It's certainly very true that anyone who seeks to understand their own nation and nationality (not to mention 'patriotism') has to look into their history, see the good and bad, and accept it for what it was. The only conclusion that I have ever really reached as I've done that is that, despite my own feelings for my own country, it is, of course, no 'better' or 'worse' than any other - I love it simply because it is mine. I can be proud of the 'good' and acknowledge the 'bad', just as I can acknowledge the 'good' and 'bad' points of my family members as human beings - it doesn't make me love them any less, but should just make me aware that they are not somehow 'perfect' or 'superior' to any other human being. 'Patriotism' can be, and all too often is, a blind thing. It's foolish to view one' own nation as 'superior' because it has done 'good' things, while sweeping the 'bad' things under the carpet. The same is, of course, true in reverse. I have perhaps a slightly different persepctive on England, for example, than the OP, and for fairly obvious reasons. Many 'bad' things have been done to my county over the centuries in the name of England, but I should never make the mistake of thinking that that somehow means that England is in itself entirely 'bad'. It isn't - it has produced, and still priduces, a great many wonderful things and people. It has even had some positive cultural influences on Wales, even though it has also had some appaulingly destructive influences as a result of some of it actions and policies. The same is true of some of its (or anyone else's!) more contraversial figures, like Churchill. A very complicated man, who did many bad things (like sending the troops in to deal with striking/marching Welshmen, for example), and also did many good things (being the major catalyst for winning a war from an almost unwinnable position). I always try to avoid the term 'hero' to describe anyone, because I don't think anyone ever is in the way that the term is most commonly understood. Some people do the right things at the right time to get the right result, despite whatever 'wrong' things they also did. They get called 'heroes', but in reality, when it's all boiled down together, they are just human beings like any other. I guess I could be called a 'patriotic Welshman'. Certainly, I live my country, and I'm proud of my country, and I'll support my nation with a passion until the day that I die. That doesn't mean I have to think it is 'perfect', or 'better than England', for example - that is just nonsense. Whatever England 'did to' Wales (and that's quite alot of things, over the centuries), that doesn't negate the 'good' that England and her people have also achieved, and it doesn't mean that Wales and her people were somehow entirely innocent of wrongdoing in that process - there were those who assisted in the 'wrong', and those who refused to resist the 'wrong', throughout the ages. It doesn't mean that Wales and her people were somehow innocent of the acts perpetrated by 'Britain' in the years of Empire - both the 'good' and the 'bad'. These principles can be extended to any country, nation, person, or whatever - everything human is a mix of 'good' and 'bad', and should be seen as such. Of course, some 'bad' acts outweight the 'good' at timjes, but that's not really true of something as complex as the entire history of a nation. In the case of the USA it's just the same, of course. The USA has brought the world some 'good' things and some 'bad' things. It has done some 'good' things and some 'bad' things, both at home and abroad, throughout its history. It isn't somehow 'superior' to any other nation, and nor is it in any way 'inferior'. It's just a nation, capable of both 'good' and 'bad', like any other. It's people should love it as their own, and should be proud of its achievements but also accept the wrongs it has done. The point is none of us and our nations are actually any 'better' or 'worse' than anyone else. They are just different, and they are just ours. There may sometimes be things we like about our own country, and things we don't like about others, but we should always remember that there are 'bad' things about our own country, and 'good' things about the other country too, even if our own is the one we love most, and the one we prefer to live in because it is culturally more to our own tastes (unsurprisingly, since that culture is the one we have grown up accustomed to!). Blind patriotism and cultural supremacy is a trap we should never allow ourselves to fall into, either conciously or unconciously.
