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Patriotism is a good thing I suppose, and it can be a bad thing. Anyways I like my country, even for all the fecked up things our goverment dose at times. When I think of it I would not move anywhere else. So I say thank the maker or that I am Norwegian

Patriotism is loving your home.

Nationalism is saying your home is better than other people's.


The first of those is a virtue.

I love the United States dearly, and fancy it to be the greatest place on Earth. Sebster, there is nothing wrong with saying that you find your home to be better. I certainly see the US as being better then Somalia. Saying that doesn't make it a vice. You are being a tad bit quick in defining such ideas. That being said, I love the UK dearly as well. I would very much like to move there and apply for dual citizenship. I am a strange mix of Thomas Jefferson and Rudyard Kipling....

JEB_Stuart wrote:I am a strange mix of Thomas Jefferson and Rudyard Kipling....

Let us not forget that third option to which you owe your name and avatar.

@WarOne: Indeed!

"America, 10 million illegal immigrants can't be wrong." Richard Jeni

Personally I'm in a toss up with Germany and Russia due to my love of vodka and beer. Patriotism to me roots from loving a country you were either born in or intentionally relocated to and defend the land for the ideals you feel it stands for.

I can't say I'm a huge fang of pride in general, be it in one's country or anything else. That said so long as it doesn't get out of hand it it's hardly the worst thing in the world.

While I do enjoy living in the north-west of the US, I'd like to move somewhere far away where I can escape American politics despite how silly that sounds. I'm currently thinking some Scandinavian country, but there are too many myths and wild rumors in the way to make a clean decision.

sebster wrote:Patriotism is loving your home.

Nationalism is saying your home is better than other people's.


The first of those is a virtue.

Are we confusing Nationalism with Jingoism? Or are the two not so disimilar?


Anyway, I love Australia, but I think it's gak in some areas.
Our natural beauty, or wonderful beaches, our friendly (hungry) wildlife. Then we have the Refugee Detention centres, racism, obnoxious dopeheads and poloticians. It's like being given the Statue of David and having a whack at it with spray paint and nunchucks.

I dont love or even like my or any other country en masse. The whole idea just seems ridiculous, I like certain places and towns alot though. What does that make me? A Townie? :-)

The best country in the world to live in, I think according to the UN, is Sweden... I can't blame that choice

80% of the dutch think patriotism is the same as having a white pointy hat wearing hobby.

They go red-white-blue when the queen farts.

Henners91 wrote:The best country in the world to live in, I think according to the UN, is Sweden... I can't blame that choice

Hard to argue against that point.

According to the HDI it's Norway, with Sweden below Canada (and the UK below the US). Of course, we all know that index is BS, and the true best country in the world to live in is:

CIA World Factbook, GDP per Capita, wrote:1 Liechtenstein 122,100 2007 est.
2 Qatar 121,700 2009 est.
3 Luxembourg 78,000 2009 est.
4 Norway 58,600 2009 est.
5 Kuwait 54,100 2009 est.
6 Singapore 50,300 2009 est.
7 Brunei 50,100 2009 est.
8 United States 46,400 2009 est.
9 Andorra 44,900 2008
10 Ireland 42,200 2009 est

OH SHI-

Orlanth wrote:

Shaman wrote:

Albatross wrote:

We made the world. Best country ever.

World sucks nice job..

jk

Yeah I agree, you deserve way more posonous snakes and spiders than you have got. We have been overly lenient.

ing speak for yourself!


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For some reason I feel strangely patriotic towards Sweden now...

Orkeosaurus wrote:According to the HDI it's Norway, with Sweden below Canada (and the UK below the US). Of course, we all know that index is BS, and the true best country in the world to live in is:

CIA World Factbook, GDP per Capita, wrote:1 Liechtenstein 122,100 2007 est.
2 Qatar 121,700 2009 est.
3 Luxembourg 78,000 2009 est.
4 Norway 58,600 2009 est.
5 Kuwait 54,100 2009 est.
6 Singapore 50,300 2009 est.
7 Brunei 50,100 2009 est.
8 United States 46,400 2009 est.
9 Andorra 44,900 2008
10 Ireland 42,200 2009 est

OH SHI-

Have I not been warning you people of mordor like menace that is Leichtenstein?
"Dude you don't with Leichtenstein. Seriously."
- Sauron.

Frazzled wrote:
Have I not been warning you people of mordor like menace that is Leichtenstein?
"Dude you don't with Leichtenstein. Seriously."
- Sauron.

Yeah you could put the whole ing country on a ring and wear it around

Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy".

Patriotism is love and devotion to one's country. The word comes from the Greek patris, meaning fatherland.

Nationalism involves a strong identification of society and the state. It can also include the belief that the state is of primary importance, or the belief that one state is naturally superior to all other states.

