Who REALLY hates Britain?

Dear Tom,

I went to school with two brothers who were the sons of a dear friend of mine - a veterinary - who served in the Far East and survived being captured by the Japanese. He committed suicide after a chronic illness brought about by that incarceration - many years after ...

War is always messy. And that is a fact. There is no clean War. Always moral grey areas. But some acts are simply black and white.

May we be preserved from politicians who think it an easy diversion from domestic policy failure, such as Bush and Blair in the recent past. Sometimes it is imperative, such as Bosnia, and WW2. But mostly it is not.

ATB from George

Don't forget Obama - he was as good as going in until he got politically and diplomatically outmaneuvered.  (By the former head of the KGB no less - how pathetic can you get?)  They're all pigs in my book...you won't see these guys sending their kids over to die for the likes of Boeing, Lockheed, & Halliburton.

And as for the original post - I don't hate Britain at all.  (In fact were there a way for me to work there I think I'd like to live there at least for a while; I do have EU citizenship) - it's just too bad it's so beholden to act on behalf of the US Empire - and I applaud your Parliament for being the first part of derailing what could have become WW III.  (And regrettably, likely will yet.)

"A patriot loves his country and its people, a nationalist loves his government and its laws."

Dear Dr. Mark,

The Politics of the USA has frightened me since Nixon.

Only Carter seemed so ineffectual that he could not have started WW3.

Obama surprised me over Syria. I hoped that he was not a Bush/Blair type.

Thank goodness that he was outmanoeuvred by the Ruskies.

Peace is worth more than national pride in the case of Syria at least.

ATB from George

George - you don't even get a shot at the big chair unless you have agreed to play by the rules.  Obama was bought & paid for before he even ran, and anyone who doesn't believe that is deluding themselves.

That is why I have become more of a fan of the parliamentary form of government, as opposed to our one party masquerading as two system.  Although from reading here, it is obvious that your system is fraught with problems as well.

Sometimes I wish I didn't care - they say ignorance is bliss, and perhaps that is correct.  I dined with a friend last week, and her husband is a policeman, and she said, "Life is so simple for him.  There is the government, and their rules, and he sees himself as the enforcer, and everything is so black and white, and you don't question it.  We're the 'good guys' & they're the 'bad guys.'  Sometimes I envy his simplistic view."

I totally got what she was saying...

Dear Dr. Mark,

There are times when the Republicanism debate raises its head in the UK.

Wholesale reform including the abolition of the Monarchy, and replacement with a president.

Whatever the problems brought with the current Constitutional Monarchy, and a House Of Lords that is now largely a question of political patronage, because it is not an elected Upper Hose Of Parliament [he hereditary Peers are almost completely gone now], I think the Republicans here need to be careful what they wish for.

As you suggest, the President will only ever get political support [and proposal for the post in the first place prior to rubber stamp election] if he or she is actually a part of political elite, and not going to rock the boat.

One of the great things about a Prime Ministerial system with Parliamentary accountability is that the leader [Prime Minister] can be removed without any particular crisis, or need for an early general election. The system of checks and balances does work, though some would like to see Proportional Representation where the proportions of the manin political parties represented in Parliament reflected much more closely the numbers of votes cast for each party nationally. The first past the post system can see a government formed on significantly less than a majority of the votes cast for that party nationally.

It says something for the overall understanding and wisdom of the UK electorate that this leads to fluid changes of government all the same. Changes of government are crucial to prevent the party in power from getting too complacent.

The system of government in the UK does have much going for it, though like all governments it is not perfect and sometimes seems a proper muddle!

One of the reasons why there is almost no scandal surrounding the Monarchy is that it is strictly non-political in a sense of public utterance, though there is a weekly interview between the Monarch and the Prime Minister. But most of all the Monarchy is there from generation to generation, even though it is an archaic system that can hardly be justified if it were being invented today. But the Royal Family has to play the long game of keeping on the straight and narrow - no corruption and so on - and has a vested interest in keeping the system running well. The Queen has made a remarkable job of Head Of State over six decades.

She apparently regards her position as one of personal responsibility.

If we had a King or Queen who was a rogue, then I doubt the Monarchy would survive.

ATB from George

No offence [note correct spelling] taken. A post as ill-informed as that, and which seems to so revel in its ignorance, can only inspire pity for its author.

For your information, nobody here - not even, I suspect, the most slaveringly sycophantic and devoted royalist - actually regards themselves as a subject of the monarch. Nor are they treated as such by the law. There are, I doubt, few practical differences in freedom here in Blighty and in the US.

Your precious constitution failed, to use but one example, to protect US citizens against the appalling excesses of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the egregious bullying of McCarthy.

And of course the US constitution made every man a sovereign and guaranteed sovereignty over his life and property. Unless of course, those men happened to be native Americans or black slaves.

Ahem...

To be fair Hook, that's only in South East London.

In the City you are likely to be beaten by a fat top-hatted capitalist bearing a bullwhip; while in West London you are likely to be bored to death by a yuppie talking about house prices; in East London you will be poisoned by eating jellied eels (fished from the filthy Thames) while watching West Ham; in North London, you are in mortal danger from polenta-munching New Labourites (Blair's children, who have inherited the much-loathed former PM's infamous halitosis).

So it's still worth visiting us...

Hmm... do you have any evidence for this assertion? They certainly prefer a cowed, or complacent, or complaisant, or peaceable, or co-operative, populace, but that's not really the same as them being unarmed, is it?

  Cheers Kevin - you do make a compelling case for tourism!

ATB.

Hook

To glorious Herefordshire, for example!

ATB from George

Or one of the many on 'death row',

just spent god knows how long reading all of this, some fascinating points on both sides . A good thing that may not be known by many is the enigma machine was invented by two polish brothers who ran their own radio making business.......hope i got my fact correct.  Other than that I like living in the UK, but sometimes hate living in the UK.  Taxed till death is my view.