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I actually don't have many strongly held opinions, but I don't follow where you get this from:
You don't seem to have the confidence to stand up for your opinions.
I don't think I'd be posting in this thread at all if I didn't have enough confidence.
Is all patriotism petty? Is there any other kind of nationalism except that which asserts superiority over foreigners?
hoefla-
I could have phrased that better. I see this quite a bit with friends who were not born here, they are less likely to take the fight to the idiots. I understand why. There's so little intelligence to go around in a massive part of the UK population, it really helps if you've grown up here because the idiots don't get to tell you that you don't belong enough to have a low opinion of England.
I don't mean to single you out for criticism, it just seemed that you are being thoughtful respecting people you disagree with. That's not my approach, not for age or experience or illness.
Anyone who thinks that England is better in any way than the rest of the world needs to be told to pipe down. Not in the Olympics or engineering or language or philosophy or fighting or any other matter are we a universally superior country. So those opinions can get in the sea. Nationalism and a national identity is no use to make a success out of a country so it's not much use to me.
Yes, it was used to dismantle colonialism but it wasn't the successful part of it, countries just had to work to shape the economic and cultural life of the country and that had everything to do with recognising and building bridges with other nations, collaborating through trade, science and culture.
I was just suggesting that you have not yet reached the point where you are confident enough to tell English idiots that to their face based on what you had said about respecting different opinions.
Airhead
You don't seem to have the confidence to stand up for your opinions. That's fine. It just happens that I think small minded patriotism is a sign of intellectual weakness and I'm happy to call that out when I encounter it.
I wouldn't bother to defend nationalism, the core support seems to be petty patriotism and beliefs held by people without much experience of the wider world. It's a dog whistle for idiots.