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Post by Totheleft on Mar 1, 2024 10:53:00 GMT
well said , and good for you. Im not and never have been British. Im Scottish. Britishness is an artificial , and rather short lived identity that came about because of the empire. It has its origins in the union of the crowns, but came into its own in the 19th century due to the empire, and the peoples of the varying uk nations coming to accept it to a greater of lesser degree. It's arguably been in decline since the Irish left in 1921 , and that decline accelerated after the Second World War. As the empire has imploded , and whats left of it breaks apart , the questions regarding the value of britishness such as the op will increase. Any Tom Dick and Harry - no I'll rephrase that - any Ahmed Ali and Mohammad can call themselves British. What they are not, and never can be is English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish. Of course there British only in your tiny.mind there not.
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ginnyg2
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Don't blame me - I voted for someone else.
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Post by ginnyg2 on Mar 1, 2024 10:55:00 GMT
Any Tom Dick and Harry - no I'll rephrase that - any Ahmed Ali and Mohammad can call themselves British. What they are not, and never can be is English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish. Of course there British only in your tiny.mind there not. Read my post idiot. "What they are not, and never can be is English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish."
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Post by Totheleft on Mar 1, 2024 11:00:28 GMT
I defeinfabty agree about being a different isn't a bad thing. Even my friend I speak of born in Manchester older than me I'm 60 spoke with a Jamaican trang. I was a ska skinhead until my early.5os. I'm sure you know the Ska music of the late 70-mid 80s had its roots in the Jamaican music. My Challenge was to red about people of Foreign decent not loving the Country. Sorry, I meant to reply to Red, my bad. What's your opinion of the SNP standing in the HOC . Like I said on the Hoyle should stand down thread . That SNP are poison even Sinn-finn stick By there principles and not take seats in the HoC .
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Post by happyhornet on Mar 1, 2024 11:02:00 GMT
Any Tom Dick and Harry - no I'll rephrase that - any Ahmed Ali and Mohammad can call themselves British. What they are not, and never can be is English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish. I can't speak for anyone elses national identity. I merely applaud yours , and voice my own. The British have royally fucked all our countries up , and it's time this artificial and fairly modern construct was cast into the dustbin of history. I suspect this is what a lot of the meltdown you see among the political elite , and their sycophants are regarding the decline of britishness . All around us , we are witnessing its decay and ending. "I can't speak for anyone elses national identity" Indeed, yet it's surprising how many people seem to have appointed themselves judges of other people's national identity. They will stamp their feet and insist that for example someone of immigrant extraction cannot be English then complain about a lack of integration from the exact same people without a hint of irony.
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Post by happyhornet on Mar 1, 2024 11:05:01 GMT
Of course there British only in your tiny.mind there not. Read my post idiot. "What they are not, and never can be is English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish."I'm of immigrant extraction (Irish), my kids are of immigrant extraction (Irish and Indian) and we're English. You can stamp your feet and throw your toys around as much as you like but it won't change anything, question is, what good comes from denying people their national identity?
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Post by Bentley on Mar 1, 2024 11:13:02 GMT
I’m mostly proud to be from Canning town , London , England and Britain in that order . Years ago my black workmate told me he was more proud of being a Londoner than being from Jamaica . I felt a closer connection from that moment . My Grandfather was a Munro . My brother and sister like the idea of a connection to a Scottish clan but I think it’s meaningless . I don’t feel any Scottish connection whatsoever . My daughter’s step grandad was Irish and very close to my daughter .She ‘supported ‘Irish Rugby and used to walk around in an Irish Rugby shirt. I have no problem with Scotland .Wales or NI leaving the union ..as long as it doesn’t give me or mine problems .
