Notably stupid

[learnedax]

I haven't really paid any attention to Livejournal's little Writer's Block prompts, but I stopped and looked at this one long enough to mention it:
How do you celebrate Independence Day in your country?

So, unless I'm missing something, that's about the dumbest thing I've ever seen on LJ. Which is saying a lot, I think.

Comments

[meshko]

Well, not 100% dumb. Some contries do have their own Independence Day holidays. Ukraine has one. Russia has 'Russia day' but everyone calls it the Indepenence Day.

[jdulac]

storm the Bastille?

[learnedax]

I'm for it.... just give me about ten days to get ready.

(I'm not sure that the Day of the Glorious Revolution is quite in the same spirit, but I have always been fond of Bastille Day.)

[umbran]

You missed something. Most countries that were at some time part of the various European empires have a day commemorating becoming independent from same. And darned straight the various former parts of the Soviet Union celebrate their independence from that governance, and so on.

Maybe the capitalization was a bit off, but that doesn't render the question stupid.

[learnedax]

Oh, I know that a few other countries have what could reasonably be called an equivalent, i.e. a holiday to commemorate the country casting off the outside control of another country. The problem is that the bulk of internet users, and in particular Livejournal users, are quite unlikely to have an equivalent. This becomes even more true when you consider that the question is written in English, and the other three enormous majority-English countries have no equivalent.

But let's look at the LJ usage top ten countries- The USA has one, of course, but I think it's reasonable to say that in context the question is being posed from the standpoint of what is different from the USA, so it's sort of moot

[perbac]

Y'know, I agree in principle - the question implies all sorts of face-palmy assumptions, imo.

In practice, though, I took a scan through some of the answers because I was curious (lots of "wtf", some Americans answering it seriously, a bit of snark), and I probably wouldn't've run into this bit of culture if they hadn't asked it:

http://borte-ujin.livejournal.com/1119.html

I didn't know Mongolia had national wrestling contests. Awesome.