How Do You Feel About Patriotism?

[Deleted member 28812]

And then, there's the day of German reunion...I still call it "National Day of Mourning" for myself. Okay, Eastern and Western Germany are one Germany again - but the Eastern Germans still complain about how nice everything was in the DDR. I would help them to build the wall once more...we may be "one" geographically, but we're not in our minds, not even after more than 25 years! ...I don't feel proud for that Germany.

Yes, because everybody from Eastern Germany has the same opinion about everything. NOT! None of my friends or relatives who remember living in the DDR thinks it was "nice". Many are proud of themselves because they had to deal with hardship but took responsibility for their lifes, worked hard and embraced the challenge.
I do think that we as a younger generation can learn a lot from that.

I am actually born in Eastern Germany and now live in the West and I noticed Easterners tend to be more patriotic. Interesting difference.

 

[Deleted member 28812]

I show my love for my country by trying to be a good citizen.

I did a FSJ, a voluntary social year.
Sometimes just like to do litte things, being grumpy by nature I try and give everybody I meet and friendly smile I don't throw litter on the street, little things like this.
I really do like having the vote. Cannot really understand people who do not vote because people risked their lifes for that privilege.

I think it is interesting that people from the same country can have so different opinions about this - like me and @Anrish.

I do know that this contradicts what I said in a previous thread but then my feelings about my country are condradicting.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I think that a LOT of the Americans who are proud to claim Irish ancestry do so just so they can have an excuse to drink green beer and get drunk..... Like Americans REALLY need an excuse to drink. *rolls eyes*

I don't celebrate the day because, YES, here its all about drinking, drinking, and more drinking, and no so much about celebrating *actual* Irish pride. I am maybe 1/8th irish? Or less than that. I feel no connection to Ireland. (Then again, I'm 1/2 Finnish and I feel less than no connection to Finland, nor do I ever state I am Finnish. I usually go with German because my last name is German.)

American patriotism is more along the lines of bulling and throwing your weight around. People claim that the stupidest things are *patriotic* and if you DARE speak your mind (which is actually one of the most patriotic things of all, considering how this country began), then oftentimes you are declared to be Unpatriotic and looked down upon by those who TRULY love their country. *rolls eyes* Yes, fellow Americans know what I'm saying.

 

[Anarchy]

I really do like having the vote, my parents did not have this privilege when they where my age. Cannot really understand people who do not vote because people risked their lifes for that privilege.

would two wolves granting a sheep a vote over what's for dinner, be granting it a privilege?

I'm not going to sing the praises of a feudal system - as any abuse is wrong, however if we compare it to a modern state, feudal serfs typically laboured for around thirty to forty days in their "lord's" fields each year.

Modern states typically take between 45% and 55% of the populations income, through outright theft (called by a different name), printing additional currency (a way of invisibly taxing savings), or by borrowing in the populations name, with the promise to extort both the interest and the principle from the population at some time in the future. That amounts to around 100 days labour in the "lord's" fields each year.

Then there is also the small matter of the Ponzi schemes which populations are forced to participate in (national insurance and state pension schemes). Carlo Ponzi never forced people to join in his eponymous scheme, and he went to prison. Bernie Madoff never forced people to join his either, and he was arrested but killed himself before he got to court.

democracy gives our abusers the obfuscation that "we" chose it, so that "we tax ourselves"

If democracy, as "will of a majority" was a justification for abuses, then all that a rape gang need say is that they gave their victim the privilege of a vote...

 

[Anrish]

@Lemontree: I did not want to insult all Eastern Germans or offend you as a person. I could just write from what I've experienced up until now. And I was on a boarding school in Eastern Germany but they treated me like a foreigner because I was from Western Germany - and I didn't get it because I had nothing to do with all the stuff before.

Opinions can be very different. I'm on the force but I'm not a patriot. I believe in human rights, faith and one day a world without violence...but I don't do it for Germany, I do it for all people.

 

[Deleted member 28812]

@Anrish: I am sorry your experience has been like this but not all Eastern Germans are like this. *lol* I do sometimes feel the Wessis treat me like a foreigner. Don' t worry. I am not offended. :)

@Anarchy: I do not get your opinion. Sorry. So you do not like having the vote? You would rather have other decide for you?

