Why Does the United Kingdom Try to be a 'Good' Country?

BM – with its daily sales down to about 25,000 from a high in its heady years of 400,000 then it will disappear without many noticing. However the i continues and might well increase it’s current sales of nearly 300,000 under its new ownership. The aforementioned Mrs CH will applaud that!!

If anyone takes a single news outlet with a known political bias and sets it up as some sort of source of truth (or worse ‘common sense’) then they are fooling themselves.

Meanwhile, the only newspaper in the UK without a professed political leaning and an agenda of independent thinking.. the Independent.. is quietly disappearing almost without anyone even noticing.

“source of truth…”

That, must of course be the D.Tel.

I didn’t realise that you’d be so appreciative.

Well, as I said: “Why does the United Kingdom try to be a ‘good’ country?”

I did not say the United Kingdom was a good country, or even a ‘good’ country; I said why did we try.

Why would you think that the UK tries to be a “good” country? I’m not even sure what that means.

The Deep State within the UK, as with all nations, acts according to its interests — its own interests, and (we shall grant for the sake of argument) what it perceives to be the nation’s interests. Undoubtedly the Deep State believes its actions and policies to be justified, else it would not pursue those actions and policies. The rationale it offers to the general citizenry to justify those actions and policies may or may not differ from what it articulates internally.

The most plausible interpretation of your notion of the UK trying to be “good” country concerns the notion of being a good “international citizen” in the form of engaging with international institutions, upholding international law, and so forth. But in this the United Kingdom is no different from any other nation: it upholds international law and engages with international institutions when doing so serves its interests (see above) and it violates or denigrates international law and international institutions when it does not (as in the case of Assange).

The differing propensity for nations to ‘respect’ international law and institutions is partly a function of their structural and geopolitical realities (e.g. weaker states tend to favour international law and international/multilateral institutions as protecting their interests, while stronger states tend to ignore or deprecate them as obstructing their interests) and also a function of the extent to which they were involved in writing the rules in the first place (obviously if one wrote the rules one will tend to find them generally amenable) and the extent to which the circumstances under which those rules were written or acceded to still obtain. In all cases nations pursue their own interests, and there is nothing ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to be said about their propensity to respect international law and international institutions. At most one can observe the hypocrisy of a nation’s words in contrast with its actions, or the one-sided nature of international instruments such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — one-sided according to the configurations of power that obtained at the time.

As an aside, you can be certain that there are people in Moscow right now asking why Russia bothers trying to be a “good” country.

I noticed…

If anyone takes a single news outlet with a known political bias and sets it up as some sort of source of truth (or worse ‘common sense’) then they are fooling themselves.

Meanwhile, the only newspaper in the UK without a professed political leaning and an agenda of independent thinking.. the Independent.. is quietly disappearing almost without anyone even noticing.

It wasn’t a joke, rather an observation as borne out by recent events…It was in all the papers.

I’m disappointed you’d accuse someone you don’t know of making a joke on the subject whereas the accusations against Assang are well known.

Oh. Well, thats alright then. I assumed it was a joke made at the expense of, for example, Saville’s victims (or even the alleged victims of Assang) when in fact you weren’t making a joke at all – surprisingly you were serious.

Ok, so what job would you propose for him? Consider that Assang has not been convicted, is merely accused although his manner of avoiding the law has not done the principle of being innocent until proven guilty any favours, and the fact that the sex offenders you are probably referring to were all employed BEFORE their crimes were discovered makes your observation rather fatuous.

Glad to see you’re the typical Fox hater, They’re always so fair and objective.

Fox News, fair and objective? If you are of the correct sex, religion, social demographic, sexual inclination, race, political viewpoint, age, nationality even – then they are fair and objective. Otherwise – forget it: you only have to look at the many websites that point out where their presenters and guests have put their feet metaphorically in their mouths to see that the Fox News agenda is to tell right wing America what it wants to hear in the face of truth and honesty.

Guess we can see which side of the political spectrum you inhabit.

If you met me you’d recognise the nervous twitch.

Oh I appreciated the levity – hence the tongue in cheek reply. Both with Tyke wives, eh BM?!

Mrs BM too. She’s a staunch supporter of the People’s Front of Yorkshire, and believes it should have its independence. ‘God’s Own Country’ indeed.

Weak attempt at levity, realising it was all getting too serious (mea culpa).

BM nominated Yorkshire – which was not a country last time I looked – at least not unless you were born there!! I do appreciate for those who were, which include Mrs CH, it is “god’s own country”!!:rolleyes:

Don’t get it…..did I spell something wrong?

Ah – we’re talking about COUNTIES, are we??:D

May I nominate Yorkshire?

And by convenient corollary we have one of the pieces of the puzzle to the question posed by the OP: because the past is either forgotten or distorted to serve the needs of (those in power in) the present.

Well, as I said: “Why does the United Kingdom try to be a ‘good’ country?”

I did not say the United Kingdom was a good country, or even a ‘good’ country; I said why did we try.

By definition, you cannot try to do something that is already in the past! And anyway, how far into the past do you think we should go when making a judgement? If you are suggesting that the United Kingdom isn’t, or hasn’t been, a good country you’ll have no trouble in proposing a whole list of countries that are good countries, or at least better countries than the United Kingdom.

This covers a lot of this thread’s subjects off nicely – why it’s hard to be an objective and and fair person and NOT a ‘Fox Hater’ (Tally-Ho), why one can’t help fearing for Assange even if he is a prat, AND the fact that we have some values around what is acceptable and what isn’t (regardless of law, it seems) that seem increasingly different to even our close cousins.

Bob Beckel, speaking as a salaried pundit on a Fox ‘News’ business slot:

“A dead man can’t leak stuff. This guy’s a traitor, he’s treasonous, and he has broken every law of the United States. And I’m not for the death penalty, so…there’s only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch.”

He was upset because Wikileaks were involved in the release of footage of a US Apache attacking a crowd of civilians, including children, at a road junction – with 30mm cannon.

Bear in mind that this man was fired from Fox, but not for the reasons a Brit might expect (incitement to murder). It was due to ‘illness’, though industry gossip alleges it was for being too liberal.

I have never heard anyone compare Julian Assange to Martin Luther King. It is certainly the case that they were both detested by the same kinds of people, however, i.e. right-wing authoritarian nationalists. Will Assange’s reputation in official and polite society undergo the same kind of convenient post-mortem metamorphosis as that of Martin Luther King? Short of a revolution, I doubt it.

And by convenient corollary we have one of the pieces of the puzzle to the question posed by the OP: because the past is either forgotten or distorted to serve the needs of (those in power in) the present.

I have heard that some people think that Mr. Assange is a latter day equivalent of Martin Luther King .

It wasn’t a joke, rather an observation as borne out by recent events…It was in all the papers.

I’m disappointed you’d accuse someone you don’t know of making a joke on the subject whereas the accusations against Assang are well known.

Glad to see you’re the typical Fox hater, They’re always so fair and objective.

If he’s been accused of sexual assault, surely that would put him in line for a well paying job at the BBC.

And if he’d was a right wing misogynistic bigot, with barely disguised racist views, would that make him suitable for the role of a talking head on Fox News or should he just run for president instead?

If you truly believe that sexual assault is a subject to be joked about then you are a damned fool who everyone should pity; as it is just grow up and leave the talking to the adults.

If he’s been accused of sexual assault, surely that would put him in line for a well paying job at the BBC.