Local By Elections - 25th of July

[andrew111]

Jul 15, 2019 9:46:15 GMT polupolu said:

Politics isn't really a circle or a line but rather multi-dimensional. "Economic Left-Right", "Authoritarian-AntiAuthoritarian" and "Collectivist-Individualist" have been the major dimensions in the past but there are other dimensions and they are growing in importance if anything (and the "Economic Left-Right" axis seems to be less important than it used to be as far as I can see - which is why people do sometimes swap on this scale.

Yes, i agree, (I was gently teasing Mike with the circle)

The axis that Brexit has highlighted imo is a nationalist/internationalist axis. Here are a few questions to help define position:
1) Do you think Nationalism has been at the root of the majority of wars in history and is therefore a force for evil?
2) If there is a plane crash do you care more if English people were on board (substitute your own nationality)
3) Do you think that pooling sovereignty with other countries is in itself a good idea?
4) Do you think a European army is probably a good idea?
5) Do you think the Nation State is becoming an outmoded concept?
6) Do you think passing the "cricket test" is a ridiculous thing to expect of anyone

I would say people at the International end of this axis are unlikely to be totalitarian in outlook and unlikely to be socially conservative, but can certainly accomodate people with very different views on economics..

[peterl]

Jul 20, 2019 13:38:48 GMT andrew111 said:

Jul 15, 2019 9:46:15 GMT polupolu said:

Politics isn't really a circle or a line but rather multi-dimensional. "Economic Left-Right", "Authoritarian-AntiAuthoritarian" and "Collectivist-Individualist" have been the major dimensions in the past but there are other dimensions and they are growing in importance if anything (and the "Economic Left-Right" axis seems to be less important than it used to be as far as I can see - which is why people do sometimes swap on this scale.

Yes, i agree, (I was gently teasing Mike with the circle)

The axis that Brexit has highlighted imo is a nationalist/internationalist axis. Here are a few questions to help define position:
1) Do you think Nationalism has been at the root of the majority of wars in history and is therefore a force for evil?
2) If there is a plane crash do you care more if English people were on board (substitute your own nationality)
3) Do you think that pooling sovereignty with other countries is in itself a good idea?
4) Do you think a European army is probably a good idea?
5) Do you think the Nation State is becoming an outmoded concept?
6) Do you think passing the "cricket test" is a ridiculous thing to expect of anyone

I would say people at the International end of this axis are unlikely to be totalitarian in outlook and unlikely to be socially conservative, but can certainly accomodate people with very different views on economics..

1) No. Most wars are caused by a desire for resources, an expansionist agenda, and the excessive concentration of power in one person, especially if that person is mentally unstable. Most modern day nationalists seem more concerned with what happens in their own country than in invading anyone else. On the other hand, several wars have been started in recent years by neocon types who like to intervene in other country's affairs.
2) I probably would, it is perfectly normal to be concerned more about something happening that you can associate more closely with your own life.
3) No I don't.
4) No. The last time there was a united European army, they wore Nazi uniforms. The idea of a united Europe has for centuries been at the heart of numerous totalitarian regimes and has been the cause of several major conflicts.
5) No. You can talk about a more global economy, but development of laws and delivery of public services vary in their needs and requirements substantially from country to country.
6) I'm not familiar with this.

[Merseymike]

Jul 20, 2019 13:38:48 GMT andrew111 said:

Jul 15, 2019 9:46:15 GMT polupolu said:

Politics isn't really a circle or a line but rather multi-dimensional. "Economic Left-Right", "Authoritarian-AntiAuthoritarian" and "Collectivist-Individualist" have been the major dimensions in the past but there are other dimensions and they are growing in importance if anything (and the "Economic Left-Right" axis seems to be less important than it used to be as far as I can see - which is why people do sometimes swap on this scale.

