British Reparations

[witch]

Just a small point, localzuk
I think you are thinking that in order to be proud of being British (or English) you have to think less of others.
THIS ISNT THE CASE.
I am very proud of being British, but I respect others from other places and cultures and I do not put myself above them in any shape or form.

[localzuk]

I didn't say that nor did I imply it. I stated that national pride leads to problems - as shown around the world with laws such as the Patriot Act, the Nazi's etc...

Pride is one thing but becoming a zealot and obsessing over it (as many people seem to do, as it seems to be human nature) is completely different.

I say do away with pride and just get on with improving things. Why do we need to stand around slapping each other on the back for the things we have achieved? Yes there are some great achievements but there are far more failures. We should be driven by wanting to improve society, not constantly looking at our minor achievements throughout history and saying things like 'I'm proud to be British'.

We should be looking to a Star Trek like future

[Jake]

We should be looking to a Star Trek like future

As long as I am not being the redshirt security guy!

[witch]

We should be looking to a Star Trek like future

Then you will just get people saying that they are proud to be human!!

So, you are not against pride as such, just its abuse?

I hope not as I would hate to think that I cannot be proud of for example my children's achievements.
Boasting about them, or feeling that they are better than anyone else -now that is a different thing all together

[Greg_Jones]

[RANT/]

Hmmm interesting, I read through the reparations they want the British to pay, but most of the damage was caused by the British Empire which no longer exists. So how the hell is Britain accountable. I mean they are blaming us for holes in the Ozone because of the industrial revolution (without which they wouldn't have computers or internet to moan about this on...)

I'm not the most patriotic person, but I know what me and my country should be held accountable for, and it's not people opening factories over 100 years ago, maybe blame the inventor of cars they do a hell of allot of pollution. Inventing machine guns, because if you want to point the blame for inventing weapons look to the states, atomic bomb anyone? (Yes ok we sent 2 scientists to help, one of whom a Russian spy but none the less.)

So yes 100 years ago we had an empire we spread our culture and language, and of course we made a few mistakes and naturally some greedy people extorted money from others. But are you saying you wouldn't if you could.

[/RANT]

[mitcheln]

[yawn]

[/yawn]

[localzuk]

@WITCH - no I'm not against pride, else I would feel bad whenever I did a good job (as I feel proud of having things work well). The problem, as you say is when people take it too far - which from what I have seen so far in my life, happens an awful lot.

@mitcheln - you should get more sleep!