103 replies to this topic

[Griffin]

griffin, on Oct 14 2007, 10:18 PM, said:

I, too, fail to understand why we fought a war to prevent this country being invaded and conquered, only to let them all flood in now. At least the Germans would have run everything efficiently, and looked really smart in their Hugo Boss uniforms. The Poles may be good workers, but their dress sense is a disaster.

Margaret, I was that poster. I reproduce what I said so that you may satisfy yourself that my intention was ironic. The reference to Hugo Boss uniforms is to do with another thread. It seems odd, though, that so many people sacrificed their lives in the war to keep out foreign invaders, and we now have to lay down a welcome mat, and fast-track their applications for council houses and social security benefits to the detriment of British people who have worked all their lives. My father, being Irish, did not serve in the forces in 1939-45, but worked in a factory which was working flat-out for the war effort, as did my mother - in fact, they met there. My uncle was a Captain in the Royal Corps of Signals and was twice mentioned in dispatches. He had visited Germany during the 1930s, and was probably as impressed as other English visitors at the way the country had recovered its self-esteem after the Treaty of Versailles. However, when the time came to take up arms, he did so without hesitation, as his father (my grandfather) had done at the outbreak of the Great War. As someone with a casual interest in history, it is my deeply-held belief that it was a mistake for Britain to go to war with Germany. As another member pointed out earlier in the thread (on one of the very rare occasions that we have agreed about anything), Britain and Germany had a great deal in common, unlike Britain and France. How different the post-war world would have been if Germany and Britain, fighting together, had freed Russia from Stalin's evil grip. No Communist Bloc, no Iron Curtain, and a force in Europe to match the United States on equal terms. And no, I don't believe for a second that, at some stage, Hitler would have turned on us. He had too much respect for us - we were, in some ways, his role models and the inspiration for his own imperial ambitions. Now, he and his Reich are consigned to history; and we, unable to resist the hordes daily flooding into the country, can surely not be long behind. This country will be around for a long time, but it will not be the country we grew up in, nor the one for which your brother so courageously laid down his life.

[Dave]

Yeah, our country might have had things in common with the Germans, but we didn't agree with the hostile invasions, the enslavement and the extermination of innocents. You seem to leave this out every time when you post about how great it'd be for us to be Nazis.

[Alan]

Someone said all that extermination stuff is a Jewish conspiracy

[Maz]

I'm not even going to start reading this thread crosseyedsmilie

[margaret2r]

griffin, on Oct 15 2007, 04:57 PM, said:

Margaret, I was that poster. I reproduce what I said so that you may satisfy yourself that my intention was ironic. The reference to Hugo Boss uniforms is to do with another thread. It seems odd, though, that so many people sacrificed their lives in the war to keep out foreign invaders, and we now have to lay down a welcome mat, and fast-track their applications for council houses and social security benefits to the detriment of British people who have worked all their lives. My father, being Irish, did not serve in the forces in 1939-45, but worked in a factory which was working flat-out for the war effort, as did my mother - in fact, they met there. My uncle was a Captain in the Royal Corps of Signals and was twice mentioned in dispatches. He had visited Germany during the 1930s, and was probably as impressed as other English visitors at the way the country had recovered its self-esteem after the Treaty of Versailles. However, when the time came to take up arms, he did so without hesitation, as his father (my grandfather) had done at the outbreak of the Great War. As someone with a casual interest in history, it is my deeply-held belief that it was a mistake for Britain to go to war with Germany. As another member pointed out earlier in the thread (on one of the very rare occasions that we have agreed about anything), Britain and Germany had a great deal in common, unlike Britain and France. How different the post-war world would have been if Germany and Britain, fighting together, had freed Russia from Stalin's evil grip. No Communist Bloc, no Iron Curtain, and a force in Europe to match the United States on equal terms. And no, I don't believe for a second that, at some stage, Hitler would have turned on us. He had too much respect for us - we were, in some ways, his role models and the inspiration for his own imperial ambitions. Now, he and his Reich are consigned to history; and we, unable to resist the hordes daily flooding into the country, can surely not be long behind. This country will be around for a long time, but it will not be the country we grew up in, nor the one for which your brother so courageously laid down his life.

