Take That/Real Life

""Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect. But we have never had to build a wall to keep our people in. .."
 * Arguably, all the states that seceded from the Union during the American Civil War. Perhaps one of the best examples would be West Virginia. When Virginia seceded, part of the state didn't agree, and elected to secede from Virginia, forming the state known as West Virginia.
 * Judge William Adams. He abused his daughter one time too many, the daughter secretly recorded him and years later she, after receiving further harassment posted it on YouYube (warning: graphic), as a result of this, Judge Williams has been temporarily removed from the bench, pending further investigation. However, due to statute of limitations laws, it's highly likely that he will escape significant punishment.
 * Auto designer Giorgetto Giugiaro -- who created the bodywork for iconic cars like the Lotus Esprit, De Lorean DMC-12, Maserati Ghibli and Volkswagen Golf -- had a memorable reaction upon seeing Triumph's notoriously ugly TR7 during the 1975 Geneva Motor Show. After viewing the profile of the car, with the sculpted curve running along the side, he took on a puzzled expression, slowly walked around the car and exclaimed in startlement: "My God! They've done it to the other side as well!"
 * We only have Jeremy Clarkson's word to go by for this story, however, so make of that what you will.
 * The Nobel Prize committee may have done this when they awarded the peace prize to dissident Liu Xiaobo. China had been begging the committee to grant one of their scientists a prize for many years, pouring millions into research programs to reach that end. Then the committee gave their first prize to a pro-democracy political dissident who's been locked up on an eleven year sentence. Norway, it seems, has a healthy sense of irony.
 * In 2007, the Saudi monarch made a state visit to the U.K.; the Band of the Welsh Guards could either break a century of tradition by not heralding his arrival, or they could hail an absolute monarch with a not-so-spotless record, which the people of the United Kingdom don't look too highly upon. The solution they arrived at was to play the Imperial March from Star Wars.... For people who might like to see it, Here.
 * Dan Gilbert, the owner of the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, decides upon learning that resident superstar LeBron James was leaving for the Miami Heat. Gilbert goes on record flailing at James in the media (accusing him of having "given up"), and then has his sports poster company, Fathead, slash the price of the LeBron Cleveland Cavaliers poster to $17.41, a reference to the year that Benedict Arnold was born.
 * Many British newspapers protested against Southampton FC's ban on press photographers covering their games (in an attempt to make money by selling their own photos) in creative ways:
 * The Bournemouth Echo put up pictures of a match between Bournemouth and Southampton... from The Eighties.
 * The Swindon Advertiser used Subbuteo figures to re-enact key moments from Swindon's gane against the Saints.
 * The Plymouth Herald had a cartoonist draw sketches of key moments from Plymouth Argyle's game, akin to the famous comic Roy of the Rovers (although they ended up getting photos from Argyle anyway).
 * The Sun simply flat out refused to mention them (or their players) by name.
 * King Charles II of England once got in an epic Take That. One day he was visiting Barbara Palmer, one of his mistresses, when he became suspicious and opened the closet - only to find a very naked young man shivering inside. He looked the young man (John Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough) up and down contemptuously, then said, "Don't worry, John, I'm not angry at you. I know you're only doing it for the money."
 * Esperanto has a jab against its rival Con Lang, Volapuk: the Esperanto phrase "Tio estas volapukaĵo por mi" is used to say something is gibberish. Ergo, "volapuk" is Esperanto for "gibberish". Zing!
 * Well, it's more like "That's Greek to me" (which is used in English), but the intention (that Volapuk is gibberish) remains.
 * John F. Kennedy scored a point against Soviet Communism with this excerpt from a 1963 speech given in Berlin in the very shadow of the Wall cutting through the city:

""I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.""
 * The seat of Christianity, um, Catholicism, the Vatican, is in Rome, Italy. Rome used to be the empire that relentlessly persecuted the Christians and tried to eradicate Christianity. On the other hand, it might simply be because Rome was the political center of the Roman Empire, and thus so would that empire's state religion be headquartered there.
 * Also, St. Peter's is built on the site of a circus where Christians were tortured.
 * Religion in general. Many religions make Evil Knockoffs of other religions' deities (and other spirits) in an attmept to demonise them.
 * Rome, of course, also renamed the Kingdom of Judah "Palaestina" upon conquering it, as a Take That to the Jews exiled from it, as the Philistines were among Judah and Israel's chief historic rivals. The fact that this has become the name of the nationality of the Arabs who came to the region much later is, well, weird.
 * Not terribly so: it was the official name of the region when the Arabs took it over from the Byzantines. By that point in time, "Judaea," "Israel," and "Canaan" had all been more or less forgotten by anyone who wasn't Jewish or familiar with the Old Testament, and being as the Arabs were for the most part neither, they just went with the Roman-given name and had done with it.
 * What the Romans did with Jerusalem after the Bar Kokhba revolt (circa 135) was an even bigger Take That. They razed the entire city, built a Roman colony named Aelia Capitolina on the site, built a complete set of pagan (not just Roman) temples, forbade Jews from entering the city on pain of death, and posted an entire legion there to enforce the prohibition.
 * Botanist Johann Sigesbeck criticised Carl von Linné's system of plant taxonomy. In response, Linné, who also was the inventor of the binominal nomenclature, named a small and useless weed Sigesbeckia.
 * J.R.R. Tolkien delivered a Take That to the Nazi Regime in 1938 in response to a letter from a potential German publisher/translator of The Hobbit, in which he was asked if he was of Arisch origin (emphasis original):