Yes, i agree, (I was gently teasing Mike with the circle)

The axis that Brexit has highlighted imo is a nationalist/internationalist axis. Here are a few questions to help define position:
1) Do you think Nationalism has been at the root of the majority of wars in history and is therefore a force for evil?
2) If there is a plane crash do you care more if English people were on board (substitute your own nationality)
3) Do you think that pooling sovereignty with other countries is in itself a good idea?
4) Do you think a European army is probably a good idea?
5) Do you think the Nation State is becoming an outmoded concept?
6) Do you think passing the "cricket test" is a ridiculous thing to expect of anyone

I would say people at the International end of this axis are unlikely to be totalitarian in outlook and unlikely to be socially conservative, but can certainly accomodate people with very different views on economics..

Its an interesting perspective but even then I think its not straightforward

I'd say:
1. No, its more complicated than that
2. No
3. It can be, but again, it all depends....
4. I don't think armies are a good idea
5. Yes, but then, that doesn't indicate I am thus a great enthusiast for globalisation-ready supranational arrangements either
6. Yes

[carlton43]

Jul 20, 2019 13:38:48 GMT andrew111 said:

Jul 15, 2019 9:46:15 GMT polupolu said:

Politics isn't really a circle or a line but rather multi-dimensional. "Economic Left-Right", "Authoritarian-AntiAuthoritarian" and "Collectivist-Individualist" have been the major dimensions in the past but there are other dimensions and they are growing in importance if anything (and the "Economic Left-Right" axis seems to be less important than it used to be as far as I can see - which is why people do sometimes swap on this scale.

Yes, i agree, (I was gently teasing Mike with the circle)

The axis that Brexit has highlighted imo is a nationalist/internationalist axis. Here are a few questions to help define position:
1) Do you think Nationalism has been at the root of the majority of wars in history and is therefore a force for evil?
2) If there is a plane crash do you care more if English people were on board (substitute your own nationality)
3) Do you think that pooling sovereignty with other countries is in itself a good idea?
4) Do you think a European army is probably a good idea?
5) Do you think the Nation State is becoming an outmoded concept?
6) Do you think passing the "cricket test" is a ridiculous thing to expect of anyone

I would say people at the International end of this axis are unlikely to be totalitarian in outlook and unlikely to be socially conservative, but can certainly accomodate people with very different views on economics..

A few answers

1) Certainly not. It is way down the list. And fairly recent anyway.
2) Certainly. Mainly if one of our full of ours flying to or from the UK. 
3) No. A very bad idea indeed.
4) No. A truly awful idea to be firmly opposed.
5) Not at all.
6) No. Whilst a glib concept, I see it to be an essential requirement.

[yellowperil]

Jul 20, 2019 15:06:53 GMT carlton43 said:

Jul 20, 2019 13:38:48 GMT andrew111 said:

Yes, i agree, (I was gently teasing Mike with the circle)

The axis that Brexit has highlighted imo is a nationalist/internationalist axis. Here are a few questions to help define position:
1) Do you think Nationalism has been at the root of the majority of wars in history and is therefore a force for evil?
2) If there is a plane crash do you care more if English people were on board (substitute your own nationality)
3) Do you think that pooling sovereignty with other countries is in itself a good idea?
4) Do you think a European army is probably a good idea?
5) Do you think the Nation State is becoming an outmoded concept?
6) Do you think passing the "cricket test" is a ridiculous thing to expect of anyone

I would say people at the International end of this axis are unlikely to be totalitarian in outlook and unlikely to be socially conservative, but can certainly accomodate people with very different views on economics..

A few answers

1) Certainly not. It is way down the list. And fairly recent anyway.
2) Certainly. Mainly if one of our full of ours flying to or from the UK. 
3) No. A very bad idea indeed.
4) No. A truly awful idea to be firmly opposed.
5) Not at all.
6) No. Whilst a glib concept, I see it to be an essential requirement.

And I would say yes, no, yes, maybe, yes, yes - just about as far from Carlton as you could get down that axis.

[Pete Whitehead]

Jul 20, 2019 13:38:48 GMT andrew111 said:

Jul 15, 2019 9:46:15 GMT polupolu said:

Politics isn't really a circle or a line but rather multi-dimensional. "Economic Left-Right", "Authoritarian-AntiAuthoritarian" and "Collectivist-Individualist" have been the major dimensions in the past but there are other dimensions and they are growing in importance if anything (and the "Economic Left-Right" axis seems to be less important than it used to be as far as I can see - which is why people do sometimes swap on this scale.