More delusion? You seem between the back slapping and platitudes...forget that pride and patriotism are two different sticks entirely to enable one to gauge ones nation! Patriotism is for those unable to think! Marginalised and manipulated by vested interests! Pride on the other hand is one identifying with ones culture and heritage! Churchill was a degenerate...see previous link, Clement Attlee an amazing Englishman, a true giant among men, was the force which allowed the English Aristocracy to still be the parasite today as they were before WW2! A fact hidden by the Tory Press! Who was elected after WW2? The nations of the UK could see through the lies and deceit of the Tory party then and booted Churchill out! Even the speech we will fight them on the beaches was spoken by an actor....Churchill was in a mental hospital at the time! Guilt probably remembering the concentration camps he designed in South Africa! Or murdering anyone who stood up for democracy! Aaah.... the tory's never change do they! The USA.....any good its done previously has been wiped out with the stain and genocide torture and mayhem, being committed today in there name! The USA....God help us all tomorrow from there "achievements"! Regards Highlander
Anyone should be proud of his/her country, knowing that not all was perfect. Its simple really, knowing one's nation's faults, yet defending it from smears, is noble. Great posts, both Heroclitus and Cenydd. Just for fun, it I may....one of my favorite shows [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eIqGk8XU2s&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eIqGk8XU2s&feature=related[/ame] and one of my favorite past times [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNxNcuZs6y0&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNxNcuZs6y0&feature=related[/ame]
What gobbledegook. Another example of right wing waffle that we are all supposed to decode because the writer couldn't be bothered to express himself clearly enough and talks to us in heiroglyphics (assuming, that is, that the writer is capable of expressing a clear argument in the first place)? "Secular humanism"? Did you read that in a book? What is it supposed to mean? I know the answer...it is anything that you want it to mean. So judging by your last sentence I can only guess that you mean that it's a multiculturalist approach, or something similar (it would be better if you didn't make us do all this decoding and wrote something coherent). And so you end up with the simplistic drivel that "having lots of immigrants is the same as a 'secular hyumanist pseudo-religion' and that this leads to riots". How's that working for you in America? The country where nearly everyone is an immigrant and secularism is enshrined in the constitution? Lots of sub-human immigrants rioting are they Glock? There, you must have it. How insightful and right you are son. It's not realy worth anyone's time of day is it? Except as a basis for me demonstrating the intellectual thuggery of the American Right...again. Once again the Right on here (with a little help from Highlander) come on a thread to de-rail it with infantile drivel like your post. The Left in Britain would generally dismiss me as a High Tory for that OP. I may even get some sympathy from real Tories such as Jeremy Paxman or Niall Fergusson. Racists on the other hand would agree with your post and denounce the British Conservative Party as a left wing organization.
An excellent post cynydd. You made some good points about Churchill - of course Highlander just saw my post as something that didnt rant and rave about how bad England was and decided to rant and rave about Churchill - he was a complete disaster and utter failure until 1940. Then he became one of the greatest Britons of any age, before reverting to buffoonery again in 1945. He was probably a bit mad as well - and we probably needed that self deception to defeat the Nazis. Highlander of course, as someone who posts in support of Irish terrorism regularly, would probably prefer the approach of the Irish nationalists who guided the Luftwaffe to bomb Belfast. I'm glad that Churchill's side won and Irish nationalists were crushed - the fascist sympathizing scum. But ultimately I like your opening remarks that you can love your country because it is your country, and that, like with most people, you can find good and bad in all. I was also reflecting on how with history you just can't divide the world into camps of "good" and "evil". Let's take Cromwell for example. As a parliamentarian he was of course a tremendously progressive force, even if he did morph into being a quasi-monarch at the end. But as a tyrant in Ireland he was a disaster. On the other hand he created the conditions for the emergence of John Lilburne whose radicalism inspired people like Tom Paine and...ironically through the American Revolution...Robert Emmet. then you take Emmet - an heroic liberal (you have to label some people heroes ceyndd) if ever there was one - started a tradition that included brave freedom fighters and psychopathic thugs. The whole of history is awash with nuance and it ebbs and flows beautifully, but there are no grand camps of Right and Wrong. It is only a particularly stupid and intolerant section of Right and Left that ever characterize history in such a way. As responses to this thread demonstrate.
