Being British is about being loyal to Britain, not just your documents.

[Greebozz]

I feel broken by the hatred I feel towards other posters here.

 

[Mallard]

I feel broken by the hatred I feel towards other posters here.

To be fair Greebozz you seem to feel hatred towards a lot of people not exactly like you.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I feel really guilty now.

 

[London_Calling]

I feel broken by the hatred I feel towards other posters here.

At the mo, you sound like you've got more reverse gears than an Italian tank*

I thought you'd be a big fan of the "stiff upper lip" and "The Spirit of the Blitz", never mind "The Dunkirk Spirit".







* etc, etc, etc, ha-ha, ha-ha.

 

[Loki]

I am making the exact opposite point, what it says on your passport does not matter but rather where your loyalty are.

Nah, you really are too silly to bother with. Whatever floats your boat etc.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well, here's a serious question. Loyalty to what exactly? To a bunch of lying weasels who have sold what you might choose to call our 'national honour' if you're into that sort of thing, to an odious and corrupt foreign power? Who have done so in a way that is manifestly not in the interests of the British people and who are now trying to stir up race hatred in the tabloids in a desperate attempt to distract everybody from their blood-smeared hands?

 

[soulman]

Well, here's a serious question. Loyalty to what exactly? To a bunch of lying weasels who have sold what you might choose to call our 'national honour' if you're into that sort of thing, to an odious and corrupt foreign power? Who have done so in a way that is manifestly not in the interests of the British people and who are now trying to stir up race hatred in the tabloids in a desperate attempt to distract everybody from their blood-smeared hands?

Steady on Bernie, what 'odious and corrupt foreign power'?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

In what way does the Bush administration fail to meet that description?

 

[London_Calling]

someone hide the bone china.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

But there are plenty of others who make no great secret that they hate Britain and British society and want to see harm come to it.

*puts hand up* me sir

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well, it may sound a bit strange to use the word 'honour' in this context, but I think there are some well-established precedents.

My Lords,

81. On 23 August 1628 George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham and Lord High Admiral of England, was stabbed to death by John Felton, a naval officer, in a house in Portsmouth. The 35-year-old Duke had been the favourite of King James I and was the intimate friend of the new King Charles I, who asked the judges whether Felton could be put to the rack to discover his accomplices. All the judges met in Serjeants' Inn. Many years later Blackstone recorded their historic decision:

"The judges, being consulted, declared unanimously, to their own honour and the honour of the English law, that no such proceeding was allowable by the laws of England".

82. That word honour, the deep note which Blackstone strikes twice in one sentence, is what underlies the legal technicalities of this appeal. The use of torture is dishonourable. It corrupts and degrades the state which uses it and the legal system which accepts it. When judicial torture was routine all over Europe, its rejection by the common law was a source of national pride and the admiration of enlightened foreign writers such as Voltaire and Beccaria. In our own century, many people in the United States, heirs to that common law tradition, have felt their country dishonoured by its use of torture outside the jurisdiction and its practice of extra-legal "rendition" of suspects to countries where they would be tortured: see Jeremy Waldron, Torture and Positive Law: Jurisprudence for the White House 105 Columbia Law Review 1681-1750 (October, 2005)

83. Just as the writ of habeas corpus is not only a special (and nowadays infrequent) remedy for challenging unlawful detention but also carries a symbolic significance as a touchstone of English liberty which influences the rest of our law, so the rejection of torture by the common law has a special iconic importance as the touchstone of a humane and civilised legal system. Not only that: the abolition of torture, which was used by the state in Elizabethan and Jacobean times to obtain evidence admitted in trials before the court of Star Chamber, was achieved as part of the great constitutional struggle and civil war which made the government subject to the law. Its rejection has a constitutional resonance for the English people which cannot be overestimated.

84. During the last century the idea of torture as a state instrument of special horror came to be accepted all over the world, as is witnessed by the international law materials collected by my noble and learned friend Lord Bingham of Cornhill. Among the many unlawful practices of state officials, torture and genocide are regarded with particular revulsion: crimes against international law which every state is obliged to punish wherever they may have been committed.

85. It is against that background that one must examine the Secretary of State's submission that statements obtained abroad by torture are admissible

Lord Hoffman, Law Lords Torture verdict.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I feel broken by the hatred I feel towards other posters here.

Tough.

 

[cesare]

Well, it may sound a bit strange to use the word 'honour' in this context, but I think there are some well-established precedents. Lord Hoffman, Law Lords Torture verdict.

And the US seem to have thrown that concept out of the window (when it suits them) with the Military Commissions Act.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

And the US seem to have thrown that concept out of the window (when it suits them) with the Military Commissions Act.

Sure and they've just repealed Habeas Corpus too.

 

[cesare]

Sure and they've just repealed Habeas Corpus too.

In its entirety? I realise that the MCA restricts it of course. Has there been additional legislation?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

So, to avoid derailing this into a torture/habeas corpus debate, let me ask the question again.

Just what exactly is it that we're all being asked by the OP to be 'loyal' to?