Yes, i agree, (I was gently teasing Mike with the circle)

The axis that Brexit has highlighted imo is a nationalist/internationalist axis. Here are a few questions to help define position:
1) Do you think Nationalism has been at the root of the majority of wars in history and is therefore a force for evil?
2) If there is a plane crash do you care more if English people were on board (substitute your own nationality)
3) Do you think that pooling sovereignty with other countries is in itself a good idea?
4) Do you think a European army is probably a good idea?
5) Do you think the Nation State is becoming an outmoded concept?
6) Do you think passing the "cricket test" is a ridiculous thing to expect of anyone

I would say people at the International end of this axis are unlikely to be totalitarian in outlook and unlikely to be socially conservative, but can certainly accomodate people with very different views on economics..

OK so lets do a bit of character acting here and answer the questions as if I have an 'internationalist' mindset

1) Do you think Nationalism has been at the root of the majority of wars in history and is therefore a force for evil? Yes - nationalism is the greatest force for evil in the world
2) If there is a plane crash do you care more if English people were on board (substitute your own nationality) No - of course not. Nationality and identity are irrelevant to me and I view all people equally. England is just some random bit of land and the people I share it with are nothing to me
3) Do you think that pooling sovereignty with other countries is in itself a good idea? Of course, since nationalism is inherently a bad thing, anything which weakens the nation state is a good thing
4) Do you think a European army is probably a good idea? Yes, see answer to question 3
5) Do you think the Nation State is becoming an outmoded concept? Yes, see answers to questions 3 and 4
6) Do you think passing the "cricket test" is a ridiculous thing to expect of anyone
Lets see here - this is about supporting a cricket team based on one's national and ethnic identity. Obviously as I am all about parading my internationalist credentials, (even to the extent of lying about how much I am affected relatively by a plane crash involving English people and a plane crash involving Ethiopians) as I think any expression of national identity or affiliation is an inherently bad thing, I obviously have no sympathy whatsoever for those people of eg. Indian or Pakistani origin who support the cricket teams of those respective countries. They are displaying the same kind of sentiment as those who would care more about people of their own nationality engaged in a plane crash. It's a throw back to the 'outmoded concept' of the Nation State.
So of course my answer to this question must be 'No'. But I see that here I am out of step with all my 'internationalist' friends here who have given the opposite answer to this question.
So I'm going to have to abandon my internationalist experiment I think - I can't cope with the fucking cognitive disonnance

[carlton43]

Jul 20, 2019 15:14:16 GMT yellowperil said:

Jul 20, 2019 15:06:53 GMT carlton43 said:

A few answers

1) Certainly not. It is way down the list. And fairly recent anyway.
2) Certainly. Mainly if one of our full of ours flying to or from the UK. 
3) No. A very bad idea indeed.
4) No. A truly awful idea to be firmly opposed.
5) Not at all.
6) No. Whilst a glib concept, I see it to be an essential requirement.

And I would say yes, no, yes, maybe, yes, yes - just about as far from Carlton as you could get down that axis.

I am interested in your response to No.2 on a genuine basis yellowperil.

A new BA Boeing flying out from Heathrow to the USA with a complete set of teams of school girls for a series of exhibition matches and contests reported missing over the Atlantic. 
A large Aeroflot transport with returning mercenary troop reinforcements for Russian occupied Crimea is reported missing in the mountains.
An old medium sized plane of Indonesia Airways on internal flight between two islands reported overdue and believed lost.

These happen in the same week. What is your reaction to each event and how personally oncerned are you about the result of each?

[yellowperil]

Jul 20, 2019 15:36:13 GMT carlton43 said:

Jul 20, 2019 15:14:16 GMT yellowperil said:

And I would say yes, no, yes, maybe, yes, yes - just about as far from Carlton as you could get down that axis.

I am interested in your response to No.2 on a genuine basis yellowperil .

