Are You Proud of Your Country?

by snugglebunny 23 Replies latest jw friends

  • Xanthippe
    Xanthippe

    I'm proud women got the right to vote here in1918, yes I know some women over 30. At the end of the film Suffragette after the credits it lists the countries that gave women the vote after 1918 including the US (1920). It's a very long list. I remember that in Switzerland where my mother-in-law is from, some cantons didn't give women the vote until the 1970s!

    I love this country, the scenery is so varied, mountains, lakes, rivers, coastline. It's down to being manicured by people, it's not at all natural any more. I just wish we had more ancient forests left in England.

    A hundred years ago people were living in back to back terraces in the cities with one toilet between twenty-five houses. Now people think they're hard done by if they don't have at least two bathrooms. London was a filthy, smog filled disease filled rat trap and now it's one of the biggest tourist cities in the world. After seeing the slums of Delhi and the shanty towns of Jaipur I know how rich this country is although people here don't believe it.

    I love it here, I even love the weather. I saw a Facebook site where Americans were saying they wished they were in the UK for the English Spring, I was amazed. Ex-pats also wishing they could return for the Spring weather.

  • Simon
    Simon
    I'm proud women got the right to vote here in1918

    One thing that many people overlook is that men only got 'universal suffrage' a couple of decades earlier. Prior to that the right to vote was tied to land ownership or payment of taxes.

    i.e. it was more about class than misogyny.

  • Xanthippe
    Xanthippe

    It's true that not until the Parliamentary Reform Act of 1867 did skilled working men with an income of at least ten pounds a year get the right to vote. Before that it was only professional men and the nobility that could vote. You still had to be a man though.

    The Ballot Act in the 1870's meant that it was a secret ballot and nobody had the right to pressure tenant farmers to vote for a particular candidate who was often their landlord. They couldn't therefore be thrown off their land for not voting for him which was the kind of corruption that happened before. This meant farmers could now vote freely. It was a gradual process and yet still not all men could vote, but of those who could, they did have to be men. They couldn't be skilled seamstresses or women farmers.

  • freddo
    freddo

    In answer to your original question. It could be a lot worse.

    I think in general terms "it" tries to do the right thing and in politics anywhere between centre left and centre right have a majority of decent people trying to serve the country.

    I also think the younger generation (William, Kate and Harry) of Royals seem decent folk who connect with the public at large far better than Charles, Andrew, Anne and Edward did.

  • Brokeback Watchtower
    Brokeback Watchtower

    By country I think you mean the government that controls the land you live on.

    If that is what you meant then I would say I look at any and all governments as a business run by humans over other humans,, that has its good and bad points, I think I can honestly say I don't feel any pride for my government and I don't feel any shame for it. I don't trust my government to always do the right thing and I don't believe its propaganda. I do hope it becomes a more peaceful government(USA) and can come to better terms with other competing governments of the world, a better relationship with Russia and China and not so much the reliance superior fire power but more on mutual respect with shadow projections withdrawn. I think USA/China/Russia should sign some type of arms agreement and save tax payers money for better projects.

    I will never take the stand that some have: "My country right or wrong" that is plain old herd mentality that leads to abuses in power and gives the powers that be, complete control over an individual and for those individuals to do serious crimes against fellow humans by deferring all responsibility for these acts as merely following orders of ones homeland government.

  • Simon
    Simon

    I think some take the opposite of "my country right or wrong" to mean "my country must be wrong" but countries are the result of cultures and we know some are better than others, even though some want to deny that basic fact.

  • Gorbatchov
    Gorbatchov

    Not really proud, but satisfied.

    The Netherlands. A pirate bay. You can do and say what you want. No big difference between rich and poor.

    Not bad.

    G.

  • Ray Frankz
    Ray Frankz

    After realizing politics isn't a "devil" thing and it's not better or worse than religion, I started to analyze myself and find out how I stand concerning politics. What I'm sure so far:

    I'm pro democracy

    I'm pro free market

    I'm pro the laicism of state as much as I'm pro of freedom of religion (yes, I'm against what's happening in Russia)

    I'm against laws that make it easy for civils to get guns

    and, concerning the topic:

    i'm against nationalism.

    in my opinion what caused the holocaust wasn't the political position of Germany. This position, indeed, caused the war, but in the war there were two sides killing people, holocaust was genocide and in my opinion this was caused by the nationalism. We are too far in the human history to let the coordinates where we are born dictate who we love or who we hate.

  • just fine
    just fine

    I am so very thankful to live in the US, where I have every freedom I could ever want. I can live, work, go to school wherever I want for whatever I want. I can marry whoever I want. I can change my mind about any of those things and no one can stop me unless I allow it.

  • St George of England
    St George of England

    Born and bred in England and love the place, I would not want to live anywhere else.

    As Cecil Rhodes said "To be born an Englishman means you have already won the lottery of life!"

    I know a lot of people do not like the British for the reasons already mentioned but judging by the number of immigrants trying to move here every year we must have something more than beer and Fish & Chips!

    The WT Society are not keen on the British. They never use the term Great Britain, always just Britain. In the 1980's they took sides with Argentina in the Falklands conflict. On the map in the Yearbooks the islands were renamed Malvinas for several years.

    St George of England

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