Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Dec 23, 2011 9:09:30 GMT 1
The problem is, you're just saying these things and not supporting them with anything even vaguely coherent. There is no difference between regionalism and nationalism as you describe it, other than the size of the population and land.
It's like saying that Singapore is more democratic than the US because it's smaller. Or asking why Chewbacca, an 8 foot tall wookie would want to live on a planet of 2 foot tall ewoks. It just doesn't make any sense
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owlie
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Post by owlie on Dec 28, 2011 17:01:33 GMT 1
Of course it does.
If you're 6 foot taller and 10 times stronger than everyone else on the planet, you do just what the fuck you like and no one can stop you.
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Post by markelt on Dec 29, 2011 11:05:41 GMT 1
\o/
I for one welcome my new Robot Huth overlord
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Jan 3, 2012 12:04:33 GMT 1
Of course I was defending it with something vaguely coherent. Regions have a far greater foothold in history that nation states. European nation states have changed so much in the last couple of hundred years that you couldn't call them solid and reliable. Regions have remained virtually unchanged.
In France, Burgundy, Brittany, Aquitaine and Provence are all several hundred years older than the current political entity of France. And France is one of the oldest nation states in Europe.
Eastern Europe 30 years ago bears little resemblance to how it is now. Central Europe 100 years ago bears little resemblance to how it is now.
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Jan 3, 2012 13:56:52 GMT 1
Are you saying the borders of those regions (Burgundy etc.) have never changed?
I don't understand quite why the fact that an Anglo-Saxon kingdom or similar is ~500 years older than the country it now forms part of makes any huge difference. They're all just regions with arbitrary borders set by whoever was in charge at the time (generally following the rule of having the most land their neighbours would allow them to have.)
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Jan 3, 2012 15:04:00 GMT 1
The borders are more stable. Yes the ruling powers may well tweak them and they have evolved over time, but Burgundy is still broadly Burgundy as it was in 1385. France looks significantly different to how it did in 1385.
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Jan 3, 2012 15:27:00 GMT 1
Wasn't 14th century Burgundy virtually a distinct kingdom in its own right? I seem to recall it was on our side rather than France's for large chunks of the Hundred Years War, and it included lands all the way up to Belgium/Holland. I'd say it's changed a bit since then.
The only reason the borders of a nation have changed more in recent years than those of the comprising regions is that the powers in charge have only cared about the national borders, not the regional ones and regional borders have been largely forgotten.
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Jan 3, 2012 18:03:01 GMT 1
You're right, Burgundy was a kingdom in its own right for several centuries. However, youy are mixing up ruling other territories with their own territories. Burgundy is largely unchanged from how it was in the 15th century. However, they did acquire other lands at various times.
Regional borders haven't been forgotten on the whole, but I agree that they have fallen into less use since the advent of nationalism in the 19th century. However, many regional borders have changed where regions cross borders. The Tyrol was an example where there was an Austrian bit and an Italian bit.
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Jan 4, 2012 10:11:57 GMT 1
Where are the borders of Northumbria exactly, then? Or, come to think of it, Burgundy?
Also if regional borders have changed, doesn't that rather contradict your argument? Or do you want the borders reset to their previous locations? If so, what's your cutoff point?
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Jan 4, 2012 11:00:03 GMT 1
The cutoff point is 6 December 1982, obviously.
Unless by region you mean a geographic region like the South Downs or the Alps, that's cobblers. Regions get redrawn all the time from political expediency. See e.g. South Wales. I've lost track of what county the ancestral home is in as it keeps bloody changing. Places like Rutland appear and disappear, electoral boundaries change, lots of northern Europe had "hundreds", these are now all gone. It's the same phenomena that you ascribe to nation states - once again you don't make an effort to defend your assertion, other than with stuff that contradicts it. Nationalism is, almost always, grass-roots and therefore inherently not the "ruling class" drawing the lines. Electoral boundaries (which seem to be the closest thing to your definition of "regions") on the other hand...
Again, look at these two questions, examine the words, think about your reply, and write it in some more words:
1) How are regions different from nations, apart from the size? 1a) How are they magically more democratic and not "lines drawn by the ruling classes".
2) How is having an unelected person who you can't get rid of making enormous cuts better and more democratic than someone you can get rid of making less vicious cuts?