Griffin, I can't believe for one split second that Hitler had so much respect for us that he would not have taken over England after succeeding in France. He made the strategic mistake of going after Russia first.

Dave, on Oct 15 2007, 05:40 PM, said:

Yeah, our country might have had things in common with the Germans, but we didn't agree with the hostile invasions, the enslavement and the extermination of innocents. You seem to leave this out every time when you post about how great it'd be for us to be Nazis.

Couldn't have said it better meself Dave.

[donkey o'tay]

Yeh, them Nazis were lovely chaps....

unless you were Jewish, or Gypsy, or homosexual, or communist, or a dissenter in any way, or just generally 'a little bit different'. Coz we don't want any them 'little bit different' people knocking around.

Yeh those nazis were great.

I watched that Belsen programme last night.

[briman]

margaret2r, on Oct 13 2007, 09:30 PM, said:

I just wish that you had all experienced the Britain that I had , when people came to Blackpool from all over the Uk for 'Wakes Week' a different week for each county.

Oh my god. I am so glad I didn't experience that. It sounds hideous. That would be the time that everyone hated everyone else from outside their county borders? Presumably why they were all split up? Where mods fought with rockers? Where the gays got beat up? Where people with long hair hated them with short hair etc? Where the working man hated them that were peas above sticks? Where you stayed away if you had anything other than milky white skin? I am so glad that this clannish insular small mindedness has been consigned to the dustbin of history. Give me total diversity over this stiffling vision of horror any day of the week.

[Griffin]

Please give me the exact opposite of Briman. It made sense, unlike what replaced it.

[briman]

The exact opposite is maybe a decade or two away. Hopefully within my lifetime, when all people of all races and social backgrounds and sexual orientations can gather in a place like Blackpool at the same time and treat each other without prejudice. Treat each other as equals. With respect. Like each other, or indeed dislike each other, based purely on the personality of the individual rather than some preconceived notion based on the colour of each others skin or other such ridiculous filtering system. I don't want to mix only with my kind. [To get away from Blackpool for a while and back to the EU topic...] I want to have friends from other countries, talk to people about their different cultures, find out about other peoples belief systems, to be free to roam wherever I wish and for them to be able to do the same. To be part of one big melting pot. Bring on the European super state, it can't come soon enough for me.

[eddiedunc]

Here Here, all stand for The Internationale

[Dave]

Make 'em all learn English first tho. Ban all other European languages.

[briman]

That will probably happen by default over the next few generations. We are just lucky that we already speak the language that is likely to become the standard, although would it really do any of us any harm to learn a common language? It might even be fun. Esperanto anybody? One thing is for sure, the language barrier will slow down european integration. Wouldn't you think them there lazy bastard foreigners would get a move on and learn English like what we do.

[Griffin]

I could never see the point of Esperanto - from what bits I've encountered, it's a sort of simplified Spanish. Just another remnant of Utopian social theory from the early 20th century. Like the Initial Teaching Alphabet (anybody remember that?), it was an idea somebody had which never really took off, and should be consigned to history.

[margaret2r]

briman, on Oct 17 2007, 10:09 AM, said:

The exact opposite is maybe a decade or two away. Hopefully within my lifetime, when all people of all races and social backgrounds and sexual orientations can gather in a place like Blackpool at the same time and treat each other without prejudice. Treat each other as equals. With respect. Like each other, or indeed dislike each other, based purely on the personality of the individual rather than some preconceived notion based on the colour of each others skin or other such ridiculous filtering system. I don't want to mix only with my kind. [To get away from Blackpool for a while and back to the EU topic...] I want to have friends from other countries, talk to people about their different cultures, find out about other peoples belief systems, to be free to roam wherever I wish and for them to be able to do the same. To be part of one big melting pot. Bring on the European super state, it can't come soon enough for me.

You've already got it....Enjoy In those days the " foreigners" were Irish, Welsh, Scottish, LOL We all had a " grand time "