A new BA Boeing flying out from Heathrow to the USA with a complete set of teams of school girls for a series of exhibition matches and contests reported missing over the Atlantic. 
A large Aeroflot transport with returning mercenary troop reinforcements for Russian occupied Crimea is reported missing in the mountains.
An old medium sized plane of Indonesia Airways on internal flight between two islands reported overdue and believed lost.

These happen in the same week. What is your reaction to each event and how personally oncerned are you about the result of each? 

Generally I get very annoyed by reports of disasters when hundreds of people are dead and our media focuses on the one or two Brits as if they are the only ones that matter. Of course you are trying to load the bias beyond mere matters of nationality - school girls, mercenary troops, all very emotive, and overdue believed lost, so an element of uncertainty. I still reckon all other things being equal I feel no more concern for the victims of a disaster because I happen to share their nationality. 

[greenchristian]

Jul 20, 2019 13:38:48 GMT andrew111 said:

Jul 15, 2019 9:46:15 GMT polupolu said:

Politics isn't really a circle or a line but rather multi-dimensional. "Economic Left-Right", "Authoritarian-AntiAuthoritarian" and "Collectivist-Individualist" have been the major dimensions in the past but there are other dimensions and they are growing in importance if anything (and the "Economic Left-Right" axis seems to be less important than it used to be as far as I can see - which is why people do sometimes swap on this scale.

Yes, i agree, (I was gently teasing Mike with the circle)

The axis that Brexit has highlighted imo is a nationalist/internationalist axis. Here are a few questions to help define position:
1) Do you think Nationalism has been at the root of the majority of wars in history and is therefore a force for evil?
2) If there is a plane crash do you care more if English people were on board (substitute your own nationality)
3) Do you think that pooling sovereignty with other countries is in itself a good idea?
4) Do you think a European army is probably a good idea?
5) Do you think the Nation State is becoming an outmoded concept?
6) Do you think passing the "cricket test" is a ridiculous thing to expect of anyone

I would say people at the International end of this axis are unlikely to be totalitarian in outlook and unlikely to be socially conservative, but can certainly accomodate people with very different views on economics..

1) No. Nationalism as we understand it has only really been around for a couple of hundred years when Europe invented the idea of the Nation State. I do think that nationalism has a tendency to heighten tensions between Nation States, and lead to various levels of conflict between them.

2) Only to the extent that I'm more likely to be aware of it. However, other factors are more likely to decide how strongly I feel about it. Though I guess if it had a lot of British people on board I'm more likely to  know one of the passengers than if there aren't many. And personally knowing somebody who had died would definitely make me care more.

3) In practice pooling sovereignty often produces positive outcomes, but it would be foolishly simplistic to say that it is always the best choice.

4) Ironically, the increase in nationalist sentiment amongst major governments has made me more receptive to the idea. It is likely to be a far more effective way of pooling military sovereignty than NATO for as long as Trumpian leaders are likely in the US.

5) Pooling sovereignty is becoming an increasingly common way of conducting foreign policy, and it seems likely that doing so will prove to be a very good policy for most small and medium sized countries over the next few decades. This doesn't, however, mean that the Nation State is becoming outmoded.

6) Absolutely. There is no reason an immigrant, or even a second or third generation immigrant should feel obliged to support the national team of their new country over the national team of their ancestral one. Sports talk amongst friends and in workplaces is more fun when there are a variety of teams being supported, and this is just as true of international sporting events.

Anyway, that's the view from somebody who thinks of himself as clearly on the internationalist side of this debate, and who considers his religious identity to be more important than his national one.

[andrew111]

Interesting responses to my questions, largely proving my point, i would say.

Regarding wars, there of course many reasons in the minds of the people at the top who actually start them, but the forces of either Nationalism, Imperialism or Organised Religion (also on my list of evils) are invariably deployed in order to get the necessary popular support..

And honestly comparing a European Army with Nazi Germany makes me hold my head in despair...

[greenchristian]

Jul 20, 2019 18:06:56 GMT andrew111 said:

Interesting responses to my questions, largely proving my point, i would say.

In that there are two different clusters of responses, yes. But reduce the answers to yes/no, without any of the explanations and nuance and the nationalists and internationalists on this board have largely answered the same. Which suggests that this specific set of questions aren't particularly good at distinguishing between the two perspectives.

