Is Britain a defeated nation?
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This politically correct, fear of offending, micro managing, control freak government may be.
But the people have not yet spoken, we are the sleeping lions, slowly but surely waking up.
No.
Not yet.
But it will become one if it does not recover it’s self respect.
No. Why do you ask?
A twenty first century, Postmodern, touchy feely, Politically Correct, sensitive society – is no match for Jihad.
The Tectonic plates of Western Civilisation (W.C) are beginning to fissure before our eyes, I suspect W.C has gone as far as it can take us. With Peak Oil and Global Warming about to trigger massive die off, it looks as though it’s back to the future – Stone-Age.
As an aside, has anyone seen this… (Google) ‘ The Ideological War Within the West’ by John Fonte.
Not yet, but we are decadent, which is the usual forerunner to defeat.
Defeated by whom?
Iran?
Iraq?
The Labour Party?
Tom Paine,
Decadence isn’t a reason for defeat unless you read Gibbon and place Victorian values upon the Roman empire. Britain could probably be termed a truly decadent country from the mid 18th Century until the ascension of Victoria (think of Prinny etc.).
Not yet, but we are decadent,
Seems correct to me.
Britain isn’t defeated yet, but the episode with the captures sailors wasn’t a moment of glory.
Defeated? No, we seem to have managed to win all the recent wars waged against us.
I daresay we’ll manage to scrape something tolerably close to a draw in Iraq, too.
The signs aren’t good, that’s for sure.
There hasn’t been a genuine challange for a while – I’m thinking of a scenario where we need to protect our interests more or less on our own, say a Falklands event or smaller. Would anyone like to predict what the outcome would be? Not just militarily, but diplomatically?
Still, we could put it out to tender, I suppose – PFI with attitude.
But the fight that matters is here at home where we’re in danger of being subjugated by our own government.
If we lose that one, it’s all over.
If that’s an example of what the Royal Marines can field now you certainly are.
I remember in my youth hearing that a group of 15 Royal Marines would have cheerfuly taken on a company.
Maybe if there was a Colour Seargent in charge (which by the way would be an appropriate rank to be in charge of a 15 man detachment) instead of an idiot officer the entire thing would have played out differently.
IMO you cannot ask this question in isolation, win or lose, the fate of Britain is inextricably linked with the rest of the Western (white) world.
The West is under tremendous attack from within, where democracy itself is being subsumed into a Multicultural mass – thereby to oblivion.
What do you mean by Britain?
Is it the land? How do you defeat fields and soil and forests?
Is it the people? They who are so isolated and afraid of each other that they don’t even know there’s a fight.
Is it the government? A bunch of slimy politicos who have ideas above their station. Their empire dead, and good riddance. We don’t have the muscle or the moral fibre necessary for us to go around poking our noses in anymore, they should learn to live with that.
Divided, conquered, dying and broken. The idea of Britain has no meaning, let it go.
No. But you certainly had your head held down and farted on. And to all external appearances, as a society you are willing to be angry about it but unwilling to goad the bully who deliberately picked a fight with you.
Those of us who wish you well and rely on you as friends in the pinch are not totally happy to see all of this.
Britain has spent considerable money and energy over the past 20-odd years trying to be all things to all people, including licking the EU rear end in the mistaken belief that a unified Europe will somehow benefit us and in allowing immigrant groups to take root here who manifestly do not want integration, peace or progress. Couple that with a self-serving but weak-willed government who appear to be able to get voted back in no matter what they do or say then to all intents and purposes Britain seems to be defeated.
Mostly our seeming defeat, it has to be said, is by our confused notions of restricting liberty for the majority while desperately promoting power for the disaffected minorities. We strive to be correct and accommodating but fail because we have lost a sense of honest perspective. We hope for better in the face of all evidence that shows our enemies (both within and without) really don’t think much of us at all – and in many cases despise everything we are.
But then we flagellate ourselves for small errors and misjudgements that would not raise an eyebrow in many other parts of the world, pandering as we do to a selfish left-wing crowd who – now their cherished ideal of totalitarian communism has been shown up to be the rubbish it always was – batter us “intellectually” about our supposed failures.
Yes, we hate ourselves nearly as much as all these people would like us to.
At the risk of being romantic here, I still think we are not quite beaten as our enemies would like to think. There is a dogged streak in the British people that, while not at all at odds with an innate sense of fair play and justice, is best not goaded too far. We are capable of fighting back and while the requirements for victory may be massive we will not be thrown aside easily.
