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Old 06-06-2008, 01:20 PM   #10 (permalink)
Tom Wilde
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That's a bit like a German nationalist circa 1928 telling a German liberal that he is betraying his children and grandchildren (and his Volk?) and should have a rethink. Didn't turn out that way, did it? The self-proclaimed super-patriots took their country into a vast war which killed untold numbers of those children and left every German city a body-strewn smoking ruin. The evil men they helped put in power - well, we know what they did, and Germans today still feel a sense of shame about it. After the German nationalists had tested their theories (and their country) to destruction, the liberals and social democrats and moderate conservatives picked up the pieces. Don't talk to me about patriotism.

We all have to make the best judgement we can about what will be in the interests of our children and grandchildren and take that into account when casting our ballots, and that is what I am doing. I want them to live in a Britain which preserves the traditional British virtues of tolerance, democracy and personal freedom. For me, that is patriotism.
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