According to the British Army, It’s Extremist to Be a Patriot
Love of Britain suspect in an army which serves at the pleasure of Washington, DC
According to the British Army it is extremist to be patriotic. In a startling confirmation that political correctness is no longer the sole preserve of woke students and Corbyn-loving trustafarians and now has virtually every institution in the land in its deathly, censorious grip, the army – the actual army – has decreed that loving one’s nation too much is a sign of a warped, diseased mind.
When soldiers – the people expected to give their lives to defend the nation – are being instructed that fondness for your nation is an iffy attribute, you know modern Britain is in serious moral trouble.
The ‘patriotism as extremism’ decree came in an internal army document on the giveaway signs for right-wing extremism. Army chiefs are told to look out for certain ‘indicators and warnings’ that an individual soldier might be leaning towards an ‘extreme right-wing’ outlook. These indicators include referring to oneself as a ‘patriot’, becoming ‘increasingly angry’ about ‘perceived injustices and threats to so-called “national identity”’, using the word ‘Islamofascism’, and describing political correctness as a ‘left-wing or communist plot’.
What is bizarre, if not outright perverse, about these indicators of ‘right-wing extremism’ is that just a few years ago such outlooks would have been seen as essential attributes for every aspiring soldier. Patriotism? Surely that’s a necessary moral and political principle for the young men and women expected to risk life and limb in defence of the country? Feeling angry about threats to national identity? Surely that, too, is a pretty good emotion for defenders of the nation to feel? If the people we encourage to take up arms against the nation’s enemies are not allowed to feel strongly about threats to national identity, what is the point of having an army at all?
As for labelling the use of phrases like ‘Islamofascism’ or ‘PC is a left-wing plot’ as warning signs of right-wing extremism, that is just a transparent and deeply sinister attempt to thought-police soldiers and punish them for holding certain views. Views, it should be noted, that a great many people hold. I’m not a fan of the term ‘Islamofacism’ and I think it’s far too simplistic to refer to the culture of PC as a ‘communist plot’, but many good, normal people do refer to Islamist terrorists’ mass slaughter of their fellow citizens as a form of fascism and do believe that PC is the handiwork of left-wing cliques. There’s nothing wrong with these views. They certainly aren’t proof that someone is descending into a skinhead-style nutty extremism.
The idea that using the word ‘Islamofascism’ makes you a bit of a fascist is possibly the most striking thing about the army’s mad list of indicators. One of the most serious threats to Britain’s national security at the moment is extreme Islamist terrorism. Hundreds of British citizens have been killed both at home and abroad by Islamist terrorists in recent years. Many British soldiers are among the dead.
To pathologise and demonise soldiers’ strong feelings about the Islamist terrorist threat – so that any squaddie who says something like ‘fuck these Islamofascists’ can be reported to his superiors for extremist speech – strikes me as utterly self-defeating and a sign of the moral rot afflicting Britain’s political and military institutions. Although maybe talking about the moral rot of the elites is an indicator of extremism, too?
There is nothing extreme or evil in love for one’s nation. There is nothing wrong with calling oneself a patriot. There is nothing bad in wanting to stand up for a sense of national identity. Many people feel these things. And soldiers are trained to feel these things. An army that views patriotism as dangerous and standing up for Britain as suspect is an army that will soon be incapable of defending the country from external threats.
Source: spiked
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BRENDAN O’NEILL IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“According to the British Army, It’s Extremist to Be a Patriot
Love of Britain suspect in an army which serves at the pleasure of Washington, DC
The Decline of Western Civilization”
“When soldiers – the people expected to give their lives to defend the nation – are being instructed that fondness for your nation is an iffy attribute, you know modern Britain is in serious moral trouble.”
As far as it goes, yes, that is true.
But when you add: “What is bizarre, if not outright perverse, about these indicators of ‘right-wing extremism’ is that just a few years ago such outlooks would have been seen as essential attributes for every aspiring soldier,” I stop agreeing. You’ve literally changed the subject without saying so.
Whether you like it or not, the West does have a problem today with extreme right-wing patriot types.