Defeated? Not yet. So, bring it on and let’s see, shall we?
Not so much decadent as complacent. The majority, the ones who should be starting to make their wishes felt at the polling booth, have not felt sufficient sting from the societal decay that threatens them.
They have accepted increasing big goverment intervention and the nanny state because it makes them feel safe. They are secure in the knowledge they have done nothing wrong so it won’t affect them. Why should they worry about Islamofascism – the nanny state will protect them. Won’t it?
Each year means a little more financial tightening and a little more loss of freedom but they swallow it because, well, it’s only a ‘little’ bit and they are still safe and comfy enough. It’s so much easier to immerse the intellect in Big Brother, like a warm bath for the mind, than to question what is happening around them.
They won’t wake up and begin to fight until they hurt on a personal level. When Big Brother is banned because it offends Islam they will sit up, blink their eyes, scratch their heads and wonder what happened.
Whether there is enough fight left in them and whether it’s too late to make a difference at that point remains to be seen.
What short historical memories people have. Remember the Oxford Union thirties resolution about fighting for king and country to be followed within a decade by what Churchill described as Britain’s finest hour. Then there was the very strong German American Bund in the US which wanted America to enter the war on Hitler’s side!. One thing the French did get right – plus ca change.
Does Thaddeus Tremay read too much of the Daily Express or pay to much attention to american conservatives who are yearning to pour scorn on their mother nation?
I tend to go along with poppers idea that society works on a trial and error basis, and my own theory of “sod” that we tend to get things wrong before we get them right.
So my conclusions are simple, If you have any family members around the their teens then give them an extra hug, because war is coming. once again we have failed to learn the lessons of history.
And when I say war, I mean a real war, not a CNN special event media war, I mean a hard, dirty, bloody destructive one.
Hopefully I am wrong.
No, Britain is the lead nation of the Western way of life, London is the capital of the world. The last serious threat was China, who are now modifying their millenniums old civilisation to be more like us. Many people in the non western world are desperate to emigrate to the west, how many westerners are desperate to go the other way? The struggle was and is about ideas, the western 17th century enlightenment ideas are triumphant. The fuss over jihad and global warming is hysterical hype. The western leviathan is unstoppable.
I am not sure…the defeatism of the UK establishment is rather obvious for all to see. I am not quite sure if the defeatism has spread out of certain postcodes in London to other parts of the UK.
Never mind defeated;
is Britain a nation?
If Iran scored a major victory here then call me a Dutchman. Armanidinnerjacket made a play to join the “big boys” league and was eventually over-ruled by the Ayatolahs. His Tonyness played this one surprisingly well. In the end the Iranian’s wet their pantyhose and handed our folk back. I’m very surprised it went this well but perhaps it show that Armegeddonjihad doesn’t quite have as much grip on power in Tehran as he likes to think.
I think there is a general feeling in the country that we need to reinforce our military. I certainly hope so because if that’s the case we are unstoppable. I just hope we stop pussy-footing around and buy the whole tranche of type 45s and fit ’em with Stringray, Harpoon and Tomahawk/Storm Shadow. And we get decent carriers for our Lightnings. Perhaps we could sack some five-a-day co-ordinators, outreach workers and all of Defra to pay for it? Well, I hope. We’re the fourth largest economy on the planet. We should start acting like it.
In order to stimulate discussion. Hence the title Discussion Point V
Suggest you re-read all five words of the article again, in particular the last one. Clearly Thaddeus means the British nation, not the British land mass. If you think the concept of ‘Britishness’ has disintegrated, then presumably your answer must be “yes”.
In order to stimulate discussion. Hence the title Discussion Point V
Ah. It wasn’t a rhetorical question designed to elicit a particular kind of discussion, one supposes? 😉
In order to stimulate discussion. Hence the title Discussion Point V
A point that occurred to me just after I pressed the ‘Post’ button: are you the official interpreter of the meaning meaning ALL of Thaddeus’s posts (indeed of all the posts) here? Just asking.
No, just answering the obvious.
I watched the press conference of the returned sailors and marines. The contrast between the articulateness of the officers and the squaddies was very noticeable. With officers like Lt Felix Carman and Capt Air, Britain is not a defeated nation. Take some pride in yourselves Britain.
Defeated? No. Humiliated? Yes.
This yank won’t presume to answer for Britain, but I have to second anon’s comment (not sure about the white part, I might have left that out).