 * And that's the mild version of the letter (Tolkien prepared two versions, of which the original publisher (Unwin) decided to use the stronger; the mild was left unused).
 * Charlie Chaplin and Jorge Luis Borges independently came up with more-or-less the same reply to their Nazi detractors (minus the schooling in Indo-European linguistics.)
 * Similar to the Tolkien example above, T.H. White decried the Nazi party and Hitler in The Once and Future King by having Merlyn rant about "an Austrian" and his ideas in response to something stupid that Kay says.
 * The United States of America's national motto and Pledge of Allegiance both contain a Take That against Communism. Since 1782, the nation's most popular unofficial motto was E Pluribus Unum, meaning "Out of Many, One," a literal and poetic description of a nation formed from different states, peoples and ideologies. However, in 1952, the United States Congress declared "In God We Trust" to be the official motto of the nation. It also included the phrase "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance, sticking it between "one nation" and "indivisible." The nation had basically branded itself as a religious counterpoint to communist atheism.
 * This has lead to many people question the constitutionality of the inclusion of that phrase, since they think it violates Establishment clause of the First Ammendment (the one dealing with separation of church and state). Others think the offended are enforcing Political Correctness Gone Mad by being offended by the phrase "In God We Trust". Also an example of Newer Than They Think. Surprisingly many people believe that "one nation indivisible under God" dates back to the founding fathers.
 * Jon Stewart brings this up occassionally, but in the linked example he laments that apparently the people bringing this issue up (read: Republicans) had nothing better to do because the motto was under not threat. He changes his mind later in the video though, because we now really have to put our trust in God, because God knows, "we can't trust in them".
 * Some people stamp the money as a take that to religious accomodationists.
 * It is said that once representatives from Turkey complained to the Soviet premier Khrushchev that Soviet Armenia has on its coat of arms the mountain of Ararat, which is in Turkey, and not owned by the Armenians. The Soviet answer? "You have a crescent on your flag. Do you own the Moon?".
 * Wild Wild West. Robert Conrad appeared at the Razzie awards the year the movie came out to express his disgust with the quality of the picture. He even accepted three of the five awards the film "won".
 * Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus does a mild Take That to PETA and other groups that accuse them of abusing their elephants. They take great care to point out how well they take care of their elephants and that an unhappy elephant could go on a rampage (so it's good to keep them happy). One act had the MC say "You know, some people don't like it when we make elephants do tricks. So we'll have the elephants make the people do tricks!" The elephants held up signs in their trunks that said "Sit", "roll over", "Back flip" or "Headstand" and the acrobats would do what the sign said.
 * The Russians recently got to the North Pole (or really close to it). The U.S.A. complained what was their right to go to the North Pole and stick their flag in there. The Russian answer? "No one complained when you guys stuck your flag on the moon".
 * In the ancient world, it was not uncommon to engrave sling ammunition. Occasionally phrases like "Take that" or "Catch" would be featured.
 * The practice of having messages on ammunition has carried at least as far as World War II, when bombs had Take That messages painted on them. One example from the British: "To Adolf, Express Delivery Via Lancaster To Berlin!"
 * Capcom bowdlerised non-Japanese versions of Breath of Fire IV by removing even though the original Japanese version was itself hidden behind a black-on-red silhouette screen. The manga adaptation (which was supervised by Capcom Japan) did an apparently deliberate Take That to that act of censorship by.
 * Tyra Banks had Tyra Banxxx on her show in 2005, and urged her to quit pornography. Tyra with three X's said she would; not only did she not do so, but shortly afterwards she dealt a Take That to the head of Bankable Productions by starring in America's Next Top Porn Model, a parody of guess what.
 * When Otto von Bismarck received a German book written in Antiqua font (as opposed to Fraktur, which was normally used for German in the 19th century), he would send it back to whoever gave him it with a message saying "I do not read German books in Latin letters!"
 * Font snobbishness goes back a long way, I guess.