Posted on 06/22/2006 4:29:24 PM PDT by Pokey78
THE SOUND of lusty Germans filling World Cup stadiums with the refrain of what much of the world still thinks of as Deutschland über Alles has provoked mixed reactions. Despite the best efforts of the enforcers of political correctness, it will never be possible for any of the current generations of Englishmen or women (or many other Europeans, for that matter) to dissociate the sound from the nation’s still unpleasantly recent past.
Certainly, it’s not the Horst Wessel Lied, and the anthem’s words (“Bloom, in the glow of happiness, Bloom, German fatherland!”) are almost bathetically bucolic by comparison with the old, troublingly blunter: “Germany, Germany, above everything in the world!” But there’s something about the sight of muscular Aryans and blonde-plaited Fräulein belting out the familiar tune that prompts some to reach instinctively for the tin helmet and the map of Poland.
But to others, me included, the development is a welcome one. It marks another small, symbolic victory in the unending struggle of people everywhere to preserve their national sovereignty. It says much, too, about the enduring nature of national identity. Despite centuries of efforts to extinguish it, the nation remains the unit in which most peoples, especially those in Europe, invest their loyalties. You can read too much into the behaviour of football fans, as we English know only too well. But the guiltless embrace of patriotism by football-loving Germans fits with a general perception in recent years that Germany is close to being a normal nation again.
Nationalism, of course, has long been a dirty word. It is generally deemed to have consigned Europe to almost continuous war between the early 19th century and the mid-20th century. And so it did.
But as with so many attempts to extirpate evil, the desire to crush its baleful consequences overreached. It was not just nationalism, but patriotism that was suppressed. The idea that your country can stand for something benign became unsayable, even with nations whose past fully entitled them to make such a claim.
The conviction took hold, in the governing and opinion-forming classes in the West, that the nation state itself was somehow an abomination, an intrinsic threat to peace and stability. So for half a century, emboldened political leaders in Europe made larger and larger efforts to snuff it out.
But while you can submerge nationhood in a tight web of supranational institutions, you can’t destroy the basic allegiances that animate the hearts of men. You can take the soul out of a country but you can’t take a country out of the soul. And the risk has always been that the more you attempt to suppress the idea of a nation, the more you will foster resentment and the very sort of indignant nationalism that has proved so tragically costly.
The European Union, of course, is not alone. The post-Second World War multilateral settlements designed to promote international co-operation between sovereign nations have become, in the dreams of many, an even larger opportunity to suppress the nation itself. There are political and cultural elites everywhere who regard the nation state as an unhealthy anachronism, who want to bury national pride and identity beneath an avalanche of deracinated, brotherhood-of-man, why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along-together mush. It is a conviction founded on a moral relativism, of course — no one nation is any better than any other — and promulgated by diplomats, business leaders and entertainers who have long since shaken off the irritating shackles of their own nationhood to play on a much larger global stage. To these people the United Nations is the highest achievement of humanity, and they would happily subjugate the will of peoples everywhere to its rule.
What is so striking about this effort to extinguish national identity and the popular will is that it is persistent, and through history repeatedly reveals itself in different ways. Marx regarded the nation as a capitalist construct, another manifestation of false consciousness to distract alienated labour from its true plight. The Soviets certainly did their bit to eliminate national boundaries, but the vigorous and renewed national pride in Eastern Europe is testament to the enduring failure of global communism.
Radical Islam wants the umma to replace national communities — and is willing to eliminate nations by violence. And I suppose, for reasons of absolute fairness, and as a Catholic, that I should also acknowledge that the Church has had a long history of adopting a bluntly political interpretation of its universalist claim, though today it has, fortunately come to happier terms with the nation state.
In some parts of the world, of course, popular allegiance is paid to even smaller units of society — tribes and ethnic groups. Indeed in places like Iraq, we should wish there were a stronger nationalism.
But the principle remains that voluntary loyalty to one’s own group is the most powerful popular coagulant. Belief in the supremacy of national sovereignty is not at all, as its critics claim, an inevitable driver of racism or nationalism. Even if, like the Dixie Chicks, you claim not to be able to understand the very idea of patriotism, you should at least acknowledge that, for most people, the nation is the primary political unit, the one that legitimises the governing of their nation.
Nor is support for the principle of a world of free sovereign nations consonant with economic isolationism. Globalisation has worked (and it has been the greatest antidote to poverty the world has ever seen) because it has been driven by consumer choices, individuals acting freely to promote their own welfare, not by elites.
Indeed, economic integration remains the best way to promote global co-operation and genuine prospects for peace. It gives people a tangible stake in each other’s futures in a way no supranational ideal or multilateral institution ever could.
As opposed to state and coumty property tax records, where a missed slave saved his owner money.
Census records indicate that members of free families owning slaves in slave states varied from about 10% to about 50%. Not surprisingly, the percentage of white families owning slaves was just about proportional to the slave population in the different states. Very few slaves in DE, and very few slave owners. Lots of slaves in MS and SC, and lots of slave owners.
If you compare the owners of title to the total population you get a distorted statistic, since generally the head of household would be listed as owner but all members of his family would be considered slave owners.
As can be seen by those who like to call Sam Grant a slaveowner since his wife owned several at different times.