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2024 12:00:35 GMT
The first time I ever truly felt ashamed of my country was in the run up to the Iraq War when Blair utterly debased both us and himself with his cringeworthy toadying up to America for all the world to see, with no sense of shame whatsoever. As for now, how can any good person be anything but ashamed at a nation with homeless on our streets, public services falling apart, people having to pull their own teeth out for lack of a dentist, more working people in poverty than out of work, the scourge of malnutrition starting to stalk the land, food banks all over the place, corruption in high office on a scale not seen in living memory, most politicians blatant liars it seems as well. We see them lying on TV. They know they are lying. We know they are lying. They know we know they are lying. And the do it anyway. And we still vote for them anyway. Part of our legislative system is made up of appointees and cronies, the other part is elected by a hugely disproportional system. Most of us have lost confidence in being heard under this system and suspect with good reason that the powers that be do not give a shit what we think or want as long as they can hoodwink the small minority who make up floating voters in marginal seats, the only ones whose views they care about. Work in this country has long since ceased to be the route to prosperity, just a necessity to even survive. The youth see little positive in their future anymore, with good reason. Most will never own a home, at least not until they inherit the one their grandparents brought. Assuming said grandparents have not had to sell it to finance dementia care. And we have an electorate so stupid that they are taken in by the shite spouted by an obvious narcissist and charlatan like Johnson. How can I possibly be proud of my country or it's people today? And anyone who spends as much time reading about history as I do would know that though there were positives, there is much to be ashamed of there too, from the Amritsar massacre to the Irish Potato famine, and from the repression in Kenya to the appalling conditions in concentration camps in the Boer War. Even our British Empire was with the partial exception of the white dominions an exercise in repression, brutality and torture. And even in the white dominions, the native populations suffered terribly. Brutalities used to repress recalcitrant populations included collective punishment on entire towns, bulldozing of dwellings, mine clearance by forcing lorry loads of prisoners to drive in front, resulting in most of them being blown to bits, concentration camps, deliberate starvation, sometimes to death, of detainees, blowing people apart with cannons, burning them alive, flogging them to death, beating them to death, barbaric tortures. Most of this was known at the highest level, the only concerns being to protect the "security" forces from legal sanctions. In a book I have just read about the unvarnished history of the British Empire, one such British operative in Kenya described his arrival at the interrogation of a suspect. He described matter of factly how the suspect already had one eye hanging out of it's socket whilst both his ears had been cut off. He himself then cut the victim's balls off. In every case when the British finally left a colony they spent much time beforehand burning incriminating evidence.. Present or past, it is hard for a moral person to be proud of this country. Since when has Communism been British One of Britain's best loved and known Authors was prodley Socialist George Orwell.Was very against Communism I never said it was. Though there have been British communists, communism was never mainstream here either amongst the people or their rulers. And I like and respect George Orwell and fully relate to what he was telling us in both Animal Farm and 1984. Are you perchance trying to call me a communist now? lol
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2024 12:08:50 GMT
It was never our place to go around the world invading countries whose regimes we didnt like just because America wanted to. Saddam might have been a very bad man in charge of a country but he was far from being unique in that respect. And how the hell did our interventions make anything better? We just opened the door to terrorists, and ended up with even worse psychos in the form of Isis. And you ignore the reason for my deep sense of shame, Blair's cringeworthy toadying. And that toadying is the only reason we went into Iraq and fucked it up even more. If you cannot see Blair's utter toadying on the international stage as a nationally shaming moment, that's your perception blind spot, not mine. And that's the rub of it for me. It was never our place to go around the world attacking Germany just because they invaded another country. It was never our place to go around the world supplying arms to Ukraine just because they fell out with Russia. I say yes of course it was our business. We put Saddam in place and he carried out genocide and torture on an industrial scale. The right thing was to remove him and replace him with an elected government. How that worked out is questionable, but that's a possibility in any interference you carry out. Had we lost against Germany and left Europe in a mess, you could make the same claim that "It was never our place to go around the world" Where does doing what's right come into that for you? We had a treaty of alliance with Poland and went to war in defence of a victim of aggression. We were not the aggressors ourselves. And Hitler posed a far more real existential threat to us and the rest of Europe than Saddam ever did. Indeed, Saddam's repressive reason kept down the very terrorists in his country who did potentially pose some kind of threat. Right comes into it when we have treaty obligations to a victim of aggression, or indeed regardless of treaty obligations to go to the aid of any victim of aggression. Which was why the 1990-91 Gulf War was justified. We do not have the right to launch invasions ourselves to change regimes we do not like. And my definition of right does not include invading countries because America wants us to. A rather historically inept attempt on your part to excuse the inexcusable by comparing apples with oranges.