Inhabiting one of the intellectual children of British liberty and enlightenment, it saddens me not that Britain had a bad week against a tyrant, but that said tyrant has correctly read the lack of will in the countries that normally oppose tyranny.
Sadly, another cataclysm will be required to wake the lions in Britain, America, New Zealand and Canada. I did not believe that a moth ago, but do now. After the British sailors and Speaker Pelosi’s “alternative foreign policy” there is not enough will to defend freedom.
As a Yank and a non- veteran, I may be unqualified to comment. I do have some experience dealing with bullies, however. They may humiliate you, but when you finally get enough and stand up to them, they melt like wet witches.
Well, let’s examine the question.
Your leadership is defunct. The antics of the royals are more suited to the clown segments of Cirque de Soleil. The government has increased and wasted taxes, severely broken your health system, put the criminal above the victim and enables criminal behavior by tacitly ignoring it. Your government is drowning in the quicksand of bureaucracy. Citizens are not allowed to own weapons; the very act of self-defense has been criminalized. Your local councils are taxing the people to death. Your police are experts at filling out forms rather than catching criminals, and are busily establishing the foundation of 1984 by putting cameras all over the country to watch the citizenry. You’ve multiculturalized Britain so much that the very idea of Britishness is frowned upon (take a walk down Brick Lane; it isn’t England any more). Scotland is chafing at the bit to get out from under. Your foreign policy would make Chamberlain proud. The Church of England’s moral leadership has vanished.
This list doesn’t so much shout “defeated nation” as it says “died of self-inflicted wounds”.
Sorry to be so blunt, but wake up! Wake up for the sake of your children to come. Wake up for your ancestors who built one of the greatest nations on earth.
Alas no, we could actually do with a great deal less ‘leadership’ thanks.
Historically speaking that is actually pretty normal. ‘Well behaved’ Royals are more the exception than the rule. We keep ’em around for colour, not moral guidance. There is much to be said for a non-political ‘head of state’ and a certain amount of ‘antics’ are to be expected (not to mention supporting a significent segment of the media).
Going down by the stern, having been torpedoed from behind, the watchmen snoring softly in their hammocks.
The US is in the same straits, unable to summon the will to fight homegrown street gangs (much less foreigners).
We’re all going down in a slimey sea of political correctness, trying not to offend anyone with anything so loud as a whimper.
No.
Although the number of people, here and in general, who are ready to throw in the towel and turn off the lights is certainly troubling.
Too many chicken littles, not enough chicken soup.
From the BBC(Link):
“The first ethnic minority president of the National Union of Teachers has said ministers fuel racism by ordering schools to teach “British values”.
London assistant head teacher Baljeet Ghale told the union’s annual conference Britain did not have a monopoly on free speech and tolerance.
The move only fuelled the “shadow of racism” behind some notions of Britishness, she said.”
I’m sceptical about “Britishness lessons”, to be honest. But the above is an example of what Britain is up against if it is not to declare itself null and void. The idea is that there is nothing, and no combination of things, about their nation in which Britons should be allowed take pride.
There may be one exception. Multiculturalists appear to believe that Britain should be judged on how well it provides a blank canvas on which immigrants can reproduce the culture of their countries of origin. Promotion of British values, or the existence of a British identity, contaminate the canvas. We can be proud of ourselves only as we efface ourselves.
Things looked bad in the thirties. William Shirer’s Berlin Diary describes the British and French pusillanimity, with startling resemblances to todays shenanigans.
Trouble is, we do not face a Hitler, nor yet a visible known army. We face an array of forces which morph from one form to another. We know intuitively that something is happening, called by many names, that includes battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq, schoolrooms and universities in this country, things that do not get into the papers, or onto the BBC news, or are not said in Parliament. Many Britons are aware of this ‘something’, but judging by their complacency, think it may be a good thing, or try not to think about it at all. Perhaps out of this miasma of threat, something may emerge that we can fight in some way that might be winnable, but right now we’re flying on instruments. Even if those gutsy people on the battlefields never lose a battle, we could go down.
Not defeated yet though. Tally ho, and good luck everyone…
The blitz spirit lies just below the surface and the majority, who are usually silent, will drown out the bleatings of the pc crowd when the time is right.
Britain defeated? How absurd. Real Britons have not yet spoken. They are too busy getting on with their lives. A sleeping lion, once roused, it will valiantly destroy its enemies.
