do you love your country?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
oh i love my country , it has no borders , or certain flag , i'm a forever foreign man , stuck between cultures , between religions , i like the whole globe .
 
I can't say for sure...

I think I live in a really great country. Yeah, it has its problems, but I think overall America is a spectacular country. Still, I never really felt a huge amunt of patriotism. I love the people here as a whole, but I'm not so sure that has anything to do with the fact that they're American.

I'll most likely never have a chance to die for my country anyways. I've had head problems and I doubt I would ever be drafted (unless things got REALLY bad). I'd probably be sitting on the sidelines.

Anyways, if I said I love my country it's probably because I love the life I've become used to and I generally love America's people. Maybe that means I do love my country... or I just love people. I'd most likely risk my life for them if it was needed.

I never realized there were so many Australians here.
 
Last edited:
I'll add that I have the utmost respct for those who died protecting our country. To me that's the most respectable thing any human could ever do for me. I feel a sense of personal gratitude to these people.

I kind of get the feeling that this board lacks the attitude that they'd fight for much. A lot of you (not singling out anyone, although you probably know who you are) seem to be the type of people who would run away and hide if you and the people around you were in danger instead of uniting and fghting back for a cause. I don't respect that attitude ONE BIT.
 
Last edited:
shart1780 said:

I kind of get the feeling that this board lacks the attitude that they'd fight for much. A lot of you (not singling out anyone, although you probably know who you are) seem to be the type of people who would run away and hide if you and the people around you were in danger instead of uniting and fghting back for a cause. I don't respect that attitude ONE BIT.
Click to expand...

It's funny you mention that, for there are those that support a troop surge and are of age yet refuse to enlist, right here in this very board...

I also find it funny that people equate Iraq with a threat to freedom...

You were fed lies, and you fell for them hook, line, and sinker...
 
First of all, I couldn't enlist even if I wanted to, due to health problems. Second, if I could enlist I don't feel that it would be my calling to fight for the US under the current situation. I don't feel like going to Iraq because I don't feel like it would do any good. I'm not a supporter of any big troop surges and I disagree with those who are.

If our country was being invaded I would probably feel much differently. Of course it's hard to say how I'd feel then, but I definitely wouldn't run to Canada or anything. I hate the attitude that some people have about their country where they'll let the government support them, but as soon as the government calls on them to fight for the freedoms they've been given they just pack their bags and jet. It's selfish and cowardly.

And why are you bringing Iraq into this in the first place? Don't assume that because I'd be willing to stand up and fight I also support our actions in the Middle East. For speaking so poorly of those who generalize you sure like to do it with me.
 
You should never assume from what people post or say in a situation of comfort, that this would be a safe indicator for their actions in a situation of need.

People speaking of how bravely they would defend their loved ones may be the first to be on the run, and vice versa. You can't predict one's behaviour when it comes to terms.

And I think one shouldn't judge people only because they are not that willing to defend their countries in any situation.
 
yolland said:

When you say "the English flag" do you mean the St. George's Cross?
Click to expand...

Apparently some people might be offended by it due to its links to the Crusades. And the Union Flag of the UK doesn't fair much better either as it has been associated with extreme right wing groups for decades. I have vague memories that at one time the phrase "We need to reclaim our flag from the racists" was banded about a lot but the in thing now in the media seems to be to start playing down the Britishness and emphasizing your individual nationality (especially if you're English, the rest of them lot in the UK have been doing this for years but we've only just caught on :wink: ).
 
^Every Scot, and every Welsh person would say they are Welsh or Scottish before British, so why not the English just be English.....being British is kind of a nothingness....there is no British culture or British language, there is a definable Scottish/Welsh/English heritage and cultures.
 
LJT said:
^Every Scot, and every Welsh person would say they are Welsh or Scottish before British, so why not the English just be English.....being British is kind of a nothingness....there is no British culture or British language, there is a definable Scottish/Welsh/English heritage and cultures.
Click to expand...

Yeah but Wales and Scotland have all the cool stuff like Welsh and Braveheart. What does England have? Bloody Morris dancers! :wink:

Seriously though I think Scotland and Wales have that slight advantage in that the Celtic ties are stronger. In England everything is such a mishmash. You have the Vikings here in Yorkshire and the North-East, the Anglo-Saxons in the Midlands and the Celtic fringe in the South-West. So although we do have a shared English culture, it doesn't seem as legitimate as our neighbours because it doesn't go back as far as them (if that makes sense?).