I’m not saying there’s any problem with simple love or fondness for one’s country.
Simple affection for one’s country is entirely a different thing than aggressive patriotism. It’s a little like comparing enjoying and having a fondness for one’s food with being a voracious hog who shoves others out of the way.
I’m referring to the “patriotism” Dr Johnson characterized brilliantly as “the last refuge of scoundrels” about two hundred and fifty years ago.
In that statement and in his rightly contemptuous words about “drivers of negroes speaking of liberty,” Johnson was referring to men like Thomas Jefferson, the greatest hypocrite in American history and, interestingly, a heroic figure for many of today’s extremists (See my link at the end of this).
There are many people with rather dark intentions who hide them behand the mask of patriotism, just as has been the case for centuries with certain people hiding their intentions behind the mask of religion.
Patriotism, of the extreme American type (“Love it or leave it,” “My country, right or wrong”), is after all just another form of extreme religious belief, of religious fanaticism, a secular form, just as communism and Nazism were.
Just look at the asinine example of Trump with his photo-ops of hugging and kissing the flag and the most extreme outbursts of patriotic nonsense. The man avoided service when it was his turn on the flimsiest excuse (see my link at the end of this), and he speaks contemptuously in public of many Americans just exercising their rights, and he is a man who would make a deal with the devil if there was enough in it for him.
Indeed, he already has made such deals, concerning Jerusalem and the Golan – things not in his gift to give away – and threatening an ugly, unnecessary war with Iran, and in the appointment to his government of men fit to serve in the old Gestapo or the Stasi – Bolton, Pompeo, and Abrams.
He has absolutely no principles beyond satisfying an immense ego. Yet he hugs the flag, salutes at parades, wears a flag lapel pin always, and likes to dress-up when addressing the troops in things like custom-made bomber jackets. All this while sending others off to die for meaningless imperial goals and killing innocents in many lands when he thinks they are in his way. He is the perfect example of corrupt and dangerous “patriotism,” very dangerous patriotism.
The poisonous stuff Dr Johnson condemned so long ago. And his words were just as meaningful as historic figures who warned of the Catholic Church’s corrupt and absolute hold on society centuries ago or of the threat of Soviet communism or of the equal threat of fascism in 1930s Europe.
We are never free of such things. Societies never reach a blissful equilibrium free of threats, although it is such a common illusion in the West that our societies have indeed reached just such a state. We must always be analyzing and criticizing what appears threatening. That is just part of the human condition.
See:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/john-chuckman-comment-trump-as-the-most-american-of-presidents-a-claim-which-should-infuriate-both-his-supporters-and-opponents/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/11/21/john-chuckman-comment-patriotism-and-nationalism-much-like-religion-in-blindly-praising-the-insupportable-nations-like-people-come-in-all-types-and-many-hardly-deserve-praise-patriotism-is-a-to/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-remarkable-case-of-thomas-jefferson-he-wasnt-at-all-what-so-many-think-he-was-how-the-needs-of-politics-can-twist-and-exploit-historical-figures-and-myth-making-as-a/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-how-american-politics-really-work-why-there-are-terrible-candidates-and-constant-wars-and-peoples-problems-are-ignored-why-heroes-like-julian-assange-are-persecuted-and-r/
USA/Washington DC, is a sub corporation, of the British Empire, having been incorporated under the RothsRats British Empire law, which is owned and run by the Rats.
Rats in the “government” of occupied England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland.
Rats in the “government” of the occupied 47 North American States, two republics and one Polynesian Kingdom.
Rats occupying the Semitic Palestinian’s land.
In times of old, when the Rats had multiplied to the point they had become more than a nuisance, had become a public health hazard, the people would come together, have a big ole Rat killing.
World needs a good ole community Rat killing.
“When soldiers – the people expected to give their lives to defend the nation – are being instructed that fondness for your nation is an iffy attribute, you know modern Britain is in serious moral trouble.”
As far as it goes, yes, that is true.
