Would You Die For This Country?

[Colmc54]

The government is launching a multi-million pound army recruitment campaign, there must be a reason why. The country in question is the UK, soon not to be the UK if the people currently resident in Scotland decide to jump ship.

So my question is would you die for your country? What would you actually think you were giving your life for, and could the bravest stance be if nobody signed up to serve in the army of the party-political playground of psychopathy that is the politics of our state.

If your answer is yes, as someone who will be 60 this year whose answer is no, would you mind explaining to me why you could possibly be so inclined?

[baza]

NO, although my father did go to war ,it's a bit late to ask him if he was prepared to die tor his country.

[SpikeyBush]

I emigrated in December 2000 because I didn't like what was happening to the UK (and also I could earn heaps of cash outside the UK) and I am very happy now I have sourced endless supplies of Bitter and Yorkshire Tea

[Jeza]

No I wouldn't but I'm not patriotic. Any port in a storm is my philosophy.

[jeffa]

It's perhaps trite to retort that we are fortunate indeed that the brave people who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars did so. How willingly they did so is impossible to know, but they did nonetheless. The last time these islands were successfully invaded was in 1066.

[trt]

Yes, if I was 40 years younger when the UK was Great Britain!

[Colmc54]

Is it too early to suggest that the whole concept of Nationhood and patriotism has become an anachronism that is no longer relevant in the new Britain our politicians have imposed on us?

Is there anything left worth dying for, and who among us should be the most prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice?

[jeffa]

Quite right, Steve. Someone else can do that for you, right?

[Colmc54]

Losing World War One would have meant a change in our aristocracy and possibly our language. I doubt if multilingual Shakespeare would have been rolling about too much in his grave.
World War Two is a war we would all have fought and died in given that we now know what the Nazis were up to. However what is clear to us now was far from clear to those who served their country back then.

With our huge debts, our depleted mines and forests and our ever-rising population explosion you could argue that invasion by a richer foreign power, prepared to take on our huge debts, might benefit the man on the street more than going off to war.

I think we, post the Blair wars, have realised that patriotism is a form of emotional political manipulation that often achieves the opposite result to that promised by the politicians. e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, the Falklands, even Gibraltar.

So what is the point?

[Wharton]

The people currently resident in Scotland intend to dump ships, not jump them, TRIDENT NO MORE.

[jeffa]

"Losing World War One would have meant a change in our aristocracy and possibly our language."

Almost certainly, yes. And that would almost certainly have meant that World Ward II would not have happened, at least, in Europe. Germany would have controlled the entire continent, and Hitler would have had no beef with the Americans because there would have been no need for them to get involved in the European theatre.

Do you know how close America came to being a German-speaking nation?

[Wharton]

^ A baw hair, as we say in Glasgow :-)

[Colmc54]

For myself I would have to say that what language you speak is a pretty poor justification for giving up your life, even more so if the US was to decide to start speaking it.
At what point in our new media driven attempt to preserve the whole concept of patriotism would you be persuaded to give your life for 'your' country?

[Colmc54]

Wharton

Do you know that the Hebrides and Ireland to the south make Clydeside the most strategically advantageous site for the deployment of nuclear subs. That is why the base is there. IT WAS NOT AN ANTI-SCOTTISH WESTMINSTER POLITICAL DECISION.

You say you want to remain in NATO and remain under the nuclear umbrella provided by others. I am Scottish and I call the SNP sanctimomious NIMBIs.

But back to the topic- would you be more likely to die for Scotland (if not for the rest of the UK where there are many Scots and their descendants as indeed there are all over the world) if it was 'independent' (except for the royal family, the Pound, and anything else your manic self-interest determined you'd like to hang on to)???

[jeffa]

If Scotland gains independence, I believe it will very quickly acquire full membership of the EU and will therefore ditch the monarchy and use the euro, just like Eire.

[Colmc54]

Would you give your life for Scotland?
Would you give your life for the UK?
Would you give your life for any flag?

[jeffa]

If called upon I would be prepared to give my life to defend my homeland, yes.

[Wharton]

I'm going to die anyway (as are you) but it won't be defending some chinless stripe-suited Westminster spiv.

[jeffa]

So how do you feel about the members of the Coldstream Guards who gave their lives in the two world wars so that you could have the freedom to spout such crap?