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Swear allegiance to the Queen...
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7287984.stm
...it gets to work on those hard-to-reach antisocial behaviour problems other social initiatives fail to reach
OK i am being a little facetious, but this is just daft.
...it gets to work on those hard-to-reach antisocial behaviour problems other social initiatives fail to reach
OK i am being a little facetious, but this is just daft.
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Until I read that, mind.
How daft. Oh god, what is he doing? Trying to make us an Imperial nation again, or more like America, except they do it to a flag.
Daft either way.
It's nice how the media tends to pick up on only one aspect of these things.
I'm happy to have made my oath of loyalty, but then I volunteered to take it...
I think more time and effort ought to be put into teaching youngsters the consequences of anti-social behaviour and crime, while they are at school.
For instance, just the other day, I saw a couple of boys kicking and smashing a bollard in the street. Don't they realise that it is THEIR parents too, that will have to fork out more council tax next year to get it replaced?
And if they were made more aware of the devastation a crime can inflict on a decent, innocent family, perhaps they will understand the need to temper their actions.
It's the default position of this Government to legislate when they see a problem. Patriotism can't be produced by legislation
(PS I don't think support for the Monarchy is unpopular - virtually all Polls would put you in the majority)
Being unpatriotic is a problem?
Oh yes! We chat away on MSN like there's no tomorrow.
A better approach would be to teach kids the history of their country: you can't love something if you don't know it intimately; people might feel more proud of that great British statesman Winston Churchill, if they actually believed that he was a real bloke who really existed.
THAT FAT BLOKE WHO WANTED TO GAS THE SAME KURDS THAT SADDAM DID?
About her dogs, and how horrid the Yankee soldier who threw the puppy over the cliff was?
You misunderstand what I was asking. Fishermans Ghost said "It's the default position of this Government to legislate when they see a problem. Patriotism can't be produced by legislation", as if hinting being unpatriotic is a problem, just that this isn't the way to solve it. I was challenging the notion that not being patriotic is a terrible thing.
Hey, nobody's perfect. I'm sure you've felt like gassing a few people in your time, I know I have.
"Thoughts are no subjects, intents but merely thoughts."
Well it's extremely important for the government. It makes people more likely to support any bullshit they try to push through for the mere reason that it would be "un-British" to oppose it. It doesn't even have to be real patriotism either. Religions have survived on claimed belief and excessive chanting of meaningless mantras that few people really believe for much longer. As Bertrand Russell said, "patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons." A very valuable thing for a government.
In the end squeamishness prevailed and instead of making there eyes water we blew them to pieces with high explosive.
In any case, even today with our technology we could not guarantee many deaths and/or permanent damage from mass gassing like that. In them days... not a chance. Either Churchill was displaying appalling ignorance of the effects of poison gas or intentionally playing down its effects and likely consequences for those exposed to such campaign.
Churchill might have saved Britain and the world from a monster, but in some other respects he was still a very nasty and unpleasant individual, no doubt about that.
I don't think he was a great man because he was a Tory, nor do I think he was a great man because he apparently wanted to gas the Kurds. You seem to think because a person has faults (who doesn't?) they can't be admired for their good features or deeds. It's the same thing with some of the anti-patriotism crowd: because Britain has done bad things, it is therefore absurd to still love Britain - as if we never did anything good!
You are wrong to say that patriotism means going along with anything the government says. What stays constant in a patriot, is the love of their country (like the love of a certain rubbish hapless England rugby team) even when it does abominable things. And it is precisely because they love their country that they will seek to stop their country from doing something abominable and criticise the government if they believe it's doing something abominable. I don't regard the slavish patriotism you describe as true patriotism.
The likely consequences of tear gas were well known. As were the likely results of high explosive and high velocity bullets. The British Government was also concentrating on specific towns and villages which were in open revolt, ie military targets. Saddam attacked civilians at random.
But the point is that gas is no worse (and in many ways better) than other methods of waging war. If I can be bothered I'll look up the stats when I get home, but in WW1 about 10% of British soldiers gassed died, with another 10% suffering some sort of permanent injury. This is actually less than high explosive (about 30% dead) and bullet wounds (around 40% dead)
But you don't need patriotism to do any of those things, nor does it improve your ability to oppose atrocities or your own government. It can however, be used as another method of control (not suggesting for one second that this is the case for anyone who describes themselves as a patriot). And an abscence of patriotism can certainly help people to look at a political situation more objectively, so you don't get the, "Who are you going to believe, us or them?" rhetoric. And since it has no discernable benefits, putting any sort of taxpayers money into promoting it is money down the toilet.