Veryretired,
Agreed. We haven’t even started yet, let alone lost.
I’m also disturbed (more by earlier threads than this one, it has to be said), although not so much by the gloom and depression as by the particular set of events that seem to have triggered it, and especially by the reactions advocated. However, I assume a lot of that is just a briefly awakened anger talking.
There’s more I’d like to say, but much of it has been said already by George Orwell in “England your England”, especially the bit on militarism. I don’t think people understand how the English national character works, not even the English it would seem.
The ones attacking us certainly don’t.
Yes the UK is a defeated nation. Suck it up and deal with it. Or come to America. We haven’t lost…yet
Considering most of our laws come from an illegitimate ‘EU’ government and that the British parliament no longer controls who can and can’t legally enter the country, yes Britain is a defeated nation.
No, just answering the obvious.
Fatuous.
The ones attacking us certainly don’t.
God, how I agree with you! Whether you’re English, or Scots like me, the emotion is just the same. We British are not defeated, not by a long shot! When the real crunch comes we’re the ones who’ll stand up – nothing has changed.
Modern liberalism is the warm bath that keeps you warm as you slowly bleed to death.
Only to the extent that you continue to Europeanize.
Britain is an island. Wales, England, and Scotland are nations.
If the UK state has taken a black eye, you should rejoice and keep swinging.
– Josh
Than ask questions that warrant more of a response. And if you insult the management, expect to get shown the door.
That means nothing. You dislike liberalism, so I assume you are an authoritarian of some unspecified ilk. So your answer is we need more authoritarianism? More socialism? More regulatory statism? More fascism? More Islam? More Feudalism? More Prozac? What? Your remark could mean damn near anything, so please explain.
Very much a matter of opinion. If you think self identified British people do not exist, you are simply wrong. I know many people who would not call themselves English, Scottish or Welsh but only British (although I am not one of them).
When I look at most modern liberal policies, the people that enact them feel very good about themselves but it is a slow form of suicide. We are dismantling the traditions and institutions which make us great in order to please this insatiable chimera called multiculturalism.
Not defeated, merely abdicated.
Defeated? That would imply firstly having put up some sort of fight!
The British Isles are ruled by a Marxist cartel who in take their orders from Brussels, the capital of a foreign land. This hand-over of sovereignty to foreigners took place without any attempt at defense.
Britain is not so much defeated as annexed – in WWII terms they are Austria or Czechoslovakia; the time for ‘ Blitz spirit’ or a ‘finest hour’ has long since come and gone. The Lion is not dozing, but passed away in it’s sleep.
Britain has lost her pride. But has she retained her honour?
British sailors on a UN mission were kidnapped, and the UN did…. nothing.
The EU did…. nothing. NATO qua NATO did nothing in the face of a technical act of war, and a genuine act of international bastardry.
So, for the price of having 15 sailors roughly treated for a fortnight, the UK has found out who its friends are (Hint: who sent an extra Carrier Battle Group into the vicinity), and who they aren’t. Even Soft power must be exercised in order to be effective, and we now know that both France and Germany regard European Solidarity as a Farce.
Oh yes, Britain got humilated, National Pride suffered. But I’m Australian, and we’re not big on Pride. We consider it BS. Nations big on “Pride” to be like the Norks, or Syria, or the like.
National Honour, that’s something else. If it turns out some deal was made, yes, a defeat. But if not, the information gathered about the UK’s Enemies is valuable, and the information gathered about the UK’s “friends” make it a Victory.
Such as…
There is nothing liberal about multiculturalism. Identity politics is actually the lynch-pin of modern democratic socialism. However I am starting to conclude you must be an American and thus when you say ‘liberal’, you actually mean illiberal (i.e. the weird Americanised reversed meaning of the word).
Adam Smith, Hayek and Milton Friedman were ‘liberals’, in the classical sense of the word.
I am sorry to say that americans just don’t get British people. Probably never will. Even though I love them.
We will be polite to everyone way past the point of most nationalities but once you go just that step too far. Then… look out.
(Afterwards, like our family arguments, we will pretend nothing happened.)
Look out because I believe the groundswell of the reaction to this multi culti euro crap is gathering momentum.
The English are a unique nation, see http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/FILES/eng.html. It also seems part of our way of doing things to be partially ruled from abroad, e.g. James 1st, William of Orange, The Georges from Hanover and now the EU. Also immigration seems to be normal for us. I am unable to explain these curiosities but perhaps they contribute in some way to our impact on the world in the last three centuries. No grounds for pessimism that I can see.
