User:LizardPie/SandboxCritique

For the vast majority of the world, 'patriotism' is defined as being a fierce love, support, and loyalty for one's country. To match Chris's definition, add in 'to be used only when it suits one's own purposes'. His view on what makes a person patriotic is as convenient, contrived, and easily abandoned as his take on any other concept. What makes it stand out, however, is that it is capable of getting other people riled up in ways which are greater than his normal delusions.

Okay, not bad - you're establishing "Why is this relevant to understanding Chris? How does this make Chris even more fucked up?"

In the Comics

Like the self-insertions they are, the characters in Sonichu stand by what Chris believes in. In terms of what he considers to be supporting his country, they are fierce in their backing of scattered ideas. They stand behind ideas of women's rights that basically amount to the rights to both vote and take off their clothes for men. The term 'Freedom Fries' is still in use, despite the fact that it's for the vast majority considered to be outdated and ridiculous.

Why is "Freedom fries" linking to Punchy? If it should link to something, link to 1) the comic where it's mentioned or 2) Layla, whom he renamed from Luckett since he found the name to be "too French" which would work with the Freedom Fries thing. Also how are Sonichu and Rosechu patriotic? Because they agree with Chris? I'd recommend discussing "The Clarksville Address" where Sonichu goes on some rant in front of the American flag about insulting Chris and stuff.

In the same way they are supportive, they are also quick to condemn concepts he doesn't agree with; such as child pornography laws and law enforcement. Most commonly, it seems to have a definite bias against freedom of speech. The logic appears to be that Chris, himself, is free to say whatever he likes. But say anything against him, and you need to be stopped in whatever means Chris feels are necessary.

Personally, I think he was referring to child labor laws in that comic - the fact that Zapina couldn't help set up lights due to child labor laws, though the fact that it was for a porn shoot didn't help. Why is pornography linked to Family Guy? Why not Rule 34 or Chris and sex? And how do you know Chris has a bias against freedom of speech? He probably has a vague understanding of the idea. If Chris was particularly smart, he could get us on libel but he'd need to prove we ruined his reputation when he didn't have much of a reputation to begin with. Otherwise, those last two sentences are sorta fluff.

For Chris's respect, one of the qualifications is that a man be the current president of the United States. Being a candidate doesn't count, however, and he had no qualms about putting in a racist joke about Obama painting the White House black (and crediting his father for the joke). He has since repealed any problems with Obama since he's been elected, going as far as to say that they're the same because they've both faced adversity.

Since when did he say about a man needing to be the president? I think talking about how the President of the United States is one of the few men who aren't JERKS that Chris respects, probably out of the virtue they're the President. If Hitler happened to be President, odds are Chris would still respect him. Blind loyalty to the leader is something I'd discuss as well.

In Real Life

There is little to go on about Chris's patriotism in real life, which in and of itself normally wouldn't be a bad thing. As it is for many people, it's often a more subtle that vocal feeling; and the opportunity to present it doesn't come very often. Mostly, we have his word to go on; such as his claims that he was saddened by the attacks of 9/11. If this were all there was, this section wouldn't exist.

Avoid meta references to the article itself. It's annoying to say things about the section and it really should be avoided.

His biggest exploits, and what he equated to patriotism, came from his fight to save McIntire Park from being turned into a YMCA. This was displayed with utilizing his rights of peaceful protest; constructing signs, attending events, and speaking out at public hearings. Were there a vote, it is sure he would have also placed one. This sounds very much like what a modern take on domestic patriotism would be, but then you remember that it's Chris you're talking about and things are never that selfless.

His quest to stop McIntire Park hinged on a few things, none of which had to do with the greater good of the community. His want to stop the YMCA was primarily because he didn't want to pay to use a recreational area. His creation of signs were just a picture of Sonichu and Rosechu; one with so much text, written in such a small font, that it was useless for protest as someone would have to be very close to even get an idea of what he was rambling about. Because they were made, probably unintentionally, too illegible for their original purpose, they became solely the ulterior motive of promoting his comics. But, considering the people who would have seen them more likely than not either already knew about and wouldn't look for or never had/would have any interest in looking up Sonichu, they didn't even work for promotion.

Why is "To use" linking to Hex Bawx? Why is "recreation" linking to PSN when it's not really about video games? I really wouldn't say this is patriotism or genuine civic engagement but Chris used this campaign as a way to get out and promote his work when he was taking a bit of a sabbatical from the Internet.

Oh, and speaking out at the public hearing? That was just to get on TV. Thankfully, he was silenced rather quickly.

Link to the video this is referring to - it's in the McIntire Park article, IIRC.

On YouTube

Despite his claims of patriotism, true colors come forth on YouTube that he cares far less for his country than his own quests for revenge.

The most famous example came during the period where he was making several threats to Clyde Cash, which made up a series of videos attempting to show how weak Clyde was. The series was mostly the average threats, but then came Twin Falling Towers. Using a mouse in replacement of a plane, he proceeded to act out the attack of 9-11, while making comments of how weak the towers were.

This video would have raised eyebrows coming from anyone, but the fact that it was from an American led many past shock and into disgust.

Is inflammatory remarks of 9/11 really unAmerican? If we believe in free speech, wouldn't such inflammatory remarks be a sign of a true American exercising free speech? If America is a strong nation, why would we still be weakened by thoughts of 9/11? Think about that.

Backlash

The 9-11 videos sparked great deals of rage, to the point that Chris issued one of his trademarked apologies. Chris said several times that he'd been very upset over what had happened on 9-11 (though, as commenters pointed out, if he'd truly cared he wouldn't have posted that video in the first place). However, he didn't stop there. He assumed that people were upset simply because they'd misinterpreted what he was saying, and proceeded to explain that he was trying to show how weak Clyde was.

He decided to change the video into blowing out birthday candles. The issue came in that he used the twin towers as the birthday candles and, needless to say, the new video did nothing to placate the people already angry about his actions.

The videos and statements were so outrageous that there was mass speculation that Chris had been put up to it, as was the case in other videos where he performed actions which were shocking. People in-the-know firmly denied any coercion, and said that Chris had done it all on his own.

Where have you heard people deny that Chris was coerced? Is there a publicly available source for this? Faggots on the Internet can say anything. How does this all relate to patriotism, as you've defined it?

The problem with this article is that it really doesn't discuss patriotism as you've defined it, that is love and loyalty of one's nation. Things I'd discuss - the Clarksville address, Chris's "When you diss CWCville, you diss Charlottesville, and when you diss Charlottesville, you diss America..." (this is a very cliche rhetorical device that hinges on patriotism), Chris buthering the national anthem (a patriotic American can at least hum the national anthem - Chris confuses the national anthem with "God Bless America"). Also the Charlottesville stuff - he seems more patriotic to his hometown than his nation as a whole. It's a different sort of patriotism and you might want to redefine your definition or refine the intro. He's done a lot of stuff about Charlottesville and it's sort of a quaint sort of patriotism - like there aren't too many people who feel patriotic about their home town.

This is just to start but at the moment, there's a lot of fluff in this article and it doesn't really discuss patriotism, mostly goes on tangents about vaguely patriotic things.