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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 5:56:41 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

"RENTON: I hate being Scottish. We're the lowest of the fucking low, the scum of the earth, the most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the English, but I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. We can't even pick a decent culture to be colonized by. We are ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs and all the fresh air in the world will not make any fucking difference."

Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh


He's right, the Scots are pathetic.

Yorkshire has around the same sized population and economy as Scotland so Scotland deserves to be treated no better than a county.

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 6:01:54 AM   
kittinSol


Posts: 16926
Status: offline 		Every nation's pathetic. There isn't one single nation that's better than an other. Nations are all equally bad. And those that believe they are something special because of an accident of birth need a reality check: they aren't better than anybody else.

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 6:06:21 AM   
RCdc


Posts: 8674
Status: offline 		This is Darcy

On official forms I always class myself as English (though I was brought up in, and my earliest memories are of, Canada, but that's another story for another day), rather than British, because I was born in England and therefore (in my mind anyway) it makes sense that I am English.

On a lighter note, I have just returned from the (very English) pub where myself, my boss and two colleagues felt the need to toast St George!

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 6:07:51 AM   
kittinSol


Posts: 16926
Status: offline 		I'm jealous - what I would give for a pint or two in a nice pub  , St George's day or not.

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 6:26:27 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Every nation's pathetic. There isn't one single nation that's better than an other. Nations are all equally bad. And those that believe they are something special because of an accident of birth need a reality check: they aren't better than anybody else.


Nationhood is in the head but then again so is the reality we invent for ourselves. Unfortunately for the indigenous Scots, their DNA is just about the same as the indiginous English (with slight regional variations) so their nationhood and wish to be different is most definitely in the head.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/celts-descended-from-spanish-fishermen-study-finds-416727.html

"Although Celtic countries have previously thought of themselves as being genetically different from the English, this is emphatically not the case," Professor Sykes said.

"This is significant, because the idea of a separate Celtic race is deeply ingrained in our political structure, and has historically been very divisive. Culturally, the view of a separate race holds water. But from a genetic point of view, Britain is emphatically not a divided nation."
 
However, my point for the thread was about the English having the same democratic representation as other Brits which they clearly don't have.

Not that it effects me, I don't live there. (Which has me wondering why I started the thread in the first place.)

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 6:36:13 AM   
Aneirin


Posts: 6121
Joined: 3/18/2006
From: Tamaris
Status: offline 		I see people's need to have a nation as part of their identity, something they can hold pride in, their land, may it be where they were born, or where they feel is home, a sense of belonging.

I do know people whom I refer to as vagrants, people who have travelled and lived in many countries of the world, expats. They love their new country of residence for all it's 'new' things, but within a short while, they get restless and have to live in another country, and another and another. Though these people are widening their experience of different cultures, I find they as they go along moving from country to country, they become increasingly dissatisfied, and seem to revert to a distorted sense of nationality to their country of origin, which being a place they don't know very well, as they left it as soon as they could years ago. These people, in the case of people born in England, would, they say, love to live in England, the ideal, green fields,and castles, all that idealistic Englishness, which of course does'nt exist. They come here, and just cannot hack it, and start pinning for the best bits of other countries.

On the whole, those that have been chasing other countries for most of their life, I know as some of the worst, bigotted people, their sense of nationality, borders on racism. Something which is quite rightly not part of civilised society of any country, but I do feel very sorry for these people, they have chased the rainbow all their life, and never found the pot of gold that is satisfaction. They so need an identity, a country which they love as home, but it doesn't exist, they are nationaly homeless.

So, that is the expat view as I see it, so understand having a home country is a desire, maybe an ideal, but what is wrong with having an ideal ? It might not be politically correct to hold a sense of nationalism, but people need to feel they belong,they need a country, they can call home.

England, as I see it is a country, like Scotland, Wales and Ireland, the English should be allowed to fly their flag on their national day and celebrate Englishness, as the other countries are allowed. Scotland, Wales and Ireland , countries brought together under the Union Flag as part of a whole, the British Isles. If these other countries are permitted identity, then it is only fair and right that England is so treated the same. Who knows, allowable pride might even be positive.


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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 6:40:11 AM   
Aneirin


Posts: 6121
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From: Tamaris
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quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Every nation's pathetic. There isn't one single nation that's better than an other. Nations are all equally bad. And those that believe they are something special because of an accident of birth need a reality check: they aren't better than anybody else.


Nationhood is in the head but then again so is the reality we invent for ourselves. Unfortunately for the indigenous Scots, their DNA is just about the same as the indiginous English (with slight regional variations) so their nationhood and wish to be different is most definitely in the head.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/celts-descended-from-spanish-fishermen-study-finds-416727.html

"Although Celtic countries have previously thought of themselves as being genetically different from the English, this is emphatically not the case," Professor Sykes said.

"This is significant, because the idea of a separate Celtic race is deeply ingrained in our political structure, and has historically been very divisive. Culturally, the view of a separate race holds water. But from a genetic point of view, Britain is emphatically not a divided nation."
 
However, my point for the thread was about the English having the same democratic representation as other Brits which they clearly don't have.

Not that it effects me, I don't live there. (Which has me wondering why I started the thread in the first place.)


Maybe, because you have a strong sense of fair play ?


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Everything we are is the result of what we have thought, the mind is everything, what we think, we become - Guatama Buddha

Conservatism is distrust of people tempered by fear - William Gladstone

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 6:40:15 AM   
kittinSol


Posts: 16926
Status: offline 		Each to their own, Aneirin. Your system is flawed to me because I construct my identity around myself, not around a sense of belonging to a group (any group, be it a nation, a knitting circle, or a football team).

Perhaps you are right and I am condemned to being perpetually disatisfied, but I wasn't given a choice: I'm pretty much a born nomad :-).

