Poll: Proud to be British

[Parallel Streaks]

Nope, mainly because the majority of my family during the early 20th century fought and died for Irish independence, my grandparents fleeing the country and to England. So no, I'm not particularly proud to be British, while we are responsible for a lot of great innovations, we're responsible for even more awful acts.

For instance, the war for independence, with American AND Ireland. We tend to be in the wrong except when confronted with Nazis.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Snip

We werent mindless savages before you came either. We had culture, had gods, a system of speech, we could use tools. There was a city in the Southeastern US during precolonial times that was actually bigger then most cities in Britain, this is proven (though i forget at the moment want it was called).

Also, I would have been born, i just would not have this life, it would be different. Every sperm carries the essence of the same person, just with a bit of different genetics. Therefore, my father, his father, his father's father, etc are all the same person, just a little different.

Snip

On the contrary, I approached the trip with high hopes and good feelings. I knew British people in the US and they were really cool people. So I thought people of the country would be the same. besides, if you ocant think of anyhitng to talk to me about besides why i look/sound different you shouldnt talk to someone. and yeah, at least most of the jewish people i've met were decent people.

Snip

When you wrote the Declaration of Independence, you pretty much said you werent British, so you cant say you're British and did that.

and i'd rather have a democracy then the parliament system.

and forgive me, let me go find what america invented it may take a bit of time.

Snip

because, I didnt expect people to be complete douches about it. I know British people from the states and British Canadians who dont treat me like the garbage the native british people did. I guess i should just take away from my visit that all Brits are incapable of an intelligent conversation without insulting someone first. Again, you can talk to a Native American about so many other things besides about how they were almost wiped off the face of the earth, a custom started by YOUR original Brits. It was imbedded into the culture that it was right.

 

[AcrylicHero]

English culture, particularly English working class/pub culture can be quite jarring if you're new to it, especially if you're expecting the sort of polite middle class English you see in movies and on TV, hell a lot of English people find it rather intimidating. People will jab at you verbally because that sort of "go on, insult me, I don't give a fuck" attitude is the norm.

It's funny that ripping on your mates and vice versa is pretty much how you become better mates.
I actually love how this is how we converse now.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Snip

well, a little more civility is nice for anywhere. I wasnt expecting what i saw in the movies, but a, "hey, whats up?" instead of "Why are you so dark?" or "Is that tan natural" would have been just as efficient and much more pleasant. and its hard to make a case against it when it prtty much happened everyhwere i went, which encompassed Five major cities, moved up 3/4s of the country, and pretty much anywhere i walked even in the small villages too.

 

[hawkeye52]

Nope.

Our government's an absolute shambles. And the worst thing is. Our public were dumb enough to vote them in. Fucking morons.

Granted the alternative wouldn't have been fantastic. But my god. They'd have been a damsite better than the set of twats we're stuck with now.

Aside from that, there isn't all that much to be proud of any-way.

lib dem or labour then? i would vote lib dem myself and vote the monster raving looney party over the bloody tories bastards.

 

[mega48man]

i'm an american, but i'm british by blood, (and scottish and irish) so based on the context of the question, i'm elligible to vote yes, right? cuz i already did 0_0

 

[guntotingtomcat]

We have an awesome health service. Well, maybe not awesome, but the most fair. It's shit for everyone!
Also, best armed forces (not biggest).
Also, it's pretty cool that we can make fun of the government/the church/pretty much any established authority and not 'disappear'. Hell, our entire media is based on ripping the government!

 

[Danzaivar]

Snip

We werent mindless savages before you came either. We had culture, had gods, a system of speech, we could use tools. There was a city in the Southeastern US during precolonial times that was actually bigger then most cities in Britain, this is proven (though i forget at the moment want it was called).

Also, I would have been born, i just would not have this life, it would be different. Every sperm carries the essence of the same person, just with a bit of different genetics. Therefore, my father, his father, his father's father, etc are all the same person, just a little different.

Snip

On the contrary, I approached the trip with high hopes and good feelings. I knew British people in the US and they were really cool people. So I thought people of the country would be the same. besides, if you ocant think of anyhitng to talk to me about besides why i look/sound different you shouldnt talk to someone. and yeah, at least most of the jewish people i've met were decent people.

Snip

When you wrote the Declaration of Independence, you pretty much said you werent British, so you cant say you're British and did that.

and i'd rather have a democracy then the parliament system.

and forgive me, let me go find what america invented it may take a bit of time.

Snip

because, I didnt expect people to be complete douches about it. I know British people from the states and British Canadians who dont treat me like the garbage the native british people did. I guess i should just take away from my visit that all Brits are incapable of an intelligent conversation without insulting someone first. Again, you can talk to a Native American about so many other things besides about how they were almost wiped off the face of the earth, a custom started by YOUR original Brits. It was imbedded into the culture that it was right.

Okay, I am done. If "I guess i should just take away from my visit that all Brits are incapable of an intelligent conversation without insulting someone first." is all you've got after 2 hours of chatting then I'm just leaving it here. You started off borderline racist and have just progressed to being outright insulting. The depressing part is you aren't even just trolling.