Again you bias is showing...I called Churchill a degenerate...exactly what he was! Was the truth bothering you? I certainly didn't insult anyone other than your degenerate aristocracy and Tory reprobates which are systematic of your public schools and degenerate behaviour! No right wing....no left wing, just the dregs of your England...your England! I have never agreed with any form of terrorism....perhaps you mistake me with your grandfather...the IRA MAN! BOLLOCKS! But I do understand the reasons for individuals taking up arms to protect themselves...I suppose you consider this to be wrong! ie You're national government and its butchery of the people of Libya! Now that is terrorism! Your self imposed ignorance and self grandisement is an allusion only deluding your good tory self! But you have a nice day...be pleased that you are including your self with the good people of England.....not your parochial outlook of a non-existent England! An England run by those even Enoch Powell fought against which you because of your petty insular attitude could know nothing! Highlander
Its just rambling drivel. I'm pretty clear that I think Churchill was a reactionary prior to WW2 and I said so but you prefer to ignore all that. Your rant about his "degenerate" character. I mean, why are you always focusing on people's personalities - aren't their actions enough? This moralizing, curtain twitching judgementalism, is it Catholic guilt speaking or presbyterian? I think you read three words of a post and then just start to spill your rants on the keyboard. My whole point is that England is, like all nations, complicated, and has good and bad about it. That's NUANCE for you. So what point are you making - that I didn't write enough good stuff or I didnt write enough bad stuff? Or is it just bad enough that I posted anything at all? You make no point. You pick something at random from the post, take it completely out of context and then just spout drivel. Or are you just taking the opportunity to trash my thread? You succeeded there. Who wants to post on a thread after you have destroyed it with your incoherent mumbling? I'm all for a good argument but we just get endless streams of anglophobia from you over and over again. Plus a load of sentimental Scottish nationalist twaddle. Tell me, why, after the Union, were there no Scottish nationalists of note until the twentieth century? Because they were too busy running and profiting from the union and the Empire. Scottish nationalism is a way of escaping from British decline. It has nothing to do with the ideals of people like Emmet or Burns. You carry on "understanding" why psychopaths murder children as much as you like - that's supporting terrorism in my book. And my grandfather left the IRA when it started to collude with Nazi Germany because he was an anti-fascist. He joined Pearse's IRA in 1916, not the gaggle of gangsters that you so "understand" today. Hunger strikers were a bunch of murderers. Bobby Sands sister is part of the organization that bombed civilians in Omagh. These are scum you "understand". Like your buddy Gaddafi who funded the IRA. You are so upset that democratic nations responded to calls from the people of Libya ("rats" to you I suppose) for air assistance. Yes, I am proud that Britain played a role in supporting the struggle of the people of Libya. You carry on "understanding" gangsters in Ireland who lose every election they ever stand in and are derided by the overwhelming majority of the country they pretend to be trying to liberate. I'll support the British government's support of libyan freedom fighters against the filthy murderous tyranny of Gaddafi. You make it so easy. No nuance required when discussing with you. You support murderers, pschopaths and tyrants. I support those people who try and bring them down.
in history there are many examples of other countries to interfere in the internal affairs of independent countries. For example, Libya. Next country of Iran, and then Belarus. But if Iran's oil, why do we Belarus? Belarus is no oil. I found a video of what is happening in Belarus and Europe now. We are funding the opposition of those countries that we do not need, we say there violated human rights, and what is happening with us? Here is the video [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnYKLoBLC5I"]Integration into the European Union! - YouTube[/ame]
As someone born in the UK, of mixed English, Scottish, and German ancestry, who has done my schooling in the 'degenerate' English Public School system, and is now in a similar institution in the far reaches of the 'evil empire', I find myself viewing this debate with some confusion. I do not have sufficient historical knowledge of who burnt whose ships in Waterford, nor am I particularly interested in aligning myself north or south of Hadrian's Wall, or on either side of the Irish Sea. But I value the contributions of my learned Welsh and expatriate English/Irish friends, and relate to their feelings on the matter. Perhaps unlike some here, I regard myself as a Briton first, and an Englishman thereafter. Consequently, I am not quite as affected by what the English did to the Scots, what the Irish terrorists did to the English, or what any Briton did to other Britons during the last thousand or so years. What is of primary concern to me, is how my fellow Britons are acting towards each other today. I am more concerned about the social injustice which triggered riots in London and other centres, than I am about the Irish famine of two centuries ago. This is not meant to sound heartless, but that is in the country of the past, through which we may no longer travel. The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on: Nor all thy piety, nor wit, shall lure it back to cancel half a line. Nor all thy tears wash out a single line of it ... Ancient grudges and hatreds do not feed a single child, nor do they free a single political prisoner. I love Scotland and my Scottish grandparents, and I have much sympathy with our Scottish friend, but this gnawing hatred of all things English is not healthy (I would also point this out to my American friend Plymouth). Great Britain is like every other highly developed nation. It has given the world much (some say more than most,) and it has also caused much harm with its greed and acquisitiveness. The good does not nullify the bad, and vice versa. But it is the land of my birth. The land which gave me my values, and the land in which I intend to die. It is a land of flawed, snobbish, and greedy people, but it is also a land of gently spoken, kindly, and self deprecating people. It is a land of, as Brooke chose to put it: ...laughter, learnt of friends, and gentleness in hearts at peace ... and it will always be my home. I am sure every Frenchman, Italian, German, or American, feels exactly the same way. There are no 'best countries in the world' - we are all flawed beings and our institutions reflect that. But there are good, interesting and wonderful people in every society on earth, of that we can be sure.
You may not of heard of Waterford etc......but maybe theses your "terrorists" are Irish freedom fighters fighting the oppression of those you are so proud! But pray tell me since when do ordinary English folk order the mass killing of anyone? Irish Scots or Libyans??? Your bias is also showing!!! Pray look a the factual information which "you readily admit " you do not have sufficient historical knowledge " and base your bias of factual information! Rather than call those with the understanding of those "degenerates" for what they are perhaps you might remove the rose tinted glasses of the bubbling brook etc! "Greed and acquisitiveness" proof absolute of you're understanding exactly of your aristocracy's thieving of others "nations" wealth...as today in Libya, and the death of English soldiers in Afghanistan for the expansionist foreign policies of America and its neutered poodle England! <<< MOD EDIT: INSULT REMOVED >>> Regards Highlander
You doubtless have many valid points to make, Sir, and it is a pity you cannot make them without gratuitous personal attack. I am sure I could learn much from you under other circumstances. However, I do not see what may be gained by discussing this matter with you any further, and I bid you good day.
Mmm....perhaps you might be wrong....Until your "thatcher" may she live for ever in her soiled nappies...wanted all seven ministers of Europe to be English changed the law! From that moment we were to be called British on out passport! Before that we had the right to call ourselves what we wanted, but as usual bigotry and thuggery wins, but only in your eyes! But I and the rest of the Scottish nation didn't agree with her diktat! Salmon stated the referendum will be held....WHEN HE STATES! Them WE the Scottish nation can decide our own destiny not the whims of degenerates! But perhaps we may one day be treated each other as equals....not the parasite we're made out to be by your Tory reprobates! But they do have have vested interests! Regards Highlander
Dearie me! Haud yer wheesht1 "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty Wi bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, Wi' murdering pattle. I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken Nature's social union, An' justifies that ill opinion Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor, earth born companion An' fellow mortal! ... " Seems a reasonable response to such prattle.
I've told you more than once that Thatcher isn't mine in any sense, and you've mentioned this ^^^ before and I still don't have a clue what you're on about. Which 7 ministers of Europe are you talking about? Name names. You mentioned this before too. Which diktat was this? Come on, Highlander, provide something reliable to back up your claims for once. Yes I know that, but you're still British until he gets around to holding it and people vote to sever ties with the UK. As Salmond has said he still wants the Queen as head of state, will your passport still have the same wording as now if Scots vote to leave? And has he decided whether he wants EFTA or EU membership yet? The difference matters if you really want to be in charge of your own destiny and no one in England is stopping Salmond from holding that referendum, so your destiny in entirely in Salmond's hands. Take your grievances with the Tories up with one of their supporters, but you won't be treated as equals whilst you still have that chip on your shoulder and use the english as scapegoats in such a crazed fashion.
