 'we can save the planet!'.

They want to turn us into 'the masses'.

Imagine, actual human beings allowing this to happen.

Seriously, a flag falls down, top 15?

I know the olympics is supposed to be a great festival of trivial bullshit for retards to get excited about, but you all might want to ask yourselves how this could possibly be considered at all notable by anybody, anywhere.

I miss blankfist's cat fart videos.

>> ^Deano:

Does anyone stop to think why the hell are we staring at flags like they're amazingly important and significant. I'm beginning to feel abnormal seeing the number of wide-eyed flag-waving Brits on the tv. They really buy into this nationalistic crap.
Makes a change from all the wide-eyed flag-waving nationalistic Americans that saturate the media the rest of the time.

It always bothers me when people say "we" when referring to athletes or teams. Unless you're directly involved in their success, there's no "we." There's just "you" and "them." Being from the same country, state and/or city is a superficial similarity at best and doesn't really amount to anything. You should cheer someone because of their actual merits, not because of some hollow sense of unity.