I think you're playing the race card and ignoring the facts. Which is pretty lame.
As a brit, I fully appreciate and understand why some people in the world hate all britons. We've done some bad things as a nation in recent years and people have a right to tar us all with the same brush. I understand why it would be unsafe for me to walk the streets of Kabul or Baghdad. If any brit has a problem with the way other people look at them, it's their job as a citizen in a democracy to affect the change they want to see in people's attitude towards this country and it's people.
Except when it's the French. There's no pleasing those cheese eating surrender monkeys.
> As a brit, I fully appreciate and understand why some people in the world hate all britons. We've done some bad things as a nation in recent years and people have a right to tar us all with the same brush.
Well that's cute, but I disagree. I'm Dutch, we've done some rather bad things in our colonial times, yet it is not okay for Indonesians or South Africans to hate all Dutch. Similarly it is NOT okay for Dutch people to hate all Germans just because they invaded us in 40-45 (WW2), because they took our bikes or because they tend to defeat us in international soccer games.
> If any brit has a problem with the way other people look at them, it's their job as a citizen in a democracy to affect the change they want to see in people's attitude towards this country and it's people.
I'd agree with you on that point if only you weren't highly overestimating the level of influence "any Brit" has on these matters, compared to how much "some Brits" have.
Same for any democracy. Even those mythical ones that work. I'm responsible for my own actions, not for those of some bigshot that claims to represent "me" (one individual in a group of several million of that claim).
If you feel that's not right or self-centred and I should do better, I'll try to take responsibility for my own actions extra hard, but I refuse to take on those of some idiot I hardly have any control over. Best I can do with my little vote is to not vote for Geert Wilders--but as you may or may not have noticed, it didn't help much. So am I to feel responsible for that turdmongler? Fuck no! Yet will I discreetly defecate in the kitchen or bathroom sink of anyone I encounter that appears to subscribe to Wilders' moronic ideas? You can count on it, and that's all the responsibility I will take.
> Except when it's the French. There's no pleasing those cheese eating surrender monkeys.
hur hur hur :-/
I'm all for a bit more humorous light-hearted poking on HN, but I'd rather do without crap like this. Made it real hard to read The Black Swan when Taleb continuously did the same, too.
As a brit, I fully appreciate and understand why some people in the world hate all britons. We've done some bad things as a nation in recent years and people have a right to tar us all with the same brush. I understand why it would be unsafe for me to walk the streets of Kabul or Baghdad. If any brit has a problem with the way other people look at them, it's their job as a citizen in a democracy to affect the change they want to see in people's attitude towards this country and it's people.
Except when it's the French. There's no pleasing those cheese eating surrender monkeys.