Northern individuals, banks, corporations, etc. often owned slaves in the South, generally received in foreclosures, settlement of estates, etc. much as other livestock, land and property was received in a similar way. The slaves were generally sold off as quickly as possible to convert the property to cash.
I do not "slam the South." My various posts on this thread have been almost entirely factual.
I do not blame the South for being stuck with an evil system. As Mr. Lincoln himself said many times, it was the system that was evil, not the people stuck in it. As you accurately point out, slavery disappeared in the North not because northerners were morally superior, but because it made no money there.
But when people start defending an evil system as being a positive good, as happened during the last few decades before the War in the South, and campaigning for its expansion and extension rather than looking for ways to end it, as Jefferson and Washington wanted, then they drift over into evil themselves. All very human and understandable, but nevertheless utterly wrong and immoral.
Don't we wish it was.
Just wow...
If the truth hurts, then why not say it applies to the Union? If you want it to be "truthful" it would be based on the actions of a then expansionist nation, would it not?
Your bait is merely that. You hold no notion of "truth to hurt anyone with. You simply enjoy envoking anger in others over the net due to your lack of ability to otherwise illicit attention back in the real world.
4 acres and a mule? Heh, you know the likes of Jesse Jackson would either snub it or demand non-slave descent blacks get them too.
For them (and you: "reparations for the blacks ") it's about color. for the rest of us, it's about situations and understanding it.
being sold to HISPANOLA was thought to be the worst possible "endpoint" for northern slaves, who were sold "south".
free dixie,sw
for just ONE example, the "muddy old Trinity" was out of her banks AND the bridges were OUT during the "census" & NOT even one "enumerator" went west of the river. (can you say DALLAS & FT WORTH???)
at BEST the 19th century census "data" is, at best, an educated GUESS, at worst it is complete FICTION. that is why i trust the TAX RECORDS, only.
free dixie,sw
Yes, your post is oozing with it.
free dixie,sw
I disagree. I am an American Nationalist. I am a patriot. And I am most surely not a skinhead.
Hmm maybe the word nationalist is a bit tricky in oversea communication.
I looked it up although I was sure I knew what it ment.
It says that it is used as a synonym to chauvinism which is in it's original form unrelated to bad behavior to women but to an old form of states arrogance.
Beeing a nationalist means to seek win/loose situations in international relations.
I don't believe that nations that have a huge trade gap such as the US or a hughe dependence on export as germany can play the nationlistic card. Both our countries economies are based on playing an international community - and most times in these relationships you have to give to recieve.
Trade is more then the exchange of goods. As a salesman I know that it's always a deal between people. One needs to have cultural exchange and tolerance as well to operate successful. It also makes large scale companies exist in the first place since you can spread risks and costs or take advantage of different technical cultures -if you understand the people in other places and are willing to make win/win deals with them - (example boeing - leaning to a more states operated system - japan - in order to overcome the difficulties it's been in against partially states operated EADS)
So I am patriot - not nationalist.
Yes, perhaps there is a different perception. To me and I think to other Americans, being a Nationalist means that we would always put America first in all things that required same, including trade.
American patriotism, to me anyway, includes a sense of Nationalism. It's a good thing.
don't you get tired moaning and complaining about the past like the al gore "the election was stolen" and the al sharpton "40 acres and a mule" people ?
don't you get tired moaning and complaining about the past like the al gore "the election was stolen" and the al sharpton "40 acres and a mule" people ?
BREAKING NEWS. THE SOUTH LOST. THE CONFEDERACY IS FINISHED.
40 acres & a mule is just one MORE lie from the hate-FILLED,arrogant, DAMNyankee LIARS.
RIDICULE is what you are experiencing & what you DESERVE.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
If you think of nationalism as a synonym for patriotism then for me that's just a selfunderstanding way of feeling responsible for your compatriotes and pride on achieved things.
Over here in germany the word nationalism is used in a very different and negative way and is not the same as patriotism (we had a national -sozialistic party once - didn't make to good experiences with that word).
Btw beeing liberal over here means to be pro free market and a less regulated society. I understand that in the US beeing liberal means quite the opposite.
Best regards from the home of soccer.
Sieg Heil = Success and Health ?
Sorry - got to correct you there - the way you put it,it sounds like 'live long and prosper'.
Heil is 'greetings' as in hailing. That was nicked by the roman greating (raised right arm to salute ranking officers and the caesar)and 'Sieg' ist not success but victory. The procedure was a strong reminder on the millenial roman world empire.
So the slogan Sieg Heil was a motivation and propaganda phrase to make people enthusiastic for the 'conquer the world' project AH was trying to conduct.
I had always assumed that "Sieg Heil" was adapted from the medieval greeting "Sieg und Heil," which roughly translates as "victory and salvation." "Heil," related to the English word "heal," or, for that matter, "hail," can meean a cure, (as in Allheilsmittel--panacea, or cure-all) or salvatrion (as in Heilsarmee--Salvation Army,) and "Sieg" means a victory or win. I have read an account in which this expression was used, along with upraised right hands, to greet a Holy Roman emperor in the tenth century AD, so this practice probably did, indeed, come from the Romans.
But we can all be glad that about six decades ago, our soldiers, sailors, and fliers changed that "Sieg Heil" to "whatcha know, Joe?" and "give me some skin."
And you are nuttier than a snicker's candy bar......
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