CAPTAIN CAVEMAN

i didn't ask you

carry on

lucifer_sam

this semantics discussion just deflated the massive hard on i once had for nationalism.

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first.am

Barnard17

Commonwealth (U.S. state) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They are still federated states. The fact that 46 of the federated states of the US call themselves State of ... and 4 call themselves Commonwealth of ... really has no effect on what they actually are.

I've said this before but I'll say it again, your attempts at being a condescending snob may work a shitload better if you didn't spend so much of your time talking a load of bollocks.

P.S. you missed out the territory of Puerto Rico :x

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Neapolitan

Wait a minute, didn't you go on a rant and rave about what a country, nation and state is and how the United Nation is a misnomer, and then when you are corrected it doesn't matter? That my friend is redunkulous.

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Barnard17

No, you didn't correct me. They hold the same purpose, capabilities and function as any other US states. The Commonwealths of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia are, in so far as political science is concerned, still federated states. A rose by any other name ... From the link I proveded "This designation, which has no constitutional impact ..."

It's not that when I'm corrected it doesn't matter, it's that you didn't correct me. The inference I was making to the United States of America was a glib suggestion to trigger a thought process not an in depth critical analysis of America. Considering I was being broad and general, and also considering for all intents and purposes the "Commonwealths" you allude to are still federated states simply not named as such, your correction was pointless. It was also wrong, considering the United States consists of 50 federated states, 46 of which term themselves States and 4 of which term themselves Commonwealths but all hold the same constitutional rights and powers, 2 territories (the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands - notice these guys also call themselves Commonwealths) which hold lessened constitutional rights and powers and are therefore NOT federated states, and the federal District of Washington D.C.

Also this:

Was a fucking stupid thing to say when you knew exactly what I meant and that I wasn't referring to the geographic mass.

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Ulysses

My take on nationalism is that too often it crosses a line.

I think it's one thing to have pride in a very selective perception of something as arbitrary as the circumstances of your birth but it's another when it's used as a 'my country is better than yours' pissing contest and 'arbitrary place of birth' or 'spurious take on genetics' becomes the most immediate, first and foremost way that people define themselves.

In the dozen years or so I've been online and been exposed to an international community - in a different way than actually going abroad myself or meeting people in my own country who are visiting abroad - the amount of truly messed-up nationalism I've been exposed to is staggering. Sadly, the bulk of this tends to come from Americans. I don't think there's anywhere in the Western World that espouses nationalism in the way that America does.

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The Fields of Mars

Neapolitan

So you are exempt from that because you just go straight ahead and piss on America, without expounding anything postive of Merry Ol' England!?

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Barnard17

That was beautifully ironic. Yet again, Neapolitan, you leap to an irrational conclusion from half reading a post in an attempt to start an argument. Outside of trolling I'm yet to determine why you even bother posting in threads of philosophy and current affairs.

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Neapolitan

Hey I was the one who was trolled and trolled hard by that post. just look at it:

See, since you come from England you don't see it, and I don't expect you to see it, because it was a slight against Americans.

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Barnard17

No, it's an observation. Stop playing the victim card, the very fact that you're so determined to take offence is indicative of the attitude being referred to in Ulysses' post.

If it had been an American making the comment about vaguely generalised British posting habits it would have been chuckled at and largely ignored. In discussions such as this or those critical of a governments actions, in the six and a half years I've been active in political debates on the internet it will nearly always be an American (and usually the same select group of individual American's within the community, rather than all participating American's as a whole) that decides to take an indirect comment as an affront to their national pride. The fact you're trying to start an argument to negate that point means either a) you conform to that stereotype (so to argue that it's untrue out of a sense of national pride would make it largely impossible for you to formulate a convincing argument) or b) you're trolling. Need I suggest that in either instance there's not much point in continuing this line of conversation?

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