The Politics Thread

[TANGODANCER]

The perfect world will never happen. We just have to do the best we can, but when I'm no longer allowed to be English and proud of it, maybe it's time to jack it all in. What happened in the past is history, England no better or worse than any other nation, but we've moved on and learned, and what we have is here, today. The very thought of denying your birthright to live in your homeland, fly its flag, celebrate its festivals and saint's day, and be damned proud to do it just baffles me.

[Lord Kangana]

No guys, you've taken a false premise and run with it. I said I didn't like nationalism because of its origins and its effects. Where the hell one world government appeared from is anyones guess.

[BWFC_Insane]

Seriously guys, it is time that we started to look at the policies of the small parties. After all, we've seen what the main ones do with our money.

Is exactly what I'm thinking just now. Also, Prufrock, how come nationalism automatically equals racism in your book?

Nationalism just makes me want to vomit repeatedly.

I'd be interested in hearing your take on this view of nationalism BWFCI ( assuming that it belongs to a few people other than just BNP memembers) and why it makes you want to vomit, really, I would. ?

Right I'll ask a question.

Why do you think someone "born in England" should be any more entitled to live here than someone born in say Pakistan.

Why should being born in a particular place give you greater rights that those born elsewhere. Why should we look after our "own" first? And who are our "own"?

[BWFC_Insane]

The perfect world will never happen. We just have to do the best we can, but when I'm no longer allowed to be English and proud of it, maybe it's time to jack it all in. What happened in the past is history, England no better or worse than any other nation, but we've moved on and learned, and what we have is here, today. The very thought of denying your birthright to live in your homeland, fly its flag, celebrate its festivals and saint's day, and be damned proud to do it just baffles me.

To my knowledge TD nobody is stopping you from doing any of those things?

[InsaneApache]

Right I'll ask a question.

Why do you think someone "born in England" should be any more entitled to live here than someone born in say Pakistan.

Why should being born in a particular place give you greater rights that those born elsewhere. Why should we look after our "own" first? And who are our "own"?

Are you serious? It's bloody obvious.

[Lord Kangana]

Really?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b_(Y-DNA)

[InsaneApache]

and....

[BWFC_Insane]

Right I'll ask a question.

Why do you think someone "born in England" should be any more entitled to live here than someone born in say Pakistan.

Why should being born in a particular place give you greater rights that those born elsewhere. Why should we look after our "own" first? And who are our "own"?

Are you serious? It's bloody obvious.

Not to me its not. Which is why I asked the question!

[Verbal]

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe this is what is known as two generations colliding head first.

Now if you don't mind...

[Lord Kangana]

and....

Unless the milkman got involved at some stage, in all probablility I have a stronger genetic link to your average Basque than your average southerner. Which makes simplistic arguments about "our own" (as BWFCi rightly pointed out) a load of nonsense.

[Worthy4England]

Seriously guys, it is time that we started to look at the policies of the small parties. After all, we've seen what the main ones do with our money.

Is exactly what I'm thinking just now. Also, Prufrock, how come nationalism automatically equals racism in your book?

Nationalism just makes me want to vomit repeatedly.

I'd be interested in hearing your take on this view of nationalism BWFCI ( assuming that it belongs to a few people other than just BNP memembers) and why it makes you want to vomit, really, I would. ?

Right I'll ask a question.

Why do you think someone "born in England" should be any more entitled to live here than someone born in say Pakistan.

Why should being born in a particular place give you greater rights that those born elsewhere. Why should we look after our "own" first? And who are our "own"?

Interesting stuff.

Yes I believe someone born in England should be more entitled to live here than somone born say - anywhere else. Uncontrolled economic migration I don't believe would be a good concept.

Being born in a particular place does not give me greater rights than anyone from any other country to set up a similar form of government, economic systems or social welfare systems that we have in our part of the world. They have exactly the same right as I have to do so.

We don't just look after our own. We are a net contributor to the European Union and make overseas aid contributions to the tune of around £6bn per annum...

[InsaneApache]

So the children of asians who emigrated here aren't our own, according to you?

[Worthy4England]

Really?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b_(Y-DNA)

Yeah - we'll all feck off to some badly signposted crossroads in a desert somewhere and start the progression of humankind from there again. Just tell me who's providing the transport while I pack my bags. Can I bring my laptop?

[Lord Kangana]

Maybe we'll do it a bit better a second time around.

[Worthy4England]

Maybe we'll do it a bit better a second time around.

Maybe I agree that it's not perfect. I'm still waiting for you to suggest something that has no nations and how we might (conceivably do it better next time)?

