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Originally Posted by OngBonga
poop, do you identify as anything? You say "nativist" like it's a dirty word, but to me it's instinctive to feel a sense of nativism. It's not even like I'm proud to be English, I can think of many other countries I'd rather be from, but I am from England, I am English, that's who I am. All that means to me is I have a birth right to live in this country. It just so happens that right extends to the rest of the UK, not just England, and I probably could live in Wales, I'm only ten miles away as it is, but I could never identify as Welsh, that would seem ridiculous to me. I'm British by law, and English by identity. I could move to New Zealand and gain citizenship, but I would never call myself a Kiwi.
None of this applies to me. I don't have any sense that I belong within some arbitrary set of lines drawn on a map sometime in history. That's all artificial to me.
Originally Posted by OngBonga
I would feel like a guest in any other country, even if I was a citizen.
Even if you'd lived there for 20 years? How long until you stopped walking on your tiptoes?
I'm not a UK citizen either. It's another arbitrary category that I don't care about.
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Citizenship is law, nationality is identity. You can be British, but you can't be English, or Scottish. Well, you can if you want, but to me it's ridiculous, like putting a dress on and calling yourself female.
I don't claim to be British or Scottish or any of those things. But as long as I work here and pay taxes here and contribute to educating people and don't hassle my neighbors and don't break the law why shouldn't I have to right to a voice? You wouldn't deny me the right to vote (I presume), but you want me to shut up and defer to the locals when it comes to political issues that affect me as much as they affect them, just because I wasn't born here? Sorry, that's not happening.
More generally, I'm a citizen of the world. I care what happens to all people in all countries. That's why I bash Trump so much, he's a parasite on the USA. Funny though no-one complains that I should stop doing that because I'm not American (or at least not here).
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