(DDEckerslyke) wrote in message
om...
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Maybe I'm against patriotism because my country is so spineless: if I
lived somewhere with something to be proud of then maybe I would feel
patriotic but AISI political argument tends to go from effect to cause
in an attempt to justify an agenda that has its origins elsewhere.
Why should I be any different?

Patriotism just makes no sense whatsoever. Walking round the richer
parts of, say, London: Mayfair, Kensington and the like, and seeing
the people there ISTM that I, and they, have far more in common with
people of a similar social class in another country.

AIUI historically the nation state is an impermanent feature of
political life. It's here today but it will be gone tomorrow.
The tribal instinct will remain.

Do I hate my country? I'm nine tenths of the way there and this
seems the only reasonable response to the way life is lived here.
Give me the chance (I reckon it would take about £10 000) and I would
be off like a shot. This seems like a completely reasonable pov.
In the circumstances patriotism would be insane.

My country right or wrong? Wrong.

'Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.'
--Edith Cavell (1915, shortly before her execution by German soldiers)

During the First World War, Edith Cavell was a British nurse who helped
Allied prisoners-of-war to escape from German captivity in Belgium.
There's a memorial to Edith Cavell in St Martin's Place (near Trafalgar Square)
in London, and Mount Edith Cavell in Canada was named in her honour.

"I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country
and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
Such a choice may scandalise the modern reader, and he may stretch out his
patriotic hand to the telephone and ring up the police. It would not have
shocked Dante, though. Dante placed Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circle
of Hell because they had chosen to betray their friend Julius Caesar rather
than their country Rome."
--E.M. Forster ('Two Cheers for Democracy')

--Nick