Comment on Is anyone else not feeling that patriotic for July 4?

• Allero@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  The state should not exist. We are people of Earth, and we should not be divided by someone.

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  • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    So we shouldn’t band together, to band together.

    You should calm down your drug use IMO.

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    • Allero@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      We should band together based on mutual respect and common responsibility, and not based on someone telling us who to band with and who not to.

      The concept of nation-state doesn’t allow us to band with whoever we like, and calls to unite with people born in place X (and commonly against people born in place Y). The concept of state in general oversees and dictates our relationships more broadly.

      Multitude of states all fostering loyalty to their rulers doesn’t allow many people to look at those of other nations as equals and fellows with shared global goals. Sure, messages of international peace are commonplace, but hey, we should definitely exclude those pesky Chinese/Russians/Americans/Ukrainians/Israelis/Palestinians/whatever!

      When we categorize people by nations through the lens of state, we put easy labels that are far from true. If someone’s a Russian, he sure supports war in Ukraine. If someone’s American, he sure is personally responsible for all the immigrant scare. If someone’s born in Israel or China, clearly he’s all on board with genocide!

      At the same time, state-level patriotism fosters coming to terms with terrible people within the nation. Sure, our billionaires might be at fault in some ways, but it’s better than other country’s evil and corrupt billionaires! Our rulers are wise leaders, their rulers are cruel autocrats! My neighbor is a terrible person, but at least he’s not one of those <input the nation with bad stereotypes>!

      It forces us to make preference to people who may not deserve our support, who might be actively undermining our causes, it leads us to close our eyes on the sufferings of others outside our arbitrary group that doesn’t even share our views and goals.

      Now, I know it doesn’t have to be that extreme, but patriotism is always showing preference to someone or something based on a very arbitrary characteristic, instead of honest and fair consideration. It’s an intentionally cultivated fallacy.

      On a personal note, I’d rather avoid ad hominem attacks if you’d like to keep a good faith discussion running. And, FYI, I never take any drugs, not even alcohol.

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      • tane@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Utopian nonsense

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      • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        You’re from the US? It smells like you see the whole world through that lens.

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  • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Can’t answer your post, it’s too deep (I’m on Connect, it doesn’t handle deep posts very well) so I’m answering your latest post here.

    After WW2 (that Russia started with Germany):

    Russia occupied half of Europe by force, calling it the soviet union. Most countries didn’t have a say and didn’t want to be in the union, and no one was allowed to leave. Some were outright invaded like Czechoslovakia.

    The USA has military bases all around the world yes, but most of them are wanted by the countries, and if asked the USA will leave (see France for example). The USA has not tried to annex one single country.

    If you can’t see the difference we’ll then I just can’t discuss more subtle things with you like countries and borders and gouvernances. So yeah it took a turn there I guess, a shame if it ends, because it’s been interesting!

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    • Allero@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Oh, Connect is still out there? Thought it is dead.

      Annexation by USSR touched Baltics and parts of Poland. The rest was more of puppet governments - something the US has practiced extensively all around the globe.

      Part of it was ex-Axis powers (like Japan), the other part - just about any government thinking of socialism or economic independence from the US or having oil (Vietnam, Cuba, Chile, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Brazil, Bolivia, Cambodia, Syria, Guatemala, China, Egypt - you name it). After the Cold War, there were barely a few years US was not involved in some conflict or the other over its “national interests” or “national security”, suggesting that it was never about rivalry with USSR. Needless to say, local population was commonly not very happy about it.

      So, I cannot in good faith agree that US was any better in this respect. Both sucked a lot, and same is likely to happen to any grand military power - if anything because military needs experience to stay efficient, and with great power comes great desire to use it to your advantage.

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      • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Well the USA is a democracy and Russia is and has always been an autocracy (with that little blip in the nineties). The USA doesn’t always value human life like you’d like but Russia outright uses, and has always used, people in slaughters, famins etc.

        If you can’t see the difference then I do not want to try out your (anarchy?) solution…

        Still interesting you can’t see your own country for what it is.

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• Bloomcole@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  That is only in theory, like the copcept of democracy

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