Amazing how derailed these topics get, heh.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I said no, because I'm not British. I'm American, but not really proud of that...

Be proud of your country always and proud of your government when it deserves it.

OT: I am not British, but I am proud of my country.

Due to my ignorance of the world outside of the US, I'm not sure if it is just this country or the entire world, but people here are just morons half the time. My mom keeps going on about how "this is the greatest country in the world" and also how hypocritial everything is. Abortion for example. They say it should be illegal because the bible says it is bad. The bible says nothing about abortion, the colonist came to this country to escape from the government telling them what to believe (and, in my eyes at least, making laws based on religion is the same thing), and this isn't even a "christian" country, freedom of religion is in the constitution (then again, the patriot act sort of got rid of the constitution). Not to mention this country seems to slowly be moving closer and closer to fascism...

 

[Matt-the-twat]

I am neither proud nor ashamed to be British. That said, I do feel privileged to be living in England, I think I'm incredibly fortunate to live in such a free and generally wealthy country.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Snip

No, thats not what i've gathered. I've gathered that you (as britains) find it... normal, to be more coarse in a friendly manner with each other. as i said, I met decent people in England, and I'm not trying to be racist (really cause being British is a race, its an ethnicity, but thats being technical I just dont think you should whitewash a country as old as britain to be near flawless). I honestly tried, I didnt hold the actions of the former Brit to the next one I'd meet. But when anyone (this goes for everyone, of any nation) knows someone inst from there, you should at least think that they'd take those joking jabs as offensive, cause tehy arent used to it.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Snip

well, a little more civility is nice for anywhere. I wasnt expecting what i saw in the movies, but a, "hey, whats up?" instead of "Why are you so dark?" or "Is that tan natural" would have been just as efficient and much more pleasant. and its hard to make a case against it when it prtty much happened everyhwere i went, which encompassed Five major cities, moved up 3/4s of the country, and pretty much anywhere i walked even in the small villages too.

What you call civility isn't necessarily what everyone else does. If you look and sound different people are going to be interested in that, especially in small villages. You've either managed to walk into all the wrong pubs or you are taking offense where none was meant due to cultural differences, probably both.

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

I said no, because I'm not British. I'm American, but not really proud of that...

Be proud of your country always and proud of your government when it deserves it.

OT: I am not British, but I am proud of my country.

Due to my ignorance of the world outside of the US, I'm not sure if it is just this country or the entire world, but people here are just morons half the time. My mom keeps going on about how "this is the greatest country in the world" and also how hypocritial everything is. Abortion for example. They say it should be illegal because the bible says it is bad. The bible says nothing about abortion, the colonist came to this country to escape from the government telling them what to believe (and, in my eyes at least, making laws based on religion is the same thing), and this isn't even a "christian" country, freedom of religion is in the constitution (then again, the patriot act sort of got rid of the constitution). Not to mention this country seems to slowly be moving closer and closer to fascism...

Trust me, every country has its share of the less than knowledgeable and agreeable people.

Most people who say "X is bad because the bible says so" are not in fact saying it for that reason, but because either they or someone with influence said that to control others with their opinion.

Most people who argue for something "in the name of x religion" are merely trying to control people. They do it because it works.

Since the majority of the "morons" are Christian, they generally believe in full extent that the U.S. is in fact a Christian nation. Settled by Christians, founded by Christians (though in fact most were deist and a few were atheist i.e. Jefferson or Satanist: Benjamin Franklin. No joke. It is in his autobiography.), and mostly populated by Christians, they have little reason to believe otherwise. Constitution? That thing lets me keep guns, right?

The Patriot Act is a joke, at best.

 

[hawkeye52]

I'm not British, but I have had British friends over Xbox live and other online places. There are a lot of policies that I wish America would take a serious look at. This is coming from an American college student $9,000 dollars in debt. I heard that you can get paid for going to college and that would be a huge relief because balancing a job and school work is hellish if you plan to have a social life on top of that. Also, who needs guns besides for hunting and law enforcement. No gun policies seem fantastic, no worries on getting shot on the street you grew up in. That being said, I don't think that the UK is a magical land were no violence is held, but its a lot manlier to fist fight someone if you have that bad of a problem with them rather than getting shot because you wear the wrong colors in the wrong neighborhood.(I'm sure I'm not the only American on this forum that has been hassled for wearing blue in a bad neighborhood lol) I plan to holiday in the UK one summer and gauge my own experience there and maybe plant my roots there. So Brits keep on keepin' on and show your pride lol

im not entirely sure of what the age range of college in america is but for britain its 16-18 and 18-21 for univeristies and yes we can get paid to go to college if your income is below a certain percentage or used to at least ever since the tory government came in and fucked everyone over. For univeristies its now a cap of £9000 (about $18000 i think) to go for a year so many students will be in debt by the time they get out of university unless they have an extremely rich family.

on the gun thing yes it is illegal for people to own guns but its just ended up in knife crime between the chavs et al and guns for the more hardened criminals where our police are only armed with a baton and hand cuffs and protective vest due to the gun law crimes. its still good to have them in place though tbh since in my view its better this way.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Snip

well, a little more civility is nice for anywhere. I wasnt expecting what i saw in the movies, but a, "hey, whats up?" instead of "Why are you so dark?" or "Is that tan natural" would have been just as efficient and much more pleasant. and its hard to make a case against it when it prtty much happened everyhwere i went, which encompassed Five major cities, moved up 3/4s of the country, and pretty much anywhere i walked even in the small villages too.