Sorry...did I hurt your nationalistic fervour! The queen...is your head of state...she...the german lady cannot call her self the Queen of Scotland......because she's a usurper! A simple fact! That fact...sorry to enlighten you...so the term British was invented....to allow those English people a sense of delusion! That again isn't derogatory towards English people...just another fact of your degenerate aristocracy! So pray tell where is this chip on the shoulder??? Perhaps you need to look closer to home for a lump of wood! We will not be treated as equals until we stand on our own feet, and that for me won't come quick enough,even though its going to be very difficult for all of the Scottish nation, and those superior English people who came north for a more civilised society! But you have a nice day, enjoy your assumptions! You deserve them and all that comes with them!!!! At least our humanity will ensure basic NHS treatment, and basic needs are met to the best of our national endeavours, rather than being treated as scum peasants by your betters! Aye....Certainly not my betters! Regards Highlander
Look trying to pin down the inane ramblings of Highlander is an impossible act. Just look above vis a vis the Queen, he argues that she is a usurper because (we can only guess, so difficult is he to understand), he is a Jacobite and (maybe, but this is the only logical deduction from someone who ueses that term) supprts a Stuart successsion. So for him the King of Scotland is a Bavarian Duke. What he omits is that Jacobites (bitterest enemies of democracy and supporters of absolute monarchy) acknowledge the said Bavarian Duke as the King of England as well. And yet I thought Highlander was some kind of socialist republican, as he is always attacking the aristocracy. Why would he say "usurper" then? He would be clearer to avow his republicanism and state that he owed no allegiance to any monarch. The inference though is that he would acknowledge a Scottish monarch and there are only two real choices for the successors of James VI of Scotland, both Germans, one called Lizzy and the other (I've forgotten but let's say) Fritz. But maybe he is a populist monarchist, who knows? With Highlander it's difficult to tell. He doesn't do "what I think". What is tedious are the illogical anti-English rants that he contantly derails threads with, accusing others of taking positions they do not take, and then going apoplectic at them. Even when you put him right, to try and get the discussion back on the rails, such as me acknowledgeing that I shared a lot of his veiws about Churchill ,at least in his early years, he still rants and raves at you as if you never said anything. It's troll-like behaviour. It de-rails threads. And an attempt on here to have a balanced discussion about the contradictions within the whole concept of patriotism has been trashed by the thuggish conceit of his posts.
LOL - nationalism is a bummer! And yet, to be fair, Highlander makes excellent and informative posts on other subjects. I have just repped him for a post in the Iranian nuclear debate raging elsewhere.
So do you. And you know it. As you know that Marx was a brilliant writer. So thanks for the compliment. But you meant Hegelian and if you look further back it's a socratic way of reasoning. I'm talking about ideas here. This is the way Marx wrote as he too was a Hegelian. But it's certainly not dialectical materialism. Oh I just realized you didn't say Marx, but "marxist". I'll assume you meant Marx. It makes me feel better.
What did the English of the Elizabethan through Victorian eras have in common with Classical Greece, Arabia during the First Jihad, and Post-WWII America? Confidence.
Well, fair do's - even though he seems to think I am the mindless, chinless wonder, son of some aristocratic Colonel Blimp; I think he should get credit where it is due.
At the risk of digression I have to observe that virtually everything has a dual nature. So it was with the British Empire. For a time it prohibited Irish Catholic children from attending school. But it was the Royal Navy that effectively ended the Atlantic Slave Trade.
That's not digression. That's the whole subject of the thread. I was in Philadelphia once in the little room where a small gaggle of diverse men raised up their defiant spirit to declare independence from the world's superpower and imperial tyrant Great Britain. The tour guide's comment was interesting in two regards. He said that when these men first met they agreed on nothing except that they didn't want independence from Great Britain - it was the intransigence of the king and the writing of Englishman Tom Paine that turned them to Revolution. The offer of a little representation with their taxation would have satisfied their spirits as freeborn Englishmen. If Mad George the German king had been more prescient you would all be Canadians now. The world and its history are full of twists and turns and even here I have understated them (just to tease you). Things do not however happen in a straight line. The other thing the tour guide did was to quote an "English friend": "For everything that is true about the United States of America, the opposite is also true". This is a very wise saying, but on reflection one that applies to many civilizations, even that of the cheese eating surrender monkeys who are England's oldest enemy.