Regarding wars, there of course many reasons in the minds of the people at the top who actually start them, but the forces of either Nationalism, Imperialism or Organised Religion (also on my list of evils) are invariably deployed in order to get the necessary popular support..

Using or abusing popular sentiments in order to get the necessary support to prosecute a war is a very different thing from being the cause of a war. And it's rather disingenuous to suggest that they are. The reality is that if those sentiments didn't exist the rulers would have found some other emotional connection to exploit in order to get the armies, taxes, or other resources they needed to prosecute whatever wars they wanted.

[finsobruce]

Jul 20, 2019 16:03:25 GMT yellowperil said:

Jul 20, 2019 15:36:13 GMT carlton43 said:

I am interested in your response to No.2 on a genuine basis yellowperil .

A new BA Boeing flying out from Heathrow to the USA with a complete set of teams of school girls for a series of exhibition matches and contests reported missing over the Atlantic. 
A large Aeroflot transport with returning mercenary troop reinforcements for Russian occupied Crimea is reported missing in the mountains.
An old medium sized plane of Indonesia Airways on internal flight between two islands reported overdue and believed lost.

These happen in the same week. What is your reaction to each event and how personally oncerned are you about the result of each? 

Generally I get very annoyed by reports of disasters when hundreds of people are dead and our media focuses on the one or two Brits as if they are the only ones that matter. Of course you are trying to load the bias beyond mere matters of nationality - school girls, mercenary troops, all very emotive, and overdue believed lost, so an element of uncertainty. I still reckon all other things being equal I feel no more concern for the victims of a disaster because I happen to share their nationality. 

It's hardly 'bias' YP - just an understandable human reaction - might anyone we know be involved?

[yellowperil]

Jul 20, 2019 19:55:56 GMT finsobruce said:

Jul 20, 2019 16:03:25 GMT yellowperil said:

Generally I get very annoyed by reports of disasters when hundreds of people are dead and our media focuses on the one or two Brits as if they are the only ones that matter. Of course you are trying to load the bias beyond mere matters of nationality - school girls, mercenary troops, all very emotive, and overdue believed lost, so an element of uncertainty. I still reckon all other things being equal I feel no more concern for the victims of a disaster because I happen to share their nationality. 

It's hardly 'bias' YP - just an understandable human reaction - might anyone we know be involved?

No I understand that aspect of that. 

My use of the word bias related to Carlton's response, when he went beyond the "are we concerned for our neighbours" thing to all that emotive stuff about schoolgirls v mercenary soldiers etc which I felt was trying to rig the question. Yes if its someone we know or might possibly know that obviously triggers a response, but otherwise I feel as much grief for the person suffering from another country as I do for someone from my home country, and nationality does not nor should not come into it.

[carlton43]

Jul 20, 2019 16:03:25 GMT yellowperil said:

Jul 20, 2019 15:36:13 GMT carlton43 said:

I am interested in your response to No.2 on a genuine basis yellowperil .

A new BA Boeing flying out from Heathrow to the USA with a complete set of teams of school girls for a series of exhibition matches and contests reported missing over the Atlantic. 
A large Aeroflot transport with returning mercenary troop reinforcements for Russian occupied Crimea is reported missing in the mountains.
An old medium sized plane of Indonesia Airways on internal flight between two islands reported overdue and believed lost.

These happen in the same week. What is your reaction to each event and how personally oncerned are you about the result of each? 

Generally I get very annoyed by reports of disasters when hundreds of people are dead and our media focuses on the one or two Brits as if they are the only ones that matter. Of course you are trying to load the bias beyond mere matters of nationality - school girls, mercenary troops, all very emotive, and overdue believed lost, so an element of uncertainty. I still reckon all other things being equal I feel no more concern for the victims of a disaster because I happen to share their nationality. 

Thank you for your honest reply which I find astonishing.  We are indeed very different people but from the same period and general background. most interesting.

[andrew111]

Jul 20, 2019 22:46:27 GMT carlton43 said:

Jul 20, 2019 16:03:25 GMT yellowperil said:

Generally I get very annoyed by reports of disasters when hundreds of people are dead and our media focuses on the one or two Brits as if they are the only ones that matter. Of course you are trying to load the bias beyond mere matters of nationality - school girls, mercenary troops, all very emotive, and overdue believed lost, so an element of uncertainty. I still reckon all other things being equal I feel no more concern for the victims of a disaster because I happen to share their nationality. 

Thank you for your honest reply which I find astonishing.  We are indeed very different people but from the same period and general background. most interesting.

Yes, i share YP's view on this. People are people wherever they come from although of course i care more aboutfamily members and people I know personally.

This is what I am getting at with my simplistic questions. There are views that both sides find incomprehensible in the people on the other side of the argument. The 20% of strong Brexiteers have, in general, a very different world view from the 20% of strong Remainers. In between are people who either do not have strong views or who are motivated more by other things like Mike.

To those who have been coating my simplistic questions with caveats or trying to prove some logical impossibility in answering them a particular way, that is not the point. It is how you answer without thinking, the instinctive response. which is what defines your world view.

[Pete Whitehead]

Jul 20, 2019 23:13:44 GMT andrew111 said:

Jul 20, 2019 22:46:27 GMT carlton43 said:

Thank you for your honest reply which I find astonishing.  We are indeed very different people but from the same period and general background. most interesting.

Yes, i share YP's view on this. People are people wherever they come from although of course i care more aboutfamily members and people I know personally.

'People are people' is a banal statement of nothing. Objectively, of course all human lives are equal. Subjectively, you admit yourself you are going to care more about family members and people you know. What we are discussing is merely an extension of that. I would care more (ie take more interest) about people from my town than people from Yorkshire, more about people from Yorkshire than people from Germany and more about people from Germany than people from Iran. 99.9% of people feel the same way if they are being totally honest. Sure maybe 20% - people like you and yellowperil - believe they should feel differently and therefore claim they do but this is a virtue signalling lie. I'll be charitable and accept that you are probably lying to yourself and have bought into the lie to such an extent that you are passing on this falsehood to the rest of us in good faith

[carlton43]

Jul 20, 2019 23:37:07 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Jul 20, 2019 23:13:44 GMT andrew111 said:

Yes, i share YP's view on this. People are people wherever they come from although of course i care more aboutfamily members and people I know personally.

'People are people' is a banal statement of nothing. Objectively, of course all human lives are equal. Subjectively, you admit yourself you are going to care more about family members and people you know. What we are discussing is merely an extension of that. I would care more (ie take more interest) about people from my town than people from Yorkshire, more about people from Yorkshire than people from Germany and more about people from Germany than people from Iran. 99.9% of people feel the same way if they are being totally honest. Sure maybe 20% - people like you and yellowperil - believe they should feel differently and therefore claim they do but this is a virtue signalling lie. I'll be charitable and accept that you are probably lying to yourself and have bought into the lie to such an extent that you are passing on this falsehood to the rest of us in good faith

I tend to agree with the whole tenor of that response and the attitude of the media does reflect the inherent truth of that position.

I also believe that the machinations of modern life which is full of half-truths and double speak and defined acceptable positions has led many to pretend they hold psitions they do not really hold and others to actually think they believe positions that they don't actually hold. 

It is rather like the pallid po-faced strictures on torture. But take the average parent faced with a child held hostage by an abuser who is in custody but won't admit he has the child or say where it is. Who would not actually be prepared to kick the living shit out of the arrested man to save the child? Yes, I know a lot of you will now creep out of the woodwork and pretend you would keep to the moral high ground, but I doubt you would and hope you would give way to the obvious and correct reaction.

As to the correlation between Right/Brexit/NoDeal and other attributes, I am sure you are on to something as to a type of person. We know that there is a correlaion with support for capital punishment and I think I could probably list quite a few more likely areas as well.


 

[yellowperil]

I wonder if I could try, just try, to bridge that gap of incomprehension between our two schools of thought. Incidentally I rather resent the suggestion from Pete that we are lying to him or even lying to ourselves- these are attempts at an honest answer as I think Carlton recognises.I could argue that all this identification with our home nation is a sort of false patriotism because that too is expected of us, and we all know the Johnson definition of patriotism (Samuel of course not Boris, who is a living embodiment of it). So I won't go down that route, which could be as offensive to the nationalists as I find their comments to us.

I have been trying to think of the origins of my internationalism. I can see it in childhood, during the war, with a house often filled with eastern European refugees from Nazi Germany who became close family friends. I can remember my university days and the friends I made especially with the African students who at that time seemed the most wonderful people I had ever met, so clever, so kind, so friendly, and yes the comparison was with the English students (although my best friend of all from that era was the English one who happened to be Jewish, and not counting the other English one of former German family origin who I went on to marry). I do remember a conversation with my (Labour councillor)landlord about my finding the African students preferable to the English ones and his shocked response that no, you must prefer your own sort, which was a sort-of Pete reply. So I have been having this argument all my life. Of course it might be suggested that the filtering system that got Black Africans to a small English university in the 1950's meant that the Africans who made it had to have something special.

Then there have been all those years of travelling which now sadly has come to an end. I have spent years in total travelling in almost every part of the world (though carefully avoiding that weird country lying between Canada and Mexico). I have made friends in all those countries and found all peoples welcoming and hospitable. The Africans and the Arabs* particularly so, the Slavs and especially the Russians least so. I am not making any assumption from that, I am merely reporting what my personal experiences have been.I also have the experiences of being both guest and host many many times with our two twinning communities of Fougeres and Bad Munstereifel.

I suppose if you have stayed all the time in the UK and not travelled, or if your travelling has been confined to tourist resorts and Anglicised communities, this might reinforce your feeling that Brits are Best, whereas I know that to be patently untrue. That doesn't mean Brits are Worst, rather that Brits Are the Same As Everyone Else. Or, as has been said, People are People, and no that is not some half baked truism, it's fundamental truth.

Not sure I've managed to bridge the gap as I set out to try, but I may at least have put in some background to my position.


* I thought a bit more about the Arabs. Of all countries I have visited, 3 nationalities stand out for the depth and strength of their welcome. They are the Syrians, Yemenis and Jordanians.

[andrew111]

Jul 20, 2019 23:37:07 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Jul 20, 2019 23:13:44 GMT andrew111 said:

Yes, i share YP's view on this. People are people wherever they come from although of course i care more aboutfamily members and people I know personally.

'People are people' is a banal statement of nothing. Objectively, of course all human lives are equal. Subjectively, you admit yourself you are going to care more about family members and people you know. What we are discussing is merely an extension of that. I would care more (ie take more interest) about people from my town than people from Yorkshire, more about people from Yorkshire than people from Germany and more about people from Germany than people from Iran. 99.9% of people feel the same way if they are being totally honest. Sure maybe 20% - people like you and yellowperil - believe they should feel differently and therefore claim they do but this is a virtue signalling lie. I'll be charitable and accept that you are probably lying to yourself and have bought into the lie to such an extent that you are passing on this falsehood to the rest of us in good faith

I will be charitable to you Pete despite your insults and unsubstantiated assumptions about me, and let you know that on the basis of our minimal online interaction I only rate you slightly below the rest of the world who I do not know.

[finsobruce]

Jul 21, 2019 10:29:20 GMT andrew111 said:

Jul 20, 2019 23:37:07 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

'People are people' is a banal statement of nothing. Objectively, of course all human lives are equal. Subjectively, you admit yourself you are going to care more about family members and people you know. What we are discussing is merely an extension of that. I would care more (ie take more interest) about people from my town than people from Yorkshire, more about people from Yorkshire than people from Germany and more about people from Germany than people from Iran. 99.9% of people feel the same way if they are being totally honest. Sure maybe 20% - people like you and yellowperil - believe they should feel differently and therefore claim they do but this is a virtue signalling lie. I'll be charitable and accept that you are probably lying to yourself and have bought into the lie to such an extent that you are passing on this falsehood to the rest of us in good faith

I will be charitable to you Pete despite your insults and unsubstantiated assumptions about me, and let you know that on the basis of our minimal online interaction I only rate you slightly below the rest of the world who I do not know.

"People are people, so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully".