You are not a hero. Change my mind.
gammanu95
You can unfriend me, unfollow me, and unlike me; but you cannot unlick my butthole
Everyone who I know that went into the military did so for lack of options (college, vo-tech, etc.). Not heroes.
Most cops and firefighters I know are meatheads and bullies who could not find other work requiring more advanced skill sets. Not heroes.
Now grocery store workers and drive-thru employees want to be called heroes for working during the stay at home orders? Then truck drivers, plant operators, and electric linemen get jealous and want to be called heroes? Eat a bag of dicks, you losers. You are not heroes. None of you. I worked during the pandemic. My wife worked during the pandemic. We are just glad to be earning an income when so many others were not. We brought our dog to the office one day because she had a vet appointment during lunch. I guess my dog is a fucking hero.
Certainly some servicemen, cops, and firefighters do something heroic from time to time. But that is so very, very infrequent. There are medals and awards for that.
As I wrote in another discussion, when asked to identify heroes, my first thought is our Founding Fathers. The men who pledged to each other their lives, fortunes, and "sacred honor', and they endeavored to split from the most powerful Empire the world had ever known and establish a new and untested version of self-government. Christ and the apostles who spread his gospel. They were scourged, crucified, burned alive, stoned to death, or fed to beasts while seeking to spread a message of love and salvation. Arland Williams, the sixth passenger of the 1982 Air Florida Potomac crash, who repeatedly passed the lifeline to other passengers at the cost of his own life. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-hist…
There are other examples, but those are the first to come to mind. Their memory, lessons, and sacrifices are cheapened when the title of "hero" is given to people who are simply doing their job (and often less).
Got something to say?
Start your own discussion
30 comments
Latest
The So-called Founding Fathers don’t qualify..
There are heroes in every day life everywhere in the world those that try to save humanity for example Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg is a Swedish environmental activist who happens to be an hero to so many.
I haven’t noticed much in my personal life on either social media or IRL. My essential employment I think pretty much everyone considers our job just a job and nobody really has much concern over anything. We only wear masks directly in front of customers to not piss them off.
I felt like the hero recognition came more from certain individuals wanting to give lip service validation in the hopes people don’t go around asking for something tangible (like hazard pay). Kinda like the strip club customer who waxes poetic about how beautiful you are and you know he’s just trying to get as much freebies out of you as possible.
But I could be wrong. What have you noticed IRL?
~IceyLoco
~May 25th 2020
In the days following the 9-11 World Trade Center attacks I saw a TV program about a fire brigade that responded after the attacks. Now many years have passed so my memory of the details might be a bit fuzzy.
I believe the program was on CBS and narrated by Dan Rather and it was highly promoted as an exclusive in the days rolling up to it's airing on TV.
What I do remember was that the firemen entered a dimly lit building mainly aimlessly wandering around on the ground floor trying to decide what they were going to do then deciding to evacuate themselves from the premises without having done anything.
Rather constantly referred to the firemen as heroes even though in actuality they did nothing besides enter the building then leave the building. I recall sitting there after the program was over thinking how loosely the definition of hero was bandied about. The criteria for being a hero hasn't tightened up in the years that have followed.
Now in no way do I want to take away from the firemen that entered the WTC buildings and hiked up the stairs with full loads of gear in their attempts to rescue people and fight the fires and eventually lost their lives when the buildings collapsed. Yes they were doing their jobs but when tossing out the hero moniker they were much more deserving of the title than the firemen that entered and left without doing a thing as portrayed in the program I watched.
@ etsutwigg22: not heroes. suck some more of Oprah's dick, momma's boy.
@ Muddy: "Thank you for your service" = better you than me. A few years ago, I saw a hand-painted sign in a yard a half-block from my house. Something about a PTSD'ed vet living there and we shouldn't be shooting off fireworks and traumatizing him during Independence Day celebrations. I had already bought over $200 worth fireworks. After reading the sign, I bought another $300 of the biggest mortars I could find. (Backstory: Guy was a handyman and contractor. I could see and hear this guy's house and garage from my backyard. He had floodlights, power tools, and shop stereo on full volume at all hours of the day and night. The yard was a fucking wreck, with trash and litter everywhere. Typical Cape Coral douchebag.)
Also the passengers that fought back on Flight 93 were heroes. They realized that they could either sit still, obey the terrorists, and die along with whatever poor bastards were the target (most likely the White House); or they could fight back, probably die in the attempt, and maybe save whoever the target was. We know the rest.
In my opinion heroes are those who serve and protect others without regard to themselves. They risk their lives by running to the gunfire while most seek shelter from it.
Hero is a noun, that's it. It's definition depends on the speaker, writer, whatever. Like any noun, it's definition is variable. I somewhat agree with you that it is often overused.
I didn't go to work. I didn't work before this started. I helped at some food bank. Does that make me a hero? NO! Just a bored fart looking for something to do outside!
Come on - prove me wrong! That old pervert may have looked a lot like me...
Kind of like that warm fuzzy feeling right before you puke. 🤮
People, most likely driven by sensationalized NY-mentality media, have converted the word hero to apply to anyone who has a tremendous load of crap thrust upon them involuntarily, i.e. first responders of any kind and now anyone who happens to be serving the masses during covid era. Yeah, some are temporarily working in a less than ideal setting but 99.9% are not heroes.
Barack obama
The clintons
Greta thunburg
Oprah
Cardi b
Megan rapinoe
Lizzo
Taylor swift
Colin Kaepernick
Kaitlin jenner
Change my mind.
I was at the grocery store and there was an old lady brazenly walking around without a mask. Later I could hear some self righteous male Karen hassling her in the next aisle. She wasn't having any of it and gave him a piece of her mind about the ridiculousness of masks.
It was inspiring. I am working up the courage to go to a store tomorrow without a mask myself. Courage is contagious as they say. The more people who don't wear masks more people will follow.
Like, are the real heroes to you only the ones that wear capes and fly around?
It all comes down to how one defines "hero," which obviously in this discussion isn't a generic term. My personal definition is if the act in question falls in your job description in your voluntary, compensated employment it's not heroic - it's your job.
I agree 100%. As such, the label "hero" is entirely subjective. The police and law enforcement are heroes to some people. But they have not saved my life personally ever. They are hardly considered heroes to me. Heroes to me include doctors(i have to been to the ER a few times in my life), military(i have numerous family members that served and i myelf almost wound up in the military), and firefighters(set my apartment on fire once as a kid). If they save your life personally, they're heros. I guess if they save enough lives collectively they earn the title of "hero" but they are ultimately subjective. To me, thanos was the hero in avengers. Along with killmonger in black panther and magneto in the x-men movies as heroes for their own people.