Political Crossfire Forums

[thundertaker]

maxtsu wrote: thundertaker wrote: maxtsu wrote: asainspace wrote: That maybe so, but it was a personal view that I do not recognise the Union Jack as the flag of my nation nor the anthem we sing to idolise such a non-entity as the monarchy. I have passed what happened under that flag to history and wish to live now for the future, as England.
You make a valid point here.
I have conducted my own straw poll on this, and basically have always asked english people who do you feel most; British or English?
Overwhelming majority always respond English.
This can be seen in the support for the English football team.

It wouldn't have happened if there was a UK football team, rather than 4 different ones made up of the constituent nations......
Well, in one aspect.
If the UK was not split up the way it is. Then you would be suffering break-away issues like Spain are going through at present.
At least allowing Scotland & Wales to have autonomy and put forward their own football team reduces their need to be fully independent.

I believe it is instrumental in undermining Britishness in favour of Nationalism of the constituent nations. A big mistake on the part of whoever was responsible for this.....

[Limey Boosk]

Quote: Greece was occupied by the Ottoman Empire for 450 years

Really, England hasn't been occupied for nearly a thousand years. You should have tried harder, we saw of those Tommy Cooper rip-offs in a few years.



Quote: Hard time to be a Frenchman if it wasn't for the fact that they have the hottest women and best food to ease their respective minds about the ill-informed, badly educated haters out there

Hottest women? Some 5 ft 2 inch boney arsed bird with two birds nests under her arms who stinks of garlic and hasn't done a days work in her life. Get real! (the bird of that TAXI film is hot though). British birds are curvy, busty and hot and can out-drink and out-punch any nationality.

best food? If you call going in the garden, looking under a lettuce, finding a snail and dropping it in some garlic crap, frying the poor fellow on gas mark 6 and eating it with a baggette, FOOD my arse.

lamb chop, roast beef, fish and chips in yesterdays newspaper. Thats food pal.

Jesus, what are you doing with a New Zealand flag there? You are a disgrace to the Empire with your mutterings!

You should be hung for treason.

[Limey Boosk]

I am British and proud. The BNP gays should give us our flag back.

Anyone who is in Britain and isn't proud to be British was probably created when their lesbian mother shot a 10cc squirt of happy juice up her out of a chicken baster filed by Elton John.

Leave. Go to France or Greece.

You don't get self-haters in Yorkshire.

[Nico]

Limey Boosk wrote:

Jesus, what are you doing with a New Zealand flag there? You are a disgrace to the Empire with your mutterings!

You should be hung for treason.

:lol:

Yeah, I can't wait till the union jack is out of our flag. No offence to the British but the jack doesn't define us, rather the isles from which you hale. Hell the queen has only visited like 3 times in 50 years. Fact of the matter is that the British never defeated the maori down here, not like the people of other places they went. Instead it was a great PR job. What we are in reality is an anglo-centric face with an asia/pacific body. Myself I have jewish/ scottish/ Indian/ maori /godknowswhatelse descent so really I don't feel like an extension of British colonial anything.

And while I might be hung, it surely has little to do with the Empire :P

[Kumar]

Nico wrote:
And while I might be hung, it surely has little to do with the Empire :P
:lol:

[SpartanPhalanx]

Limey Boosk wrote: Quote: Greece was occupied by the Ottoman Empire for 450 years

Really, England hasn't been occupied for nearly a thousand years. You should have tried harder, we saw of those Tommy Cooper ripffs in a few years.



Quote: Hard time to be a Frenchman if it wasn't for the fact that they have the hottest women and best food to ease their respective minds about the ill-informed, badly educated haters out there

Hottest women? Some 5 ft 2 inch boney arsed bird with two birds nests under her arms who stinks of garlic and hasn't done a days work in her life. Get real! (the bird of that TAXI film is hot though). British birds are curvy, busty and hot and can out-drink and out-punch any nationality.

best food? If you call going in the garden, looking under a lettuce, finding a snail and dropping it in some garlic crap, frying the poor fellow on gas mark 6 and eating it with a baggette, FOOD my arse.


I'd rather have some French bird than some pissed British tart with bad teeth and even worse breath....:-)

Ever been to France?

Didn't think so.

Hhhmm...24 hour drinking in some parts of Britain now? .... you're a nation of alcoholics for cryin' out loud. Your youth come down to Greece every Summer (because we have the best weather, beaches, and food in all of Europe you see...) your women get blind drunk and f*ck anyone in sight, your young men get so tanked, they remember s**t about where they were and what they did till their buddies remind them when they arrive back in England....that's unless they swap their hotel room for a cozy Greek jail cell until daddy sends some bail money to get their reprobate ass outa jail.

Yes, Brits are a shining example for everyone to follow......

Have another drink Limey......... :lol:

[/b]

[thundertaker]

Nico wrote: Limey Boosk wrote:

Jesus, what are you doing with a New Zealand flag there? You are a disgrace to the Empire with your mutterings!