A patriot loves his country, a nationalist believes his country is the best, a jingoist will force you to believe his country is best.

halonachos wrote:
A patriot loves his country, a nationalist believes his country is the best, a jingoist will force you to believe his country is best.

Well, by the definition you provided, a nationalist would love his nation (eg. society) and feel that it deserved to be recognized, and protected by the creation of a state. Protection, in this instance is not necessarily related to military action, but often cultural safe-guards as well; hence we have parties like the BNP.

dogma wrote:

halonachos wrote:
A patriot loves his country, a nationalist believes his country is the best, a jingoist will force you to believe his country is best.

Well, by the definition you provided, a nationalist would love his nation (eg. society) and feel that it deserved to be recognized, and protected by the creation of a state. Protection, in this instance is not necessarily related to military action, but often cultural safe-guards as well; hence we have parties like the BNP.

I consider myself a nationalist - however this in the civic/territorial sense. Ethnicity plays no part in it for me. I feel absolutely no connection to the BNP - ethnocentric politics are for the terminally immature and the culturally illiterate.

Yeah, as with most -isms, nationalism has many possible meanings. About the only requirement is that any given definition relate to support for, and attachment to, any given nation.

Albatross wrote:

dogma wrote:

halonachos wrote:
A patriot loves his country, a nationalist believes his country is the best, a jingoist will force you to believe his country is best.

Well, by the definition you provided, a nationalist would love his nation (eg. society) and feel that it deserved to be recognized, and protected by the creation of a state. Protection, in this instance is not necessarily related to military action, but often cultural safe-guards as well; hence we have parties like the BNP.

I consider myself a nationalist - however this in the civic/territorial sense. Ethnicity plays no part in it for me. I feel absolutely no connection to the BNP - ethnocentric politics are for the terminally immature and the culturally illiterate.

You really believe we live in the best country in the world?

IMO France is historically much better... but mnyah.

Henners91 wrote:

Albatross wrote:

dogma wrote:

halonachos wrote:
A patriot loves his country, a nationalist believes his country is the best, a jingoist will force you to believe his country is best.

Well, by the definition you provided, a nationalist would love his nation (eg. society) and feel that it deserved to be recognized, and protected by the creation of a state. Protection, in this instance is not necessarily related to military action, but often cultural safe-guards as well; hence we have parties like the BNP.

I consider myself a nationalist - however this in the civic/territorial sense. Ethnicity plays no part in it for me. I feel absolutely no connection to the BNP - ethnocentric politics are for the terminally immature and the culturally illiterate.

You really believe we live in the best country in the world?

IMO France is historically much better... but mnyah.

Yeah, we get it - you're a self-hating Brit. We've just had 12 years of them in power. Turned out marvellously, didn't it...

How exactly is France 'historically much better' than England/Britain? They've spend most of their history playing second fiddle to us.

That's by-the-by. I don't believe that my country is the most powerful, the most wealthy, or the most important.

But it is the most 'mine'.

It's my feeling that if everyone in the UK took pride in their country, in their community and in themselves as British people, it would solve a lot of our societal problems.

Pride in your country
Sticking to traditional British Values of hard-work, honesty and decency. This means getting off your arse and finding work so you can pay taxes for the things we need, such as education, defence and the health service. It is dishonest and indecent to expect others to subsidise your laziness if you CAN work, but choose not to.

Pride in your community
Not turning a blind eye to the antisocial behaviour, petty crime and casual violence which blights our neighbourhood. Hell, how about a return to 'neighbourhood' as a concept. Sending out the signal that drunken, jobless, antisocial scum who make decent peoples lives a misery with their intimidation and loutish behaviour will not be tolerated. Keeping our streets clean because they are OURS. Helping the Police to do their jobs by being open and honest, instead of clannish and distrustful. They are OUR public servants, but they can't help us unless we help them. Showing the most vulnerable, frightened and lonely members of society that we are there for them.

Pride in yourself as a Briton
Focussing on the things that bind us together, not that keep us apart. Pride in our pivotal role in history. Pride in our culture. Pride that people of all races and religions call our country their home - our flag has more than one colour, so do our people. But they all have one thing in common: They are British, and I'm proud of that.


That's what Nationalism means to me.

Would I kill for my country? Yep.

Would I die for my county? Hell no.

As long as the beer flows, whoever runs my country is of little consequence. In a democracy, my personal voice means feth all....

JEB_Stuart wrote:I love the United States dearly, and fancy it to be the greatest place on Earth. Sebster, there is nothing wrong with saying that you find your home to be better. I certainly see the US as being better then Somalia. Saying that doesn't make it a vice. You are being a tad bit quick in defining such ideas. That being said, I love the UK dearly as well. I would very much like to move there and apply for dual citizenship. I am a strange mix of Thomas Jefferson and Rudyard Kipling....