 

[Greebozz]

I am not going to put up with this, I have a lot to say about this issue and have written many paragraphs about it. But I'm not going to post them. What I say is of value and I will not share it with people who are rude to me, it is your loss, so sod a lot of you.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

I am not going to put up with this, I have a lot to say about this issue and have written many paragraphs about it. But I'm not going to post them. What I say is of value and I will not share it with people who are rude to me, it is your loss, so sod a lot of you.

oh come on mate! this is standard in the politics forum... there have been some intelligent, well-thought out responses to your original post... respond to them. If I didn't have such a hangover... I might have joined the 'well-thought out respones'

 

[Spion]

I am not going to put up with this, I have a lot to say about this issue and have written many paragraphs about it. But I'm not going to post them. What I say is of value and I will not share it with people who are rude to me, it is your loss, so sod a lot of you.

What a shit flounce!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I am not going to put up with this, I have a lot to say about this issue and have written many paragraphs about it. But I'm not going to post them. What I say is of value and I will not share it with people who are rude to me, it is your loss, so sod a lot of you.

For which read:
"I am petulant, ignorant and childish, I have a lot to say about this issue and have written many paragraphs about it. But I'm not going to post them because you won't treat what I say as "holy writ" and give it the respect I demand, even though I haven't actually validated any of my theses, merely whined and moaned about generalities. As I said, I'm petulant and childish, so sod the lot of you."

 

[ViolentPanda]

oh come on mate! this is standard in the politics forum... there have been some intelligent, well-thought out responses to your original post... respond to them. If I didn't have such a hangover... I might have joined the 'well-thought out respones'

Have a gander at Greebozz's past efforts.

If you do you'll quickly come to the conclusion that he doesn't have much ability in the way of making responses.

He's quite good at whining though.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What a shit flounce!

That was a flounce?

Why, back when I were a lad it didn't get rated as a flounce unless you disembowelled at least two of the people you'd arguing with, and then pleasured their wives before commencing to stomp off in a huff, sirrah!!

 

[Greebozz]

Who would have thought a discussion about loyalty to one's country would be driven underground.

I tell you what, speak to someone who fought and lived through the Second World War and tell them your views on British society if you have the guts.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I'm still right here asking the same question. What exactly is it that we're supposed to be loyal to?

Tony Blair? If so why? He certainly gives no indication that he's loyal to us.

If not to a government that puts the interests of the White House above those of British citizens, then to what?

 

[Divisive Cotton]

Who would have thought a discussion about loyalty to one's country would be driven underground.

I tell you what, speak to someone who fought and lived through the Second World War and tell them your views on British society if you have the guts.

I actually thought that your original post was satire... didn't realise you were being serious.

Yes, talk to somebody who fought in the Second World War and they will tell you that things are now shit. I used to work with a war veteran in the 90s, he used to rant against immigration saying that he fought 'to keep foreigners out'.

What is the country that we should be loyal to - the institutions? What is the British 'way of life'? It's not a term that you have used, but I had a discussion with a good friend recently along similar lines to your original post - I kept asking, What is this British way of life that you keep mentioning? He couldn't reply to that.

 

[SuburbanCasual]

I'm proud to be a traitor to Britain, I was born here, and I'm english but fuck the UK and England. I care about my friends, family and class the english and british rich should be fucking hung, as should most patriots.

 

[Aldebaran]

Well that's a pretty stupid assumption isn't it?

No it is not.
This tradition goes back to the Prophet of Islam. (Debates among scholars (and others) in past and present about the use of the phrase being yes or no allowed when meeting a non Muslim, are very common.) It is that normal a part of daily life for Muslims that "meeting in cyberspace" makes no exception on the rule.

salaam.

 

[Ned Pointsman]

Yes, talk to somebody who fought in the Second World War and they will tell you that things are now shit. I used to work with a war veteran in the 90s, he used to rant against immigration saying that he fought 'to keep foreigners out'.

Really?! All the ones I've asked told me they fought against fascists.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

Really?! All the ones I've asked told me they fought against fascists.

Well, I thought that was the general idea too...

 

[Aldebaran]

I am not going to put up with this, I have a lot to say about this issue and have written many paragraphs about it. But I'm not going to post them. What I say is of value and I will not share it with people who are rude to me, it is your loss, so sod a lot of you.

You come across as someone who believes he invented the hot water.
Do you really think you are the first to observe that some Muslims (yes, let's give the child the name you meant to give it but didn't for whatever reason) in the UK and elswhere in the West are somewhat less UK'er (or whatever their nationality) then they profile themselves as Muslim?

Maybe reading this thread (= what is under the link in the OP) is helpful. I should update and extend it a bit; nevertheless it can give you some idea of what you actually talk about.

Islam and suicidal terrorism:Analysing connections


I don't see what WWII comes to do with this. Do you mean no Muslims fought in WWII? Ask those who still wait for the recognition they never got (nor the pensions etc.. from the former colonisers who used them as canon fodder)

salaam