Scissorjack:
Well, I’m not sure how much thinking LeMay has put into this, but the whole point of patrotism is a patria , an “us” who is better than “them”: we need a “them”, be they terrorists, communists, satanists, niggers, spics, wogs or Jews in order to define ourselves against, to hold ourselves up against, and if necessary to fight and die for. Dulce et decorum est and all that. Who they are is immaterial; the whole point of them is that they are not us: this is the whole concept of The Other. Patriotic anthems need to necessarily set Us up as being better than Them, whether they be “God save the King of Ourland”, “How beautiful is the verdant majesty of Ourland”, “Arise people of Ourland and throw off your shackles”, or “Themland takes it up the arse, doo-dah, doo-dah”. Me, I think we should set our teeth against people who cannot use possessive apostrophes.
The second (rarely sung) verse of the British anthem “God Save the Queen” is:
O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all.
From George Orwell’s “As I Please” column in the Tribune, December 13, 1943:
I see that Mr Bernard Shaw, among others, wants to rewrite the second verse of the National Anthem. Mr Shaw’s version retains references to God and the King, but is vaguely internationalist in sentiment. To me this seems ridiculous. Not to have a national anthem would be logical. But if you do have one, its function must necessarily be to point out that we are Good and our enemies are Bad. Besides, Mr Shaw wants to cut out the only worth-while lines the anthem contains. All the brass instruments and big drums in the world cannot turn “God Save the King” into a good tune, but on the very rare occasions when it is sung in full it does spring to life in the two lines:
Confound their politics,
And, in fact, I had always imagined that the second verse is habitually left out because of a vague suspicion on the part of the Tories that these lines refer to themselves.
Zebra
March 15, 2010, 2:46am
122
This one is pretty damn good and the kids know it.
I was thusly aware, but thanks for the Orwell quote; it’s a good 'un: Curtis , if you want to want to expand your repertoire, read some Orwell. Not just 1984 , but the essays too: start with “Shooting An Elephant”, then “England, Your England”, and work your way outwards. Knew a thing or two about patriotism, imperialism, propaganda and warfare, did Eric Blair.
BrainGlutton:
WRT money, that makes sense. WRT the death penalty, it does not. I doubt any place in the world (with the possible exception of Texas) that has the death penalty places such cultural importance on it that they would refuse participation in an international union just for that. If it is a sticking-point, it would be so only because of some deeper reason, e.g., the regime is authoritarian and has a lot of dissidents and wants execution as an option for dealing with them; but that kind of situation would complicate a country’s entry into an international union in any case.
Really? Texas is the only place in the world you can think of that that places that much social/cultural importance on capital punishment? Those wimps don’t even hold them in public . :rolleyes:
I believe one or two countries still place some cultural and/or religious importance on putting criminals to death—including ones who put people to death for religious reasons. And that’s not even including people who genuinely believe, for practical reasons, that forbidding executions in their country would just be more trouble than it was worth.
BrainGlutton:
I have no strong views either way on the death penalty, but why should that, of all things, be a deal-breaker? A world state with no executions anywhere would not be such a bad thing.
I think the best option would be to leave the death penalty to the regions/states/provinces whatnot like the US does.