How are you intending to cope with the gene that makes warmongering, megalomanic leaders, that like fifedoms, countries of whatever other point of demarcation you might conjour up?

If we take it all back to "we have a cave, come and shelter from the wild animals - we're collectively better off" what do we do when the cave is full and tools are too limited to make a new cave?

[Lord Kangana]

Nation states were never made to get us out of caves. On the whole they were created to soothe the ego of some despot or other (or ease the finances of a previously created nation-state). So in that respect, your 3rd statement/argument is a little wide of the mark. There are instances littered throughout history of benevloent societies existing, only to be usurped by the power hungry. So in that respect the second sentence highlights how bad man can be.

Then again, and I never tire of this little factlet, the greatest economic thing ever to happen to Russia was Stalinism. I doubt the Tatars and the other countless millions of ethnic minorities/people he didn't like would agree. Thats one of the miriad reasons I abhor nationalism, its a thinly veiled term for self interest, and not of the many, but of the ruling minority.

[InsaneApache]

What a price to pay though.

[TANGODANCER]

Right I'll ask a question. Why do you think someone "born in England" should be any more entitled to live here than someone born in say Pakistan. Why should being born in a particular place give you greater rights that those born elsewhere. Why should we look after our "own" first? And who are our "own"?

I'll ask you one. Why should you live in your house and not let anyone who feels like it move in? The simple answer is that people born here have subsidised and supported the country for their lifetimes. It gives them a sense of belonging based on territory.

I am not saying anyone doesn't have the right to live anywhere. But to do that you have to satisfy the rules of the country you choose to live in. My father was an Irishman who came over here at eighteen. He fought for England in the war and lived here till he died. Nobody just moves in to another country willy-nilly. Territorial posession goes back to cavemen. If it didn't exist you yourself might find yourself with nowhere to call your own little corner of the universe. England, as a nation, ( make that the crown and government) has commited many wrongs in the name of power and greed in its history. We have also paid the price of our Empiring. It is, today though, one of the most civilised, compassionate and helpful countries in the atlas. In the last twenty years alone it has also, in the name of the much cliche'd "political correctness", lost much of its former traditions (Christmas, blackboards and blacksheep nonesense, the arguments about flags, matters of religion, people getting offended at anything and everything etc, etc, etc.) Has doing this made us a better country?If so, point out where please. I'd really like to know. I'll also reserve the right to disagree.

With a two/three year waiting list on most councils for houses, isn't it acceptable to restrain the immigration flow to sensible and managable levels? Is that classed as "looking after your own" or just plain common sense? Nobody's advocating a closed shop and racism has nothing to do with who comes here or who doesn't. What does matter is that we have rules and abide by them, and anybody who comes here should do the same. It's called "getting your own house in order" and hey, that's territorial too. Then again, a small thing called a recession might have a say in things right now.

[William the White]

all kinds of interesting and contradictory national(ist) drives going on in the world at the moment.

in a great deal of the world minorities are seeking a national identity specific to them - close to home, and peacefully, and slowly, scots in the UK. further away, and with enduring violence, tamils in sri lanka, kurds in turkey, iraq and iran. currently in cease-fire mode we have the ira and eta in the basque country. already the balkans, at great cost and bloodshed have 'returned' to smaller nations to form a mutually antagonistic poisoned well out of what was yugoslavia. this is not an attractive model of nationalism for many of us on here, i imagine.

at the same time expansion of the eu is, at the very least, diluting the whole notion of the nation-state and remoulding it in a federal direction - one taken by the US over 200 years ago, and confirmed only by one of the most bloody wars of the 19th century.

my guess is that this mix will continue - scotland may be independent, but will remain in the eu, so there will be no armed border with england, freedom of passage and trade and habitation. The independence will be real (foreign policy, social policy) but attenuated, subject to the same overall responsibilities agreed at european level.

i don't see the bogey of a european 'super state' dangled before us by euro sceptics from the tory right to the BNP as likely to come to early fruition. but i can imagine a confederal europe, with a single currency, and, in time, a single foreign policy and armed forces.

obviously we will all need a common language then.

Polish?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Then again, a small thing called a recession might have a say in things right now.

Quite so. I haven't got the time, energy or certainty to wade into this (interesting) discussion rather than paddle in it, but it will be interesting to see if immigration slows when we're as poor as church mice too.

Then again, compared to many places we do have a brilliant welfare state. I do wonder whether some or all of its services should only be free to those granted nationality. Other countries seem perfectly happy with that arrangement.

Run with that one, if y'all haven't already...