What you call civility isn't necessarily what everyone else does. If you look and sound different people are going to be interested in that, especially in small villages. You've either managed to walk into all the wrong pubs or you are taking offense where none was meant due to cultural differences, probably both.

Probably. But hten again the small villages seemed the nicest. But hten again, most thought i was spanish and by that point i was willing to let them.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I said no, because I'm not British. I'm American, but not really proud of that...

Be proud of your country always and proud of your government when it deserves it.

OT: I am not British, but I am proud of my country.

Due to my ignorance of the world outside of the US, I'm not sure if it is just this country or the entire world, but people here are just morons half the time. My mom keeps going on about how "this is the greatest country in the world" and also how hypocritial everything is. Abortion for example. They say it should be illegal because the bible says it is bad. The bible says nothing about abortion, the colonist came to this country to escape from the government telling them what to believe (and, in my eyes at least, making laws based on religion is the same thing), and this isn't even a "christian" country, freedom of religion is in the constitution (then again, the patriot act sort of got rid of the constitution). Not to mention this country seems to slowly be moving closer and closer to fascism...

Trust me, every country has its share of the less than knowledgeable and agreeable people.

Most people who say "X is bad because the bible says so" are not in fact saying it for that reason, but because either they or someone with influence said that to control others with their opinion.

Most people who argue for something "in the name of x religion" are merely trying to control people. They do it because it works.

Since the majority of the "morons" are Christian, they generally believe in full extent that the U.S. is in fact a Christian nation. Settled by Christians, founded by Christians (though in fact most were deist and a few were atheist i.e. Jefferson or Satanist: Benjamin Franklin. No joke. It is in his autobiography.), and mostly populated by Christians, they have little reason to believe otherwise. Constitution? That thing lets me keep guns, right?

The Patriot Act is a joke, at best.

I was thinking about another thing earlier (which probably explains why I never sleep; brain never shuts off): wikileaks. I don't really know the story behind it or anything, I just know the guy running it got arrested when he did nothing that was illegal, and yet I don't even know what it was he did that got him arrested... My mom was watching some news show about it, and that just made me even more skeptical. It isn't like the news would ever twist words around to make a story or anything...

 

[martin's a madman]

Just because you happen to be born in Great Britain doesn't mean you have anything to be personally proud of.

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

I said no, because I'm not British. I'm American, but not really proud of that...

Be proud of your country always and proud of your government when it deserves it.

OT: I am not British, but I am proud of my country.

Due to my ignorance of the world outside of the US, I'm not sure if it is just this country or the entire world, but people here are just morons half the time. My mom keeps going on about how "this is the greatest country in the world" and also how hypocritial everything is. Abortion for example. They say it should be illegal because the bible says it is bad. The bible says nothing about abortion, the colonist came to this country to escape from the government telling them what to believe (and, in my eyes at least, making laws based on religion is the same thing), and this isn't even a "christian" country, freedom of religion is in the constitution (then again, the patriot act sort of got rid of the constitution). Not to mention this country seems to slowly be moving closer and closer to fascism...

Trust me, every country has its share of the less than knowledgeable and agreeable people.

Most people who say "X is bad because the bible says so" are not in fact saying it for that reason, but because either they or someone with influence said that to control others with their opinion.

Most people who argue for something "in the name of x religion" are merely trying to control people. They do it because it works.

Since the majority of the "morons" are Christian, they generally believe in full extent that the U.S. is in fact a Christian nation. Settled by Christians, founded by Christians (though in fact most were deist and a few were atheist i.e. Jefferson or Satanist: Benjamin Franklin. No joke. It is in his autobiography.), and mostly populated by Christians, they have little reason to believe otherwise. Constitution? That thing lets me keep guns, right?

The Patriot Act is a joke, at best.

I was thinking about another thing earlier (which probably explains why I never sleep; brain never shuts off): wikileaks. I don't really know the story behind it or anything, I just know the guy running it got arrested when he did nothing that was illegal, and yet I don't even know what it was he did that got him arrested... My mom was watching some news show about it, and that just made me even more skeptical. It isn't like the news would ever twist words around to make a story or anything...

The fact he is running a site that releases classified information is "a potential threat to national security." He was charged with something else, but I forget what.

I do not know enough about that situation to tell you anything else.

Tell your mom to start watching/visiting BBC. It is a better news source than any I have ever encountered.

 

[DSK-]

I'm proud to be British/English. I'm not so proud of the government, however.