I agree that Britons have not spoken yet. I do think its a good sign that Muslims are going back to Muslims countries as more and more people are saying no to their ever increasing demands.
The fact that shows Desi on BBC2 are even having discussions about whether or not multiculturalism is a good thing shows where things are going.
I used to think it would take another major attack on the UK to get the British people to pull their finger out. I think things are changing even without that.
Probably because to do so is now an arrestable (and imprisonable) offense………
Immigration may be, but not invasion and colonization by alien, third-world masses.
“Britain” is an idea, and a good one. You cannot defeat a good idea. Or so we believe.
Secondly, decadence, as an exceptionally interesting philosophy, was at its peak throughout the nineteenth century, and spanned the whole of the “West”. If “Britain” (idea or state – take your pick) is decadent, then perhaps it is rising to new levels of power?
Why don’t you ask the French? They have had much more experience at defeat, ergo, they should know.
No. Britain is not defeated. Quite simply, I don’t think the important parts of Britain – the English center of gravity, have yet begun to fight. (the Intellectual centre, but more importantly ‘Public Opinion’).
It took many years for the true challenge that both Nazi Germany and Tojo’s Japan posed to be truly recognised. The West is still in the Chamberlain phase. I hope we will move to a Churchill phase of our own accord (or possibly be forced to by some Pearl-Harbourish act that forces our hand!).
I’m an Aussie, not a Brit, but I think this sums up the British quite well – sorry it’s long – but the point I will make is that you can’t be defeated until you give up on yourselves. Please don’t do that 🙂 ;
“From: ‘The Origins of the English People’
Author: Beram Saklatvala [publisher, The History Book Club]
From their tiny kingdom lying off the northern shores of Europe the Anglo-Saxon people went out over the world taking their laws, their method of government, and their language with them. They built their colonies in North America, setting out their farms in the wide plains and green valleys of the New World. They peopled Australia and New Zealand. They went into Africa and Asia – governing many different people to whom they taught their language and their law. They planted parliaments in many lands, believing that representational government, and government by consultation and consent were unarguably and self-evidently the best. Some of those parliaments have thrived and some have changed into institutions far different from that at Westminster.
For three hundred years or more they dominated the oceans of the globe and for a brief hundred and fifty years they dominated the world itself. As Rome had dreamed of a world of free citizens, with people of many lands sharing a common law and a common loyalty, so did they dream, and briefly believed the vision was reality. The fashion now is to deride the dream and mock the dreamers of it. Yet the conception was not idle, nor completely unfulfilled. Through it, millions of folk around the world who are not kin to the Anglo-Saxon people have democracy as their ideal and the rule of law as their acknowledged aim.
The Anglo-Saxon people in their own kingdom, their blood and traditions enriched by their neighbours – the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish – have given much to the world, perhaps more than the world now cares to acknowledge. The same folk, enriched by the adventurous and the poor, by the exiled defenders of lost causes, by the dispossesed and the persecuted, who thronged to them from all the countries of Europe, have built a younger and vigorous land in the new world.
Greece had great gifts to offer, but left to the Romans the task of disseminating those gifts throughout the civilised world. The Anglo-Saxon folk have been their own messengers. Rome built the long roads along which Hellenistic thought travelled to Asia Minor, North Africa, Spain and the Yorkshire moors. The Anglo-Saxons built their own ships and their own roads by which were transmitted their ideas of government by consent, of freedom to worship God in any way a man pleases, and of a body of law which binds all men – including Kings and lawmakers. For they have possessed through succeeding ages not only these basic ideas on how society should be organised, but also a great restlessness – the knowledge that the sea is a highway and not a barrier, and the belief that a man may make a home wherever a ship can carry him. A man can exercise his skills anywhere – can rear sheep or raise cattle even though midsummers day blazes in December, can fell a tropic thorn tree as well as a northern oak, and can drive a plough in a vast field many thousand miles westward of his former and smaller farm.
Where did the Anglo-Saxon people obtain these qualities? Their impatience with authority, their obstinacy in defeat, their insistence upon old and inalienable rights, their urge to build new homesteads and new countries overseas – are all these things inherited, and reinforced by a process of natural selection? What were the different ethnic components that made up the whole people, and what were the main events that bought together the many different folk who went to their making?…”
This is certainly a recipe for defeat.