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Jan 4, 2012 11:14:55 GMT 1
Regions are also broken down into smaller constituent parts. You also get the situation like it England (and Wales) were historic regions are changed to suit political ends leaving you with counties and such like. Counties aren't regions on the whole.
Regions have a far greater historical longevity and stability and in many cases people are more likely to identify with them rather than the nation state. They are also more democratic in that a smaller constituency can naturally make for more democracy.
I never said that the EU was perfect, but I said we should remain in to change it from the inside.
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Jan 4, 2012 11:21:15 GMT 1
So regions can be changed to meet political ends but are better than nations because they don't change to meet political ends? So long as we're clear.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Jan 4, 2012 12:05:57 GMT 1
So the same as countries, then. With the exception that they're a bit smaller.
Only in one or two barmy cases, like people from Yorkshire being fucking twats.
In somewhere like the Sudetenland, the place was stuffed full of people that considered themselves part of another nation state, because they shared a language and culture with them. Which led to the place being first absorbed by Germany, then ethnically cleansed of Germans. Which I'd say was rather more typical example of European nation-rearranging. See also the shenanigans in post-Tito Yugoslavia and lots of other examples.
Give me an example of some of these historically long-lived regions, if you please. Though I'm convinced this is just a rather tawdry attempt at a cheap century. But it has led me to discover that the the national anthem of Schleswig-Holstein is "Wanke nicht, mein Vaterland" which is quite amusing.
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ab
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Post by ab on Jan 4, 2012 12:59:01 GMT 1
Is this still going on? Harking back to regional identity is just a surreptitious way of being racist. It is quite easy to assimilate immigrants and foreigners into nations which are political constructs because all you have do to do is to buy into that political construct - so everyone can go and become an American by pledging allegiance to the flag, or British by being loyal to the Queen, liking cricket, becoming obsessed by the weather and generally moaning about stuff. It is much harder for outsiders to assimilate to a regional or local identity which is based on long historical roots and traditions. For most people I pass as British, speaking fairly RP-English most don't bat an eyelid at me considering myself to be English. But if I moved to Cornwall, even if I decided to start surfing, opened a fish restaurant and started digging for tin in my back garden I'd never be Cornish. I doubt many people accost brispie in Brizzle for not being from round those parts, me lover, but if he moved to a small village a few miles away he'd be an outsider for decades and there'd be local controversy if his family wanted him buried there when he died. I bet the BNP loves regions. Anyway, I'm disappointed that the research into the regional variations on First the Worst, Second the Best, Third the... hasn't surfaced here yet for another brispie century.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Jan 4, 2012 13:11:41 GMT 1
..hairy chest, surely. Which I always took as an affirmation of the inherent masculinity of being as bad/uninterested at/by running sports as I am.
Wanke nicht, mein Vaterland
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Jan 4, 2012 14:44:03 GMT 1
I'd never heard the hairy chest variation until over the Christmas break. It shocked me.
In the UK the regions may have been broken down into counties for political ends, but they are broadly still there. Wessex is essentially the south west, Mercia the Midlands, Anglia the east, Yorkshire and Lancashire, Cumberland and Northumbria.
Spain is full of regions that still play a big part. Catalunia, Leon, Castile, Murcia, Granada, The Basques. The last one is a prime example of a region that has been subsumed into 2 nations for political purposes.
I don't think so AB. The regions are hardly all rural are they? Yorkshire is full of immigrant communities that are now largely accepted as being from Yorkshire.
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Jan 4, 2012 15:17:27 GMT 1
But Wessex etc. were the countries (or kingdoms) before they were unified when Wessex subjugated the others. They were made up themselves of shires and hundreds, and their borders changed constantly through conflict.
So how is a "region" any different from a country? Apart from being smaller (which may allow better representation of local interests but will cause more conflicts between regions) and being older (though you've yet to specify your cutoff point, which I'm now estimating at somewhere around 800ad.)
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Jan 4, 2012 16:08:19 GMT 1
So these regions are actually the ancient kingdoms which delimited the extent of power of one dude who didn't give a fuck about the peasants he was ruling (and who didn't give a fuck about him or his region as long as they had a turnip or two), yet you think you're being a proper socialist by preferring them to larger nations created by popular nationalist sentiments like Italy which are "drawn on the map by the ruling classes".
OK.
