That's not being obtuse, or extreme, or negative. That's saying that if you strip out the platitudes of patriotism, how is it functionally different from comfort, or nationalist expectionalism.

Sorry @ohgodwhatnow.bsky.social , usually Im with you all the way. Not today.

I care about where I live, because I don't want to live in an dystopia. But why should that involve patriotism? Why must I be proud of my country?

I am proud of human ideas & achievements, but I admire those wherever they happen. I feel no sense of reflected glory because they were made in UK.
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- I'm open to admiring shared human achievements — like European philosophy, music, science — but that’s civilisational, not tribal.

- What people call patriotism still seems to shade quickly into exceptionalism, nationalism, or just emotional self-indulgence.

Why is that "an extreme view"?
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- I didn’t choose to be born in the UK. So why should you feel something for it?

- The achievements of Britain are real, but not unique.

- The concept of the nation-state is historically recent, and so the idea of “loving” a nation is not moral.

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Hard choices? Yes.

But the hardest is either to reduce inequality by taxing wealth and redistributing income, thereby upsetting vested interests, or accept inevitable slide into populism.

The latter is not a credible option.

@uklabour

You cannot be all things to all people. But you can do something about inequality, solve c), and with that neuter everything else that annoys the people.

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The mistake is thinking:

a) all people are as invested in politics as we are;
b) rhetoric and argument will win over emotion;
c) anything matters more than comfort.

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5. It Is Hypocritical by Design.
• Claim to believe in freedom, but legislate against personal rights.
• Claim to care about fiscal responsibility but explode deficits.
• Claim to support law, but excuse corruption.
• Hypocrisy is intolerable—because hypocrisy means your ethics are fraudulent.

4. Thrives on Emotional Manipulation Over Rational Argument.
• It weaponises people’s emotions to avoid accountability for its failures.
• Blame scapegoats (immigrants, minorities, LGBTQ people, “wokeness”).
• This because it violates truth.

3/ It Demands Respect for Unjust Hierarchies.
• Conservatism relies on wealth, patriarchy, nationalism, religious authority.
• But if your system creates inequality, suffering, or oppression, it is not moral—no matter how traditional.
• Tradition is not a justification. Outcomes are.

2/ It Claims Moral Authority Without Evidence.
• Moral claims should be provable by results.
• Conservatives make claims (family values, law & order, economic responsibility) without proving they create better outcomes.
• Their policies lead to suffering
• Intellectual dishonesty.

2/ They are not legitimate political movements and they do not deserve to be treated as such. They deserve to be treated as what they are: enemies of the state. Europe MUST dismantle these networks.