But when you add: “What is bizarre, if not outright perverse, about these indicators of ‘right-wing extremism’ is that just a few years ago such outlooks would have been seen as essential attributes for every aspiring soldier,” I stop agreeing. You’ve literally changed the subject without saying so.
Whether you like it or not, the West does have a problem today with extreme right-wing patriot types.
I’m not saying there’s any problem with simple love or fondness for one’s country.
Simple affection for one’s country is entirely a different thing than aggressive patriotism. It’s a little like comparing enjoying and having a fondness for one’s food with being a voracious hog who shoves others out of the way.
I’m referring to the “patriotism” Dr Johnson characterized brilliantly as “the last refuge of scoundrels” about two hundred and fifty years ago.
In that statement and in his rightly contemptuous words about “drivers of negroes speaking of liberty,” Johnson was referring to men like Thomas Jefferson, the greatest hypocrite in American history and, interestingly, a heroic figure for many of today’s extremists (See my link at the end of this).
There are many people with rather dark intentions who hide them behand the mask of patriotism, just as has been the case for centuries with certain people hiding their intentions behind the mask of religion.
Patriotism, of the extreme American type (“Love it or leave it,” “My country, right or wrong”), is after all just another form of extreme religious belief, of religious fanaticism, a secular form, just like communism and Nazism were.
Just look at the asinine example of Trump with his photo-ops of hugging and kissing the flag and the most extreme outbursts of patriotic nonsense. The man avoided service when it was his turn on the flimsiest excuse (see my link at the end of this), and he speaks contemptuously in public of many Americans just exercising their rights, and he is a man who would make a deal with the devil if there was enough in it for him.
Indeed, he already has made such deals, concerning Jerusalem and the Golan – things not in his gift to give away – and threatening an ugly, unnecessary war with Iran, and in the appointment to his government of men fit to serve in the old Gestapo or the Stasi – Bolton, Pompeo, and Abrams.
He has absolutely no principles beyond satisfying an immense ego. Yet he hugs the flag, salutes at parades, wears a flag lapel pin always, and likes to dress-up when addressing the troops in things like custom-made bomber jackets. All this while sending others off to die for meaningless imperial goals and killing innocents in many lands when he thinks they are in his way. He is the perfect example of corrupt and dangerous “patriotism,” very dangerous patriotism.
The poisonous stuff Dr Johnson condemned so long ago. And his words were just as meaningful as historic figures who warned of the Catholic Church’s corrupt and absolute hold on society centuries ago or of the threat of Soviet communism or of the equal threat of fascism in 1930s Europe.
We are never free of such things. Societies never reach a blissful equilibrium free of threats, although it is such a common illusion in the West that our societies have indeed reached just such a state. We must always be analyzing and criticizing what appears threatening. That is just part of the human condition.
See:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/john-chuckman-comment-trump-as-the-most-american-of-presidents-a-claim-which-should-infuriate-both-his-supporters-and-opponents/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/11/21/john-chuckman-comment-patriotism-and-nationalism-much-like-religion-in-blindly-praising-the-insupportable-nations-like-people-come-in-all-types-and-many-hardly-deserve-praise-patriotism-is-a-to/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-remarkable-case-of-thomas-jefferson-he-wasnt-at-all-what-so-many-think-he-was-how-the-needs-of-politics-can-twist-and-exploit-historical-figures-and-myth-making-as-a/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-how-american-politics-really-work-why-there-are-terrible-candidates-and-constant-wars-and-peoples-problems-are-ignored-why-heroes-like-julian-assange-are-persecuted-and-r/
“Tthe actual army has decreed that loving one’s nation too much is a sign of a warped, diseased mind”.
Had already before suspicion there was something not right in the minds of the British Generals. Now it has been acknowledged.
The Royal Army, Royal Navy including “their Royals” and Royal Air Force have loved their nation too much.
Did the Generals decide to cancel the oat you give shortly after starting servicing with one of the Royal Forces?
If not, is the oat only loyalty to the queen and not loyal to the country?
If so, all British generals of the War Department should make an appointment with their psychiatrist.