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Jan 4, 2012 16:46:13 GMT 1
I am arguing that they have more relevance due to longevity. Most of Europe's countries have very shortlived boundaries. A lot of the regions were never kingdoms, but may well have been earldoms or princedoms or barondoms. I'm not sure what the proper word is, but those are making me so I'm going to use them. However, some may originally have been kingdoms, but they would have subdued far smaller tribal groupings. That's where it should have stopped, but if you follow this to the nth degree, the nation state isn't the end game. You will first get regional groupings such as the EU and then I guess it will be the world against Mars. You state we should just stop at nations, however, I argue that regions were the first and more relevent and democratic grouping and should be returned to their correct level of importance
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Jan 4, 2012 17:03:56 GMT 1
Most of Europe's kingdoms/earldoms/whatever had very short lived boundaries too. Why are you picking them over anything else? Why should I identify with a Saxon kingdom more than a Celtic tribe or a modern nation?
Nobody so far as I can tell is saying we should "just stop at nations". They're merely pointing out that nations are what we have currently and there is no reason to choose anything other. No reason that you've been able to give, anyway, other than a vague "longevity" which rather ignores a lot of events which have occurred in history.
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Jan 4, 2012 18:59:16 GMT 1
...and democracy. This is especially in relation to taxation and public spending.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Jan 5, 2012 9:33:35 GMT 1
..and again, you merely make a rather daft assertion without supporting it. I'm still waiting for someone to come along and express their deeply-held feelings of identification with Wessex.
i.e. lines drawn on the map by the ruling classes.
If this is anything more than a cheap shot at a century and a half Brispie, you need to take a look at yourself.
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merkin
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Post by merkin on Jan 5, 2012 9:51:23 GMT 1
Wessex is full of cl1nts.
Mercia is ace.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Jan 5, 2012 12:05:15 GMT 1
Which, if my sixth-form flirtations with the left don't deceive me, is what International Socialism was largely about. Yet you seem to think it is "proper socialist" to be even more Little Englander than the Littlest Englander.
You speak from a core of confusion.
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Jan 5, 2012 13:49:12 GMT 1
International socialism is about a lack of boundaries and I'm all for that.
My initial point in this debate was that regions are far more relevent because they improve democracy and that taxation at regional level is better than at national level, never mind European level.
The fact that you lot are unable to see past existing nation states and cannot grasp that these states are fleeting and will be gone before you even know it, worries me.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Jan 5, 2012 14:12:06 GMT 1
Yes, I know you keep SAYING these things, you just never explain why. As for nations being a fleeting thing, the two I've lived in have been around rather longer than Wessex or Mercia existed as self-governing regions..
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Jan 5, 2012 15:02:22 GMT 1
The fact that you lot are unable to see past existing nation states and cannot grasp that these states are fleeting and will be gone before you even know it, worries me. It's more the fact that you can't see your beloved regions, all of which seem to be based on Dark Age kingdoms, are as transient as the current nation states. In 500 years time Future-Brispie will be insisting that the ancient lands of France and United Kingdom have far more relevance than the present boundaries which are imposed by an undemocratic ruling elite.
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Post by JohnnyNeptune on Jan 5, 2012 19:24:06 GMT 1
are you bellends still doing this?
"I'm still waiting for someone to come along and express their deeply-held feelings of identification with Wessex."
frank turner wrote a song about being a wessex boy. for this reason alone i see no reason why NATO shouldn't be allowed to raze most of hampshire and dorset to the ground
everyone can fuck off. apart from the cornish. and to a degree the welsh. but they've got to do all the hard work while we, the honest cornishmen, get to fuck around and laugh at them.
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Post by markelt on Jan 6, 2012 10:00:01 GMT 1
Sporting buggers' grips does not make you Cornish in the same way that liking The Alarm* and not being able to tell the difference between seaweed and bread would make you welsh.
* Youngsters. The Alarm = Only the band the Manic Street Preachers could have been.
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ab
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Post by ab on Jan 6, 2012 11:06:37 GMT 1
My boy's a Yorkshireman but I'm an immigrant here in ways I don't feel in parts of England with a less pronounced local identity. Most of what brispie describes as regions are just old nations.
Not sure what happens to his beloved NHS and other public services if we moved to democratic regional taxation and EU government.
Subsidiarity, innit?
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