 

[Cool Cat]

I live in Hessia (one of the 16 states of Germany) and I feel proud to be from here, but I don't care about Germany.

Yeah I'm kinda like that sometimes! Sometimes I feel very connected to my region and disconnected to the country, sometimes the other way around.

 

[Anarchy]

[DLMURL="https://www.myptsd.com/c/members/28019/"]@Anarchy[/DLMURL]: Sorry. I do not get your opinion. So you do not like having the vote? Why not just vote for a party which is in favour of lower taxes if you are not pleased?

I fundamentally disagree with some claiming the privilege to order others about, steal from them, and steal even more from them or cage them if they object.

I don't mean this in any disrespectful way to you as an individual, but it's a bit like asking why don't I vote for a rape gang which might be gentler with me.

There are other other deeper arguments and I will refer you to Frederic Hayek's 1945 paper "The use of knowledge by society" and Gustave de Molinari's 1849 essay "the production of security" as brief introductions to the arguments.

I know that to someone who is used to the mainstream, what I have written may seem like a gross over reaction - but just consider what we would call any individual or small band who tried to do what states claim to be able to do?

The following is a quote from St Augustine's "kingdom of God", the story of the pirate and Alexander the great, came via Cicero in around 33BC

Chapter 4.—How Like Kingdoms Without Justice are to Robberies.

Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, “What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.”

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a link where de Molinari's "production of security" can be downloaded free (and copy left) in .pdf and epub formats Link Removed

 

[Deleted member 28812]

I still do not get your opinion.

In a democratic country it is "the people" that orders others around. The people is the sovereign.
See in a nondemocratic country they really can steal from you, they can drive your from your land without a compensation and if you don't like it they can imprison you, shoot you or so whatever they please and you cannot complain.

You say you don't like how things are being done in your country, don't you see how much of a privilege it is that you can say this without having to be afraid of being imprisoned or worse. Democracy grants you the freedom to say you don't like democracy *lol*.

Would you really rather have a king or an authoritorian government, have no right to vote, no right to education, no right to choose your job, no right to leave your country, no right to complain about the country?

 

[Deleted member 28812]

Wait. Looking at your name I think you prefer anarchy. Interesting opinion but I never got what was the difference between anarchy and just "the survival of the fittest". So you do not want to pay taxes because this is robbery to you but what if you really don't pay taxes? Then there is no police (and no schools, no streets, no hospitals, no military).
Now if there is no police who is going to protect you if a robber steals your everything. Isn't it better to spend a small sum on the police then being robbed of your lifelyhood?

 

[Ronin]

I have a fairly complicated sum of thoughts on what's being brought up (cough, cue trying to figure which mindset to apply at the moment) but I'm having an issue with over simplification of this. It's not as black and white, accessibility of security is an issue that goes across all sorts of state forms, and I don't think relying on other people with 'everything' is necessarily a good stance to have, regardless of person's other status.

I'm rather sure @Anarchy isn't living the way he is living just for making a statement (and heck, if it were so, admiration for the strength.) There's real, lived experience and darned knowledgeable theoretical reasoning for his choices.

 

[Anarchy]

@ lemontree, can I refer you back to my earlier post in this thread where I wrote about methodological individualism.

It is a popular misconception that if the state did not provide, then there would be no provision at all.

quite the contrary is true. my earlier comment in this thread about methodological individualism, de Molinari's short essay and Hayek's paper will give you the gist of it in about an hour and a half.

State provision is a monopoly, with all of the problems associated with monopoly, such as zero market feedback, on what it should be doing, in what quantities, and at what price.

by definition, a monopoly will provide ever less goods and services, of lower quality and at higher price than (all else being equal) competing providers would.

and due to its coercive funding, the state system of policing is far from being answerable to its customers, it is in varying degrees chaotic and highly politicized.

There is a deep irony in a supposed protector of both freedom and private property that is funded coercively and by expropriation :p
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a link to a .pdf of Hayek 1945
Link Removed

actually, as someone who grew up in "the east" are you familiar with von Mises' 1921 paper "economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth"?

Hayek's "knowledge problem" is implied in Mises' "calculation problem", although neither Hayek nor Mises ever became anarchists (Hayek appears to have remained some sort of mild social democrat, and Mises, a classical liberal), those two ideas outline the fatal flaw in any attempts at state provision, and even the state itself.