But I also think you're right. I think it would be good for England to start taking more pride in itself- especially in the era of devolution.
 
shart1780 said:

I kind of get the feeling that this board lacks the attitude that they'd fight for much. A lot of you (not singling out anyone, although you probably know who you are) seem to be the type of people who would run away and hide if you and the people around you were in danger instead of uniting and fghting back for a cause. I don't respect that attitude ONE BIT.
Click to expand...

Get over yourself.

Unlike almost everyone on this board, I actually lived through a war and all the wonderful fun of being SHOT at and knowing people who were blown to smitherines. You have no fucking clue what that's like or what it's like to have to live the rest of your life with those memories and coping.

I don't need somebody like you respecting my views. I actually had that worded a lot more colourfully the first time, but for the sake of civility, toned it down.
 
anitram said:


Get over yourself.

Unlike almost everyone on this board, I actually lived through a war and all the wonderful fun of being SHOT at and knowing people who were blown to smitherines. You have no fucking clue what that's like or what it's like to have to live the rest of your life with those memories and coping.

I don't need somebody like you respecting my views. I actually had that worded a lot more colourfully the first time, but for the sake of civility, toned it down.
Click to expand...

Of course I don't know exactly how I'd react in the time of war. I can only go one how I feel at the moment, just like just about everyone else in this discussion. I'm not talking about civilians running. I'm not saying they should grab knives and forks and fight back. I'm saying that if the country that supports you asks for your help defending your own country's people it would be honorable to fight.

Maybe we should only let those who have lived through a war participate in this discussion then? If no one else's view is relevant.
 
I'm saying that if the country that supports you asks for your help defending your own country's people it would be honorable to fight.
Click to expand...
And then if you do the supposedly dishonourable thing and refuse then you can be chucked in jail, blind patriotism lets people be abused by governments and in the instances your alluding to it's done with conscription.
 
shart1780 said:
I'm saying that if the country that supports you asks for your help defending your own country's people it would be honorable to fight.
Click to expand...

This just goes to show you have no concept of what war time is actually like.

My father chose to leave and not fight. In fact, he essentially fled the country overnight, because he could see where things were going. Many of his friends and other people like you called him a coward and said he did not honour his duty. Those same friends were drafted and participated in what any civilized society would consider to be war crimes. Yes, many of them were honourable in defending their homes. And many raped and pillaged.

He decided that independence wasn't worth shooting his neighbour in the head and then raping his wife.

You think war time is men defending property and their women and children...what a joke.
 
shart1780 said:


And why are you bringing Iraq into this in the first place? Don't assume that because I'd be willing to stand up and fight I also support our actions in the Middle East. For speaking so poorly of those who generalize you sure like to do it with me.
Click to expand...

Then what are you basing your "this board lacks the attitude that they'd fight for much" statement on then?

I find it funny that you admit yourself that you "don't know exactly how I'd react in the time of war" yet you generalize the board as an attitude you don't respect at all...

What a joke...
 
It's kind of disturbing that we are still living in a time where the question about "loving" the own country gets more or less answered with war. :(
 
You don't know until you're tested. And we haven't been tested truly. There wasn't much lack of resolve when it came to going into Afghanistan. The dots were connected. We didn't really do too great a job of it. The government lacked the will to continue there. That wasn't a people decision. Too anxious to get to Iraq.

I think most of us respect the soldiers. Are grateful for those who served and especially grateful to those who died even if they shouldn't have. But "support the troops" has become kind of a codeword like "family values". To too many, it means "Shut up, go along." Until the government defines support the troops as giving them sufficient supplies, don't keep them longer incountry than you promised them when they went in, take care of them when they come home, treat them with real respect instead of self-serving lip service, then I won't be paying too much attention to my government's catchphrases.

I know I've had to rethink my country these past several years in ways that make me uncomfortable. I haven't given up on it. But I'm still separating bullshit from reality. I think I'd fight for the good I see in it. I'm not going to look the other way, though.

We don't know what people will do when push comes to shove.
And why they'll do what they do.
 
I won't meditate upon on my own opinion about the present day, but I will say this. I envy previous generations, for whom this question was a lot easier to answer. My two great-uncles were refugees, they fled Turkey in the wake of the Genoicide of 1915, they spoke maybe three sentences of English and had nothing but the clothes on their back. They stepped off the boat in 1918 and enlisted, given citizenship right there. For them in was simple: America was a place of refuge. I don't doubt for many today it is the same. But back then, the media was newspapers and radio. Not as much spin. World War II, it was so easy...there was this madman Hitler who was plotting to take over the world, in the tradition of all grand conquerors of history, and it was question of your realy being in danger. Today all wars are not dramatic, they are guerrilla or at least dirty little unconventional affairs where the cause is murly and the methods even more so.

What disturbs me is even more is that these days America, seems at least to need a war or conflcit, an enemy, to both define itself and test its citizens loyalty. Society itself is becoming more militarized, and miltary service defines strength, and "peaceful" people more contemptuous. We are being asked to assert our patriotism in militant ways. There is no peaceful way to be a patriot. When I see tanks parked in a park with armed sodiers standing around and parents taking their little toddlers up to the tanks and sitting them on them and letting the little ones touch them and look up wonderingly, I dismays me and disturbs me to the very core. My sentiment is with Faramir: "I do not love the sword for its brightness, not the arrow for its swiftness..." etc. Americahas always been a war-loving nation to an extent, but there was a strong pacifist streak here too. More crazy communes and societies, etc.

It's complicated beyond belief. The nation-state is a modern construction, but all I can say is, given a choice between the modern, centralized, bearucratic nation-state with all its clunky machinery of state, and the fuedal city-state or polis (feudalism at its best), I'll take the nation-state, with all its flaws. Our present day is filled with a lamentable dearth of leaders, but at leas the structures they represent lurch along.
 
yolland said:
Then there are a few people--sula's described something like this before I know--who, typically because of a very particular and rather unusual kind of upbringing, truly feel that they could be "at home" almost anywhere (and yet never feel "fully" at home anywhere at the same time). I can't really relate to that either, but as with the type of person who discovers their "true" home through what started out as a visit, I'd imagine it isn't in any meaningful way a kind of "moral" choice. Probably in a sense none of these are really moral decisions.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's my upbrigning, but I've lived in several places and felt more "at home" than in America - and they were very, very different places. As Axver said way upthread, I don't love something as artificial as a country. I do have a deep sense of pride and admiration in the original ideas of America, and at the same time a great sense of disgust and alienation at what is presently going on (with democracy/elections, civil liberties, and foreign policy). I think the disgust and alienation contribute greatly to my happiness living elsewhere. I love love love my native city of Boston, and have great pride in it and feel a sense of community, but I have also felt very at home elsewhere (be it passing through or living for several months). In fact, the only place I've felt less at home in than America was Israel, where as a godless liberal Jew who works with refugees and believes Israel treats the Palestinians immorally, I was extremely alienated, but I also didn't come into contact with more liberal and secular Israelis while I was there.

So, there are things about America that I take great pride in, and things that make me feel responsible towards it (no matter where I live, I will always vote and stay informed, even if I get dual citizenship to an EU country). But I feel just as comfortable, if not more, in a variety of other settings, and as I still have a year of college tying me to America, I refer to myself as an ex-pat waiting to happen and have plans to move out as soon as I get my degree. (These are partially career related, though.) And I feel comfortable maybe because of political/moral alienation from America. Combined with Israel I guess you might say I dislike countries for political/moral reasons. But the reasons I like other places aren't moral or political, but more related to culture and people and way/pace of life. (Again I've enjoyed quite the variety of settings - I loved living in Vienna and in a refugee camp in Ghana, and I dearly miss them both.)
 
Unless, of course, you're doing the protesting in a place and at a time where its very visibilty might make an impression or even a difference--like the Republican National Convention in NYC, say.
 
I would say that I love my country. I love it because it is good to me. I love it because it's beautiful. I love it because its home. I love it because of its ideals, its success at incorporating newcomers without losing its identity. There's lots of great things about it.

I wouldn't die for it as in signing up for the army to fight a foreign war. Besides I am too old for all that now. But then again I was never the military type when I was young anyway.

However, if we were invaded that would be a different matter entirely. I would fight and die for it. I would pick up a gun and do my part because there would undoubtedly be those who are weaker than me who would need the help.

Call me a pacifist until someone is actually trying to kill me. Then I will fight to live and to protect those who can't defend themselves.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

L
Play Do You Feel Loved, Babyface, Some Days Are Better Than Others, Playboy Petition
Replies
8
Views
733
rosephile
R
H
Setlist Issue
Replies
3
Views
487
lazarus
lazarus
Janet H
  • Sticky
Forum Update - We're back! Ask your questions here.
2
Replies
36
Views
2K
Popmartijn
Popmartijn
C
Will Larry Return to U2?
Replies
14
Views
255
MrsSpringsteen
MrsSpringsteen
R
Hello, hello!
Replies
2
Views
886
Ralph_Sutter
R

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom