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the thread about the shetland flag started me thinking about patriotism ......

 

we went to the states on holiday last year

 

booked into a great hotel in the middle of the desert..

 

as we booked in : " say you'r english right?" ........"yes"

 

"we've got another english family saying here would you like to be near them?"

 

"errrr thanks but can you put us at the other end of the hotel.....please?"

 

he was surprised by this but did as requested........thankfully!!

 

later that night we saw them - four "adults" and about five kids in the car park shouting and screaming as they kicked a ball round between the rows of cars

 

miles and miles of desert all round and these tuuats had to use other peoples expensive cars as goal posts

 

:roll: we didn't need to see the english football shirts to guess the nationality

 

soon after that they went to the restaurant.....we eat somewhere else :wink:

 

can i adopt a different nationality please? :wink:

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The problem is that the good English, of which there are many, seem to be swamped by a loud and foolish minority. I worry that it is a country in meltdown, governed by greed and social division, and that as the Union slowly falls apart it may enter a long period of communal depression and lack of direction, during which all kinds of mindless thuggery may take precedence over the much-lauded values of Decency and Fair Play.

 

So many thinking English people now seem to suffer from a kind of inferiority complex in relation to the US, or continental Europe ... hence an identity crisis results for all but the thickest ...

 

England is desperately in need of the same process of serious cultural retrieval and revivification which Ireland, Scotland and Wales have been engaged upon for generations now.

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very well put :) but depressing i fear that it will get worse before it gets better which can only happen when the masses turn round and say "enough"

its a great shame that the only ones that outwardly show any visible form of patriotism are the ones that are ruining the country

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To the question posed by the thread name, I say, "Alas, yes". And I apologise in advance for the length of this post, but if you read it you'll see why it is so.

The problem is that the good English, of which there are many, seem to be swamped by a loud and foolish minority.
Actually, it's not so much "swamped" as "browbeaten and threatened by some horrible, toilet-mouthed little addict breathing his halitosis into your face from about four inches off the end of your nose". The police, unfortunately, no longer patrol streets in which they themselves live and control this sort of "person", they are too busy either watching the "fun" on CCTV from their concrete bunkers, or filling in the insane amounts of paperwork which successive governments have foisted on them. If you actually get to have a few words with a copper, many of them despair of the situation as much as we civilians do.
I worry that it is a country in meltdown ...
Yes, this is true.
... governed by greed and social division ...
This particularly since Margaret Thatcher seized power, tore the country to pieces to flog off to her greedy friends, and began the great lie that "there is no such thing as society". We now have a whole generation which has grown up in this nightmare dystopia believing that, so her poisonous dictum has become a self-fulfilling proposition.
... and that as the Union slowly falls apart it may enter a long period of communal depression and lack of direction, during which all kinds of mindless thuggery may take precedence over the much-lauded values of Decency and Fair Play.
Er, wrong tense. The mindless thugs already rule the streets, and are very good at disregarding the infestation of CCTV cameras which are the only "response" of a snooping, intrusive government. One guy who was shot dead not far from my house died in a shop which was barely ten metres from a camera - you see the level of the thugs' contempt for the things. Given that the attackers got clean away, you can see why.
So many thinking English people now seem to suffer from a kind of inferiority complex in relation to the US, or continental Europe ... hence an identity crisis results for all but the thickest ...
Well, in my case not the US, which suffers from the same sort of free-market dogmatism that has ruined England, but when I see what Blair "absolutely rules out" in the EU constitution discussions I feel deep, deep shame that people might think this man "represents" me. Union rights? Oh, no, can't have those back, might be bad for business. EU-style levels of social security? Good God no, if people don't fight hard enough to save for their own misfortunes, let them go to beggary. And so on, and so on. I'm with Europe on EVERY thing Blair "won't tolerate".
England is desperately in need of the same process of serious cultural retrieval and revivification which Ireland, Scotland and Wales have been engaged upon for generations now.
Possibly right. Even growing up in the 50s and 60s though, I must admit that my main identity was British, rather than English, and I still feel that all of us resident in this little island cluster ought to stick together at least to some extent. I don't think it's so very unreasonable for my English self to celebrate James Watt as well as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, or James Clerk Maxwell as well as Isaac Newton. I'd like to see Eire "in with us" too - not in that we should rule them, but in the sense that we're all here together and ought to get on. (Listen to RTE Lyric FM sometime on the net, and you'll hear some real foot-stompin' good Irish folk music, absolutely gorgeous even to my alien English ear.)
its a great shame that the only ones that outwardly show any visible form of patriotism are the ones that are ruining the country
Sadly true. The decent among us are cowering at home while the oiks run riot in the streets, mostly because we are risking hospitalisation or worse if we try to do anything about it (see note above about policing).

 

I passed 56 recently. For the first half of my life I was living in a country which was good to live in - not perfect, but fun and decent. For the second half, I've watched the place being broken down, broken up and hawked off to whatever financial institution wants to strip a few assets. It's more like living in a prison camp now, especially after Blair's assault on basic liberties, and I'm afraid I am truly ashamed to be identified with the place now.

 

My ideal scenario:

1: I move to Shetland (please);

2: Scotland declares independence, taking Shetland with it;

3; Shetland declares independence, either joining Norway or Denmark (I've been reading the Shetland history thread!) and I'M OUT OF THIS HORRIBLE LITTLE COUNTRY!!

 

And God knows I wish 'twere not so. As I said, 28 years plus ago, it was not so, but England has degenerated so far now that there's nothing here now that I recognise as "my country". Thank you, my "representatives", for such a thoroughly comprehensive pig's ear of a job, and may I say here that I respect you all. Just very, very little, is all.

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Well I fear that Damn Saxon is putting me off going to England although there certainly are good bits where he would not feel threatened. Sadly I am staying in South London but one of the better bits.

 

As for the nationality thing I will go along with British having lived in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Shetland. Also starting to wish we could all be Europeans first and whatever second.

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in reply to damnsaxon

 

obviously a well thought out and extensive reply :wink: and nothing that could be argued with

too many people turn a thread like this into a political rant against one single government where in truth its every government for the last 30 years or more that have systematically created the current attitudes have allowed the mindless minority to rule and now the behaviour is so well established it will take a huge effort to change things

 

although ultimately i suppose that the inhabitants themselves have to take most of the blame - after all its them that

 

completely agree with the desire to move out - preferably to shetland ....sadly though there is resistance in the form of SWMBO who dosn't want to move away from her family.IMHO the presence on in-laws in the south is a really good reason to move North!

 

:lol:

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I thought this Forum was an all things Shetland Forum.

There are English people in Shetland. Besides, it's not only things about Shetland as evidenced by any number of threads on topics which have nothing directly to do with Shetland.

 

This thread is in the 'Anything & everything else' section, so it's fine.

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Excellently summed up DamnSaxon.

 

Shetland has its share of Neds though, just less concentrated than mainland Britain. Mostly Nedlings at the moment.

 

It's a real shame that we cower in our respective places, not always in fear of the Ned, but in fear of the reprisals to what we own in our absence.

 

The sooner we start spending as much time teaching about Responsibilities as we teach about Rights the better.

 

The Police attitude has changed from "openly" advising communities that if they had an issue with an "undesirable" then the community should deal with it and the Police would look the other way momentarily to a situation where they seem to offer more protection to the perpetrators than those perpetrated upon.

 

I am a great supporter of the Police, but they constantly seem to be shoved in a direction of what is "right" rather than what is sensible.

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I must admit that my main identity was British, rather than English, and I still feel that all of us resident in this little island cluster ought to stick together at least to some extent. I don't think it's so very unreasonable for my English self to celebrate James Watt as well as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, or James Clerk Maxwell as well as Isaac Newton.

 

That's what they all (english) say! The trouble is, since Thatcher and her Poll Tax, the rest of us don't want you along anymore! You abused your privileged place in the union (majority rule), and we still haven't forgiven you. It's going to take a lot more crawling than that. :evil: :twisted:

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During my recent hiatus from western civilization I have learned that Scotland is, in fact, a town in England whose residents are called The Scotch and live entirely on a diet of whiskey.

 

Shetland is near the Isle of Mann, by the way.

 

This kind of general ignorance made me rethink the notion (which I myself admittedly took for granted), that Scotland is some kind of big player on the world stage.

 

As far as your average punter in the wider international community outside the EU is concerned, the UK, England, Scotland, Ireland etc are, at best, all the same place and at worst a collection of scattered European countries in the same ballpark as Poland, Germany, Latvia, Sweeden etc.

 

Personally I found it pretty funny - what's the point in getting so het up regarding misconceptions about where you’re from when you're thousands of miles away anyway?

 

True, when asked where I come from by fellow traveler’s I always say I'm from Shetland in Scotland, but if I'm honest I think that's just cos it sounds a lot more interesting than simply saying I'm British - although I do correct folks when they say I'm English as enjoy the Scottish/English banter.

 

Also, the Canadians are notorious for stressing their nationality to foreigners, for fear of association with the US and their rather unfortunate worldwide reputation. Many go as far as to sow Maple leafs on their backpacks, although I’ve seen this piss off a lot of traveling yanks who rightly resent being demonized for American foreign policy they have no influence over and certainly don’t agree with, but I digress…

 

Who else? Well there’s the Kiwis and the Aussies – mix them up at your peril. Then there’s the Swedish, the Finns, the Norwegians - all of whom have, to me, been frankly interchangeable with each other through my veil of general ignorance, but let’s not go there...

 

As for the rather sweeping generalisations about the English made in this thread, i think they're a little unfair to be honest. What about those in the North of England who, politcally, had far more in common with Scotland than their southern counrtymen? Can you simply dismiss them as Grant Mitchel-esque thugs or leary, violent hooligans?

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The trouble is, since Thatcher and her Poll Tax, the rest of us don't want you along anymore! You abused your privileged place in the union (majority rule), and we still haven't forgiven you.
I'm sorry you feel that way, ArabiaTerra, though in fact I completely agree with you (hence my desire to get out before things get any worse) - FWIW everybody I know, including yours truly, feels the same way as you about That Woman, and I haven't forgiven ... whoever it was voted for her ... either. There are some good English!

What we're up agin here is the UK's terrible political system where you can get absolute power just by having the largest minority in a small turnout, not the "over 50% of the population" which people think.

Also, if Scotland declares independence, you're condemning us English to perpetual Tory government, and if I remember right, there's a clause in the European Convention on Human Rights against "cruel and unusual punishment" ... please, don't blame us all for Thatcher, bear in mind that she NEVER had a proper majority but just rode the UK's stupid voting system for all she was worth. :evil: :evil: :evil:

As I said, I'm 56 now, and I have never lived under a government which represented the majority. 'Nuf sed.

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