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Post by Totheleft on Mar 1, 2024 12:46:29 GMT
Since when has Communism been British One of Britain's best loved and known Authors was prodley Socialist George Orwell.Was very against Communism I never said it was. Though there have been British communists, communism was never mainstream here either amongst the people or their rulers. And I like and respect George Orwell and fully relate to what he was telling us in both Animal Farm and 1984. Are you perchance trying to call me a communist now? lol Has a Corbyn supporter yes Britain’s Communist party will not field any general election candidates for the first time since its formation in 1920 in order to throw its weight behind Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party. Declaring its endorsement of Labour’s leader, the Communist Party of Britain said victory for Mr Corbyn at the general election in June would be “the first step towards a formation of left-led government at Westminster
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Post by Totheleft on Mar 1, 2024 13:06:38 GMT
And that's the rub of it for me. It was never our place to go around the world attacking Germany just because they invaded another country. It was never our place to go around the world supplying arms to Ukraine just because they fell out with Russia. I say yes of course it was our business. We put Saddam in place and he carried out genocide and torture on an industrial scale. The right thing was to remove him and replace him with an elected government. How that worked out is questionable, but that's a possibility in any interference you carry out. Had we lost against Germany and left Europe in a mess, you could make the same claim that "It was never our place to go around the world" Where does doing what's right come into that for you? We had a treaty of alliance with Poland and went to war in defence of a victim of aggression. We were not the aggressors ourselves. And Hitler posed a far more real existential threat to us and the rest of Europe than Saddam ever did. Indeed, Saddam's repressive reason kept down the very terrorists in his country who did potentially pose some kind of threat. Right comes into it when we have treaty obligations to a victim of aggression, or indeed regardless of treaty obligations to go to the aid of any victim of aggression. Which was why the 1990-91 Gulf War was justified. We do not have the right to launch invasions ourselves to change regimes we do not like. And my definition of right does not include invading countries because America wants us to. A rather historically inept attempt on your part to excuse the inexcusable by comparing apples with oranges. We do not have the right to launch invasions ourselves to change regimes we do not like. And my definition of right does not include invading countries because America wants us to. A rather historically inept attempt on your part to excuse the inexcusable by comparing apples with oranges.[/quote] Do you think that Britain had the right time to invalid Afghanistan the training base for Al-quduia and home of Bin ladin
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ginnyg2
Full Member
Don't blame me - I voted for someone else.
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Post by ginnyg2 on Mar 1, 2024 13:39:53 GMT
Read my post idiot. "What they are not, and never can be is English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish."I'm of immigrant extraction (Irish), my kids are of immigrant extraction (Irish and Indian) and we're English. You can stamp your feet and throw your toys around as much as you like but it won't change anything, question is, what good comes from denying people their national identity? You can call yourself anything you want. That doesn't make it so, nor does it influence how others see you. For example, a man in a dress who calls himself Wendy is still a bloke.
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Post by johnofgwent on Mar 1, 2024 14:53:58 GMT
I'm no longer sure. I used to love the fact that in my younger days (Not slavery or empire, I'm not that old) British were known for playing fair and helping others. That's all gone now, money is our god and helping others is measured on political or economic return, not doing what's right. Further we are fast becoming like those races we once despised who blamed minority groups for the ills facing their country instead of stepping up and helping. In my lifetime the 2012 Olympics was the peak, Britain looked to be a modern, forward thinking nation that celebrated the contributions of all of our citizens. For me it slowly started to go downhill after that as the political discourse grew nastier and more divisive and large sections of the media and politicians seemed to decide that bigotry was something that had to be humoured. I believe this is linked to the growing gulf between rich and poor with the former using their influence of the media to whip up hatred against various minority groups to keep us plebs fighting among ourselves so we don't look up. 10 years ago the thought of me ever leaving Britain would have been unthinkable, now not so much. I still love Britain but no longer feel welcome in my own country. For me, the 2012 olympics, an over rated, over priced, over spent white elephant of an event none of us could afford, wasting christ knows how much to no good purpose, was the classic example of the rot.
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Post by Red Rackham on Mar 1, 2024 14:55:39 GMT
"But I'm not happy because the England of my youth is a very different country to England today." There have I believe been discovered evidence of Plato complaining about the youth of today in the 4th century BC. Everyone when they reach a certain age lives in a country that's different to the one of their youth. When I was born there were less than 50,000 Muslims in this non-islamic country. Today there are 4 million, that's the official figure, who knows what the actual figure might be. And as their numbers grow the more aggressive and demanding they become. Muslims do not integrate, islam is a throwback to the dark ages and is incompatible with anything other than islam.
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Post by Red Rackham on Mar 1, 2024 15:02:13 GMT
I'll tell you why I'm proud of being British, but before I go into that let me ask you a question ZG, assuming you were born in this country, where were your parents born? Why does it matter where someone's parents were born? Did you choose your parents? I wasn't asking you so wind yer neck in.
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Post by Orac on Mar 1, 2024 15:10:04 GMT
In my lifetime the 2012 Olympics was the peak, Britain looked to be a modern, forward thinking nation that celebrated the contributions of all of our citizens. For me it slowly started to go downhill after that as the political discourse grew nastier and more divisive and large sections of the media and politicians seemed to decide that bigotry was something that had to be humoured. I believe this is linked to the growing gulf between rich and poor with the former using their influence of the media to whip up hatred against various minority groups to keep us plebs fighting among ourselves so we don't look up. 10 years ago the thought of me ever leaving Britain would have been unthinkable, now not so much. I still love Britain but no longer feel welcome in my own country. For me, the 2012 olympics, an over rated, over priced, over spent white elephant of an event none of us could afford, wasting christ knows how much to no good purpose, was the classic example of the rot. It's an insider trading, real estate (land) investment carnival. The sporting event itself is just a facade.
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