Originally Posted by Akria:
Patriotism is merely a more socially acceptable guise of nationalism in which discrimination is in favour of something rather than against other things.

Wrong. Also all discrimination is both in favour of and against something.

Patriotism is merely rational and purposeful love for your country, emotionally. Intellectually it is to support and actively put into practice principles or ideas in order to bind individuals within a national border - which if I entirely skip the epistemological stages (as I'm sure you'll appreciate!) loosely can translate as improving a nation politically.

By the logical definitions, there are very few patriots. It isn't a desire to conquer by force, or a desire to initiate force against external men; neither is it the willingness to sacrifice another or yourself. It most certainly isn't unquestioning loyalty to a state.
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Originally Posted by Westcountryman:
It was largely the US who were behind the dismantling of the British Empire.

Oh I think it had more to do with all that talk about fighting totalitarian regimes conquering foreign nations and still having colonies. You know having all those Indian and such troops fighting for your freedom but not theirs. a little contradictory don't you think?
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There were many negative features of European colonialism but in some cases it was also a force for progress and the British Empire was on average better than the alternatives.

However, it was never going to last forever. The Dominions were drifting away from Britain long before the Second World War. In India there was a strong movement for independence which would eventually have succeeded even without American pressure. Fortunately our withdrawal from colonialism was relatively smooth (compared to the experience of, for example, France).

I am neither 'ashamed' nor 'proud' of the British Empire. It is our historical legacy, not a matter of personal shame or pride for people of today's generation. To hanker after the Empire now would be quite perverse.

As for issues of nationalism and patriotism, we all must look to improving our own societies but the idea that nationalism provides some sort of compelling force is part of the problem. We can so easily be blinded to evil under the spell of a collective hysteria. So Akria's reference to humanity as a whole is not so wrong; we must judge our own societies by some sort of standard and be prepared to say where they are wrong.

The pursuit of personal liberty and the free society is ultimately more important than defending this or that nation state, even though nation states can be the vehicles for progress and defence of liberty at times and the two goals are not necessarily in conflict. Liberty trumps borders though, IMHO.
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I don't really see the appeal in all this patriotism about the past. We should be looking to solve the present and the future, not looking to a long lost past.

Further, British Conservatism, would you care to explain why you think nationalism is one of the greatest forces of social advancement?
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The British Empire brought good things in spite of its nationalistic traits, not because of them.
It brought good things because it replaced savagery with civilisation.
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I don't think people have understood what some mean by nationalism. Today people tend to think of it as fascism and Hitler. I think of socialism as red China and Soviet Russia. Equally nationalistic in this context and equally fascist. Many of the Che Guevara fans of today's trendy lefties don't take note of the hideous republics of brutality and oppression that ensued nor that senor Guava was a vicious killer and murdered many peasants himself, even though he was a medical doctor and had surely taken an oath to preserve life. Still they wear this character on t-shirts and have posters in their dorms.

The left is not being investigated at all in terms of the evils of socialism whilst the right must endure deep and close scrutiny and every person keen on their folk and heritage must be viewed as an evil monster to be spat upon at every opportunity. Justice is nowhere in this situation. And the whole thing is one-sided. The left takes the moral high ground and the media help this to political prominence.

It's time this lurid ideology of the nationalist as a terrible fiend with genocide in his heart is discarded for the more realistic image of the folk-conscious patriot who sees in sovereign nation states a philosophy of smaller is better and less is more in terms of a number of truly fascist enterprises that have tended to go together with the larger people's movements of the twentieth century.

Everyone understands a common humanity and it's only racists who try and make for their own breed a superior space on the podium. There is no podium for me. I take the world as I find it and I have always hoped that the world would take me as it found me. The natural world always has and so have most foreigners I have come across. It is my own folk who seem so keen to label me and those like me as fascists and racists when in fact we are so far from this as to be in another dimension from the sort of politically motivated thinking that seems to go with the terms "nationalist" and "culture".
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Originally Posted by Kanadesaga:
I don't have the time to fully explore this now. But nationalism is responsible for two World Wars in the 20th century. The subjegation of millions of indigenuous peoples by coloinial powers, the exploitation of their rnatural resources for the mother countries and is why a retard from Texas was able to convince a nation to go into Iraq!!

Yepper, nationalism is wonderful!!

So how would you regard ancient Rome trying to take over the world, fighting wars and enslaving people? Is that 'Cityism'?
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Originally Posted by Northumbrian:
So how would you regard ancient Rome trying to take over the world, fighting wars and enslaving people? Is that 'Cityism'?

No it's hypocrisy :-)
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Originally Posted by VanillaSpice:
Treasure the fantasy and legend of the British Empire. It was awful but resulted in the Commonwealth, games and becoming more evolved. Countries grow and alter.

Is this a deliberate wind-up or what?

Q: Describe the character and chief effects of the British Empire.

A: It was awful but resulted in the Commonwealth, games.

Go to the top of the class. :-)
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Originally Posted by Frith:
So this means that when the Norwegians celebrate their freedom from Denmark on Constitution Day and do so with national costume and various cultural parades, they are just being "repugnant"? They should have allowed Denmark to keep its dominion over them? Iceland should similarly not celebrate its own freedom from the Danish yolk? When it does so it's just being "repugnant? Tibet is "repugnant"? It should join with China and celebrate its oneness? America is "repugnant? The Americans are a nation and celebrate their freedom from Britain. Is this just disgusting? Should they rather have pushed for a single world identity instead?

I think it is the freedom from Swedish rather than Danish rule that is celebrated, although the 'Swedish' rule over Norway had more of the character of a dual monarchy than outright dominion.
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