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 6:49:44 AM   
Aneirin


Posts: 6121
Joined: 3/18/2006
From: Tamaris
Status: offline 		Exactly, each to their own, I come from a messed up expat family, and I do seek truth in all matters. England was where I was born, though my ancestry is English, Irish, Cornish, Scandinavian and Romany, but this is home, despite it's faults.

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Everything we are is the result of what we have thought, the mind is everything, what we think, we become - Guatama Buddha

Conservatism is distrust of people tempered by fear - William Gladstone

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 7:37:21 AM   
RCdc


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aneirin
England, as I see it is a country, like Scotland, Wales and Ireland, the English should be allowed to fly their flag on their national day and celebrate Englishness, as the other countries are allowed. Scotland, Wales and Ireland , countries brought together under the Union Flag as part of a whole, the British Isles. If these other countries are permitted identity, then it is only fair and right that England is so treated the same. Who knows, allowable pride might even be positive.



Just to note - British Isles including Ireland is disbuted.
 
the.dark.

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 8:04:28 AM   
meatcleaver


Posts: 9030
Joined: 3/13/2006
Status: offline 		It was the Romans that called the British Isles, the British Isles. The Irish got their pants in a twist because they thought the English named the British Isles the British Isles but the name was there before the English nation was born and before the Irish nation was born. The dispute about the name is just a case of contemporary ignorance.

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 8:13:40 AM   
kittinSol


Posts: 16926
Status: offline 		I still support the evacuation of the troops of occupation from Northern Ireland - don't care which name came first. The British have nothing to do there.

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 8:16:34 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

I still support the evacuation of the troops of occupation from Northern Ireland - don't care which name came first. The British have nothing to do there.


You don't need to convince the English on that, you need to convince the protestant Scots and the protestant Northern Irish.

By the way, how long do you have to live in a country before you can call it your own? Most of the people who call themselves Brits there have an ancestry going back further than the colonists of the USA.

But then I guess you think the Americans should give their country back to its rightfiul owners?

< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 4/23/2008 8:18:28 AM >

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 8:22:22 AM   
Aneirin


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Joined: 3/18/2006
From: Tamaris
Status: offline 		Not that I wish to get embroiled in this, because there are rights and wrongs on both sides, and both land masses and their inhabitants have suffered for too long for the unreasonable ideals of a minority.

If it were not for people who resort to killing to get their point across, there would be no need for troops, in any country.

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Everything we are is the result of what we have thought, the mind is everything, what we think, we become - Guatama Buddha

Conservatism is distrust of people tempered by fear - William Gladstone

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 8:28:00 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

I still support the evacuation of the troops of occupation from Northern Ireland - don't care which name came first. The British have nothing to do there.


By the way, what occupation?

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Profile   Post #: 35
RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 8:57:35 AM   
kittinSol


Posts: 16926
Status: offline 		Just get the British troops out of there. Simple, clean, fast :-) .

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 9:22:54 AM   
Poetryinpain


Posts: 341
Joined: 3/20/2008
Status: offline 		[pardon me for a moment of slight derailment]

To all who consider St. George their patron saint, a paean to the saint:


Have you ever watched a dragon
(From the safety of your wagon)
And seen it greedily engorge
Upon your flocks?  Then call St. George.

He’s the best, from what they’re saying,
At efficient dragon-slaying.
His sword must be from Heaven’s forge.
He wields it well, does old St. George.

pip, I got one for every day of the year

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 9:57:12 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Just get the British troops out of there. Simple, clean, fast :-) .


Since Northern Ireland is part of Britain, British troops are not occupying it.
The only time the island of Ireland has been united is under British rule so the idea there was ever a single country or culture in Ireland before the Brits is nonsense. As for what is commonly declared as ancient Irish culture of St Columba’s time, that traversed the northern part of what is today Ireland, Scotland and northern England. St Patrick came from what is today England. The Scots were originally Irish, form the approx the area of Ulster and straddled the western highlands so one can say they only went back to where they came from. All the indiginous people of the British Isles, Irish, Scots, English and Welsh, share the same DNA to varying degrees so its not as though each nation is a different ethnic group.
 
If the Republicans in the new independent republic didn’t burn out the protestants (20% of the republic were protestant in 1916, 2% now), then maybe the protestants in Northern Ireland might have looked more favourably on a united Ireland.
 
Personally I think a united Ireland would have been best for all in Ireland but then I’m not Irish, either of the Catholic or the Protestant variety. As a Protestant Irish comedian once commented, unlike other countries being Irish depends on your religion and not where you are born or your family has lived for hundreds of years. Until the Irish (republicans) can accept being Irish can also mean being protestant, many Irish will continue to prefer to be British.
 
Sometimes its worth reading a little history before spouting a populist cause.


< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 4/23/2008 10:00:16 AM >

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 10:07:11 AM   
kittinSol


Posts: 16926
Status: offline 		Meaty, I didn't need a lecture on the history of Northern Ireland, but thanks for the thought nonetheless. To me, this isn't a 'populist cause', it's an opinion I have formed on site, so to speak, after many years of visiting the place.

Are you arguing for the sake of it again :-) ?

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RE: St. George's Day - 4/23/2008 10:10:50 AM   
meatcleaver


Posts: 9030
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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Meaty, I didn't need a lecture on the history of Northern Ireland, but thanks for the thought nonetheless. To me, this isn't a 'populist cause', it's an opinion I have formed on site, so to speak, after many years of visiting the place.

Are you arguing for the sake of it again :-) ?


I'm arguing because you have made a wrong judgement based on a wrong fact, that the British are occupying Northern Ireland when Northern Ireland is a part of Britain, Even the Irish government recognizes that fact as does every other democratic country.

< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 4/23/2008 10:12:47 AM >

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