Sure, there's nothing with saying your home is better than some places, such as Somalia. I should have made my definition clearer, nationalism being the belief that one's home is objectively better than all other places. And yeah, I do consider such a belief odious.


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Emperors Faithful wrote:Are we confusing Nationalism with Jingoism? Or are the two not so disimilar?

Jingoism is tied to aggressive foreign policy. It comes from a British song that began circulating in the lead up to the Crimean War with Russia;

"We don't want to fight but by Jingo if we do,
We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too,
We've fought the Bear before, and while we're Britons true,
The Russians shall not have Constantinople."

Anyway, I love Australia, but I think it's gak in some areas.
Our natural beauty, or wonderful beaches, our friendly (hungry) wildlife. Then we have the Refugee Detention centres, racism, obnoxious dopeheads and poloticians. It's like being given the Statue of David and having a whack at it with spray paint and nunchucks.

Yeah, I agree with you on the beaches, and would add the outback. There's something very spiritual about seeing a sunrise on the Nullabor.

I'd agree on the racism, and add a strange, overt hostility to culture as a particularly ugly part of Australian culture. I actually don't have that much hostility to our politicians - the two Federal leaders we have right now are pretty crappy, but for the most part the prominent members of the two parties are pretty decent. I'll accept that being in Tasmania and having seen what I've seen of your State politicians, that might affect one's view considerably.

sebster wrote:Jingoism is tied to aggressive foreign policy. It comes from a British song that began circulating in the lead up to the Crimean War with Russia;

"We don't want to fight but by Jingo if we do,
We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too,
We've fought the Bear before, and while we're Britons true,
The Russians shall not have Constantinople."

Okay, this has always bothered me; how the hell are they pronouncing "Constantinople"?

Orkeosaurus wrote:Okay, this has always bothered me; how the hell are they pronouncing "Constantinople"?

So that it rhymes with 'true', so umm, I have no idea. If nothing else it strikes me as really terrible song. Our skill at convincing the general population to support a war half way across the planet fought for confusing geo-political reasons has gotten a lot better.

Its got to have something to do with evolving pronunciation, because the whole song is incredibly awkward in English as I know it.

sebster wrote:Sure, there's nothing with saying your home is better than some places, such as Somalia. I should have made my definition clearer, nationalism being the belief that one's home is objectively better than all other places. And yeah, I do consider such a belief odious.

That's fine, I can understand that. Most of my family is like that. I am not. I have been accused of being anti-American for loving Britain so much. I CAN'T HELP THAT THEY HAVE A BETTER "NATIONAL" ANTHEM!!!!

dogma wrote:Its got to have something to do with evolving pronunciation, because the whole song is incredibly awkward in English as I know it.

Not gonna lie, it is really, really easy to drink to. If I didn't have to go to work in the morning I would be doing it right now.

sebster wrote:
I actually don't have that much hostility to our politicians - the two Federal leaders we have right now are pretty crappy, but for the most part the prominent members of the two parties are pretty decent. I'll accept that being in Tasmania and having seen what I've seen of your State politicians, that might affect one's view considerably.

I've always been surprised (nay alarmed!) at the real sense of hostility in US politics and the huge divide between left and right. Australia seems to have a fair amount of 'swinging' voters, and you'll never really run into any in depth conversations about one party over the other. I don't know if there's a reason for that, but a mans politics seem to be very far down on ones list of priorities. Antipathy would be a good way of describing most Australian's views on politics.

Oh, and I was about to ask that Constantinople question too, but Orkeo beat me to it.


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Constantinopool? Pule? Pewl?

Emperors Faithful wrote:I've always been surprised (nay alarmed!) at the real sense of hostility in US politics and the huge divide between left and right. Australia seems to have a fair amount of 'swinging' voters, and you'll never really run into any in depth conversations about one party over the other. I don't know if there's a reason for that, but a mans politics seem to be very far down on ones list of priorities. Antipathy would be a good way of describing most Australian's views on politics.

It hasn't always been that way, Australia used to have strong party distinctions between Liberal and Labor, whereas these days both parties have pushed towards the centre, more or less taking whatever position the polls support. At the same time it seems that rhetoric in US politics has intensified. I suspect this is less to do with people though, and more to do with internal political decisions within the parties themselves.

I know there's a lot of noisy internet people with strong opinions on politics, but I don't think it necessarily follows that they represent people in the US itself. Given the Americans I've met and their voting turnouts, I suspect they're about as engaged as we are.


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JEB_Stuart wrote:That's fine, I can understand that. Most of my family is like that. I am not. I have been accused of being anti-American for loving Britain so much. I CAN'T HELP THAT THEY HAVE A BETTER "NATIONAL" ANTHEM!!!!

What is going, man? I think God Save the Queen is rubbish, and think the Star Spangled Banner is great.