pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
It's the last refuge of the scoundrel.kasheem said:
Tories 4 points in front :(
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pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
It's patriotism, and Samuel Johnson said it.kasheem said:
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
Secondary source and conjecture.
Prosecution rests.
Prosecution rests.
pilchardman said:
There are no primary sources. As for conjecture, read this:
http://www.samueljohnson.com/patrioti.html
More to the point in this topic:
http://www.samueljohnson.com/patrioti.html
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
A patriot is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single motive, the love of his country
IE, a patriot is an arse.
IE, a patriot is an arse.
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
I used the quote because it was correct. I do not subscribe to all of Johnson's ideas and beliefs. Neither - I would suggest - do you.kasheem said:
Patriotism is about favouring your co-citizens above citizens of other nations. It is about elevating an accident of birth to a virtue, and basing policy upon it is to ensure some people have automatic entitlement (for example to live in the country in question, to access services etc) that foreigners do not. Patriotism is the cousin of xenophobia and racism.
goneforlunch
Member
All 3 parties are now the same because they don't have the power to decide many of the policies anymore. Most things are now decided at EU level and a lot even then is decided by Qualified Majority Voting (QMV), ie we have no veto.
Thatcher campaigned for a yes vote in the 1974 referendum, but she had changed her mind by 1988 and said "No, no, no" to further European integration. I am not one of her fans, and think she was foolish and naive, but she certainly didn't "win".
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
goneforlunch said:
But we still have the EU in Wales too, and our parties here have very different policies.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
pilchardman said:
I think that's an over-reaction. None of the patriots I know think they are elevated about people of other nations...but then again i'm not a member of the BNP.
I think to be a nationalist you have to have an understanding of what a nation is. A nation is inhabited by loads of different ethnicities, and any educated person knows that race is clearly superficial.
The BNP 'White nationalist' crew, i've found, have an understanding of fuck all.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
We have no veto anyway. The EU makes very little difference; if the major parties agree, which they usually do on anything significant, we have no say in the matter. But, of course, it's just common sense, isn't it?
goneforlunch
Member
But they wouldn't be allowed to implement those polices, just like the Tories got slapped down by the Commission when they were talking tough in the election about immigration.
Talk is cheap, especially when it's politicians doing the talking.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
They are allowed to implement them - they do. All the ones that matter.
goneforlunch
Member
But only on things that are not EU competencies. The only other differences are in the interpretation of the directives and regulations.
We do still have a veto on some things. And the EU makes a big difference; every time it issues a directive or a regulation, we are legally bound to obey it. And there are over 100,000 pages of these things on our statute books. They are handed down, then our Quisling politicians rubber stamp them, sometimes with a debate and sometimes not.
The major parties should not be agreeing on a huge amount of things. If it's all common sense, we might as well not bother with politics at all and just have a dictator in charge!
And they agree on almost everything significant because they are legally bound to do so. The EU Commission would threaten us with action in the European Courts. It might choose not to, as it often does, but it could.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
What is it that parties here would like to do, but can't because of EU regulations? Apart from the human rights and worker protection things.
goneforlunch
Member
The environment, health and safety, planning, and trade*, farming and fishing. It doesn't sound that much, but all these things have far reaching effects on our lives and they impact on other policy areas.
Most other areas of government are heavily circumscribed including foreign policy, tax, defence, the police and criminal justice. Above all, when Heath signed the Treaty of Rome we lost legal supremacy (in policy areas where our governments have signed over control to the EU.) Many bills that go through Westminster are part EU legislation and part our own, and it would be difficult to separate the two.
You may disagree but I think:
allowing the EU to rule on human rights affairs concerning Britain is a travesty. We were by no means perfect, but the EU has given us "human rights" that it can also take away. And it's not a democracy, so we could do little to stop it.
I have no problem with worker protection rights either, but I think they are running away unchecked. Multi nationals and other large businesses can cope but the rules apply to much smaller enterprises and it is (along with EU inspired red tape) stifling their growth and that's not good for workers (particularly young female workers) or businesses.
*This was down to Thatcher and the Single European Act.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
So if EU rule of Britain is wrong, which it is, do you support British rule of Wales?
lewislewis said:
We need to exit the EU tonight and wales can have total self rule as well.
We can stop paying for the silly euro crap and wales can also pay for it's own budget.
After all if wales wants freedom from English rule is it fair that England should fund Wales.
Welsh freedom tonight - I support it without question.
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
As someone who I suppose would call himself a "civic nationalist", I'm not surprised you think that. But I think you - and others like you - are making a category error. I would support smaller units of polity, but not because of any notions of "nationhood"; rather, it is better if decisions are made closer to the people they affect.lewislewis said:
Obviously it would be best if they were actually made by the people they affect. If self-governing communities could federalize into regions that'd be my ideal. But I quite appreciate that isn't going to happen any day soon. In the meantime, therefore, I am happy to support the breakdown of the UK, and hope that the worst effects of representative "democracy" can be mitigated against by extra parliamentary activity.
pilchardman said:
The fact is that there are such entities as Nations. They're defined by a common language, a shared history etc. Different nations evolve differently to have their own particularities, they evolve different ideas, different ways of thinking about things etc. A single world government, like a single world language or a single world religion, would destroy a lot of the world's creativity. Although they can be used to divide and oppress, on the whole a nation state uplifts people.
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
That'll be why Scotland has Gaelic speaking culture in the north west, Doric culture in the north east, the Nordic islands of Orkney and Shetland, and a variety of Scots speaking lowland regions who don't share much vocabulary. An Aberdonian looking for "rolls" in a Glasgow bakery will be surspised to be given a bread bun rather than the flat, salty croissant-type thing he is looking for, and the Glasweigen will be syrprised to be given salt and brown sauce on his chips without being asked when he goes to Edinburgh.kasheem said:
These - I might add - are all great things; I love the diversity you find.
goneforlunch
Member
lewislewis said:
Yes, absolutely, if the people of Wales decide that is what they want in a free and fairly debated referendum.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
goneforlunch said:
That's fair. But most people in Wales would vote to stay in the EU if there was a free and fairly debated referendum on that issue. I'm not sure what the situation is in England because of the right-wing press there.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
MikeMcc said:
Yes, alot of this extra spending has been wasted on specific areas.
The situation remains that in some parts of the UK despite this 50% extra spending since 1997, things have gotten worse due to the market-driven approach to health, the incompetence and the bureacracy.
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