You should be hung for treason.

:lol:

Yeah, I can't wait till the union jack is out of our flag. No offence to the British but the jack doesn't define us, rather the isles from which you hale. Hell the queen has only visited like 3 times in 50 years. Fact of the matter is that the British never defeated the maori down here, not like the people of other places they went. Instead it was a great PR job. What we are in reality is an anglo-centric face with an asia/pacific body. Myself I have jewish/ scottish/ Indian/ maori /godknowswhatelse descent so really I don't feel like an extension of British colonial anything.

And while I might be hung, it surely has little to do with the Empire :P

When my Aunt and her family lived down there, she said it was the most British country outside of Britain (even more so than Australia). You are constitutionally descended from Britain, with a parliamentry system and other public insititutions derived from the British model. I don't see how having the Union Flag in your flag isn't the most apt thing about your flag. It still doesn't detract from the fact your country is fully independent, and I don't see why it is anything to be ashamed of......

[Nico]

thundertaker wrote:

When my Aunt and her family lived down there, she said it was the most British country outside of Britain (even more so than Australia). You are constitutionally descended from Britain, with a parliamentry system and other public insititutions derived from the British model. I don't see how having the Union Flag in your flag isn't the most apt thing about your flag. It still doesn't detract from the fact your country is fully independent, and I don't see why it is anything to be ashamed of......

Don't get me wrong, shame isn't the word I'm looking for about having the Union flag inside our own. The law is definitely what I'd call the major anglo-saxon feature of our make-up. practically however we are very much a pacific entity. The union aspect of our country is now an almost redundant feature. This has been true since the UK has been part of the EEC. We became shut out of what relationship we had with the UK at that time.
We still share military honours and a figurative governor general/ privy council but these are dissapearing links.

The union jack in no way belongs in our flag now. Britain didn't birth us as a nation, but more realistically sponsored us as one. The difference is important. The English per se held major cities but could not hold the country as a whole, this is how our founding document came to be a treaty of co-operation and not a constitution. One governor general was busy reporting conquests while suffering defeats [Grey]. Queen Victoria became regent here by clever marketing, not conquest. However having english sponsorship made us an anglo-saxon entity in appearance. If your aunt had lived in Christchurch she may well have lived in the most english of places outside of england. Had she lived in other parts of the country she may well have felt to be in another world. In fact had she just been down the road in Akaroa she might have thought she was in france ;) Maori acceptance of English law was also voluntary, conditional and not 100%.
Australia is extremely republican in nature [not the US definition of the word as you know] but NZ is heading that way too. The union flag is a remanent of careful positioning, considered in the context of the reality of pre-WW1, but is not who we are.
Fighting for Britain has cost us our finest and all were eager to go to war on their behalf, but it has always been terms chosen by us, even more so after WW1. Now we are just NZ. The flag is British but we aren't. More of a bunch of very different races sharing a couple of big Islands within a loose version of the British model of Law.
that's my feeling on the topic, however we are rather disparate bunch so finding a polar opposite opinion is not difficult :)

[thundertaker]

Is it my understanding that the Maori tend to be anti-republican because they view the Treaty of Waitangi as a contract between the Maori and the Crown, and that severing the link with the monarchy would be like tearing up that treaty as the basis of the Maori's relationship with the NZ government?

[Snake]

Limey Boosk wrote: British birds are curvy, busty and hot

lamb chop, roast beef, fish and chips in yesterdays newspaper. Thats food pal. :rofl:

[Nico]

thundertaker wrote: Is it my understanding that the Maori tend to be anti-republican because they view the Treaty of Waitangi as a contract between the Maori and the Crown, and that severing the link with the monarchy would be like tearing up that treaty as the basis of the Maori's relationship with the NZ government?


That's pretty accurate to some extent. As far as Maori are concerned there are about 3 camps:
# Those who see themselves as part of whole, with Maori roots. I would guess this percentage at about 50%
# Those from rural tribal power blocs who value the crown partnership as a recourse to final objective opinion in NZ law. The archaic privy council gives it's opinion on NZ law with regards to the relationship. It is a great facility in my mind but carries only moral weight rather than legal [my understanding]. About 30%
# Those who wish for seccession from the partnership and seperate distinct sovereignty over land title [pretty close to what they have already in practical terms], about 5-10% by my reckoning.
Rest would be anywhere on the spectrum.


The definitive work on the topic is "The New Zealand Wars" by James Belich. A great work by any standard.


probably the bulk of Maori live in urban areas, so the rural power bloc is pretty small but very powerful. Urban Maori have a harder time getting representation in matters of recourse for land claims and so on. The proccess is ongoing but it seems to be getting there. Some NZers are uncomfortable about the payouts and repatriation of land, but I'm all for it as it makes things right. You can't change the past but you can do your best to fix the present IMO, [to get all lyrical there].