Proud Of Britain Yes

[fender62]

with all the loss of life tragedy, and schools jobs etc are you proud to british
thinking were te first to be vaccined and invention, harks back to, again
british inventions leading the world...

[andres]

Maybe when you are discussing black slavery you could spare a thought to the European white slaves of the 1600s. Millions of white people from coastal towns and villages from as far afield as Iceland, Greece, Cornwall, Ireland ,France, Spain,Turkey,Italy were snatched from their homes and carted off to Morocco by the cruel,sadistic Barbary pirates. Many were enslaved for years and forced to work for their black masters. Tortured and beaten into submission . Some of the poor souls were sold back to their own countries for huge ransoms and many more died in captivity. You should all read up on European history --the black people are not the only ones to have suffered from slavery.

[Peter Pedant]

well of course there are a few vaccines around

and yes the French are having a national spazzie because Pasteur's heirs ( erm at the institut Pasteur, c'est ca!)because the lab rats there have just given up. Jumped ship even

and Boris bet right ( egged on by Dido Harding and Kate Beckinsale) on vaccines having screwed up on PPE

and the vaccine clinics have been pretty damn phenomenal

but I wdnt give him a VC in Hygeine

[Peter Pedant]

christ this thread is about vaccines innit?

[gulliver1]

22.24, Thought it was about British inventions P/P.

[naomi24]

Jim, if you can’t answer my question you can hardly complain that what you would like to be taught .... isn't.

[Peter Pedant]

and yes Jim I agree the thread isnt about what Naomi wishes to teach you hur hur hur
let that remain private !

[Peter Pedant]

Hi Gully
I have always been surprised how we do some things well ( codes, vaccines and it seems public health)
and some things pretty terrible
( cdnt make a rocket fly even when we had a few Germans to show us)

oh and penicillin - cd discover it, but not mass produce it

[jim360]

Well, I tried to be as clear as possible. And, in any case, it's not exactly an easy question. Or, at least, it shouldn't be easy; history is complicated, and teaching should reflect that at least somewhat, no? Otherwise, by definition, you are oversimplifying and perhaps even trivialising the subject matter.

Bottom line, though, is that I'm pleased to be British; perhaps I even mean essentially the same as those who call themselves "proud".

[jim360]

There's an interesting opinion piece in the Times which seems relevant to this, by the way (behind a paywall):

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labours-left-is-alone-in-sneering-at-the-flag-6zh53xx0d

One illuminating passage is this, and I think it helps to summarise the attitude I'm trying to express quite well.

// Patriotism is love of country and I am therefore a patriot. ...There aren’t many parts of the country I’ve not been to, and I know a fair amount about its history and am always happy to learn more. I feel fortunate to be British.

I detect in [Farage] a distaste for modern Britain. The Britain they like, if it ever existed, disappeared half a century ago. ... They wave the flag of a country that doesn’t exist and celebrate a history that is sanitised and unreal.

What Labour has to do is to harness the flag and pride in the country to the values of real Britain. Modern Britain, for example, can cope with its real history.//

Emphasis added. The piece veers into politics, eg about how Labour is to define itself and what the writer thinks of Farage and UKIP/the far-right in general. But, setting that aside, I think it makes a similar point to the one I am making.

[TrevorThePug]

"I don’t want my children taught by the ‘woke’. "

Well neither did Gove which is why he tried to change the history curriculum several years ago. And failed.

You claim to know everything about everything ever, are you even in touch with the current school curriculum?

[naomi24]

Gosh! Nothing like a bit of lefty propaganda to incite the mob. Putting it kindly, your man has fallen foul of wishful thinking, Jim, and not for the first time…. not that he could be considered politically biased or anything silly like that. Not much! No surprise you withheld his name.

Who are the ‘they’ he refers to - obviously people he considers his adversaries. Who are those who wave the flag of a country that he says doesn’t exist? He says ‘What Labour has to do is to harness the flag and pride in the country to the values of real Britain’ ‘They’ I guess are the majority who recognised the common sense in what Mr Farage had to say and who consequently voted to leave the EU - the same people and more who, come the last several elections, have kicked Labour firmly into touch. Who are the people who want this so called modern Britain? You and people like you who shout the loudest and turn somersaults, very often tripping yourself up and banging your own nose, in your efforts to convince the rest of us that you have something to say that is worth listening to, but at the same time denying those who disagree with you the right to express an opinion? You want change but you’ve no idea what change you want. Like all leftists you wallow around in impossible idealism. Your so-called modern Britain is a fantasy, Jim, because, contrary to what you want to believe, most people do not agree with you. They do, quite rightly, take pride in their history, they do wave the flag for the country they are proud of - and they continue to demonstrate that admirably - so you’d better get used to it.

[david small]

Proud of what we used to be, not what we have become.

[Jackdaw33]

Brilliant answer from naomi @ 10.12.

[emmie]

proud of our history in many ways, and that today many people give generously to charities, to the tune of millions when they may not have a lot to give.

[Khandro]

Full marks to naomi, & may I add, what have "they" contributed to Britain?

[Untitled]

Telling people who criticise the UK that they should move somewhere else strikes me as very insular and small-minded... It involves no attempt to respond rationally, no attempt to defend with reason or engage in discussion... it's just a slightly more respectable way for peabrained people to tell others they should shut up because they don't like their opinions. I will continue to dismiss it and the people who say it. It is worthless.

And yes, I like Britain very much and am happy and proud to be British - my pride is not in the least diminished or threatened if other people criticise my country. Why should it be?