The 'British' debate.

[Bear]

Its the ones that come here and leech of our benefits system that get me... At the Hotel where my dad works for instance, they have several Polish immigrants working there who refuse to work for more then 20 hours a week as if they do they then can't get housing benefits, working credit top ups, or free health care such as the dentists and opticians. They're the ones that really get to me as they came over with their girlfriends who were pregnant, had the babies here so they're classes as British and then are refusing to intergrate by sticking to their own special polish goods shops that have opened etc... they're the ones that really piss me off as its so obvious they're exploiting the system.

[Tenjen]

people are threading on very thin ground when accusing immigrants or bringing in gang culture, raping women and stabbing british youth.

from what ive seen. thats nothign to do with nationality. all sortsa kids are running around in gangs and stabbing each other. All sorts of kids and adults are raping each other in the UK and every other country in the world. Its not a nationality thing. Its a people thing. People are filth.

please avoid vast generalizations. even if you do not mean to do so. Passive racism does exist.

Most of the immigrants contribute a large amount to your society.

In America, illegal immigrants contribute about 10 times more to society than the amount they take. I should check the link to the academic journal, iam sure i ahve it as i had an essay on illegal entry a few years ago.

People in arab countries can do the same thing as well to foriegners. Such as a british couple in the UAE itself who were caught having sex on a public beach, the drunk lady who tried to open a plane door as it took off and then abused and tried to beat up the flight hostess. These few bad examples can ruin it for everyone.

in the end. people are just assholes. People are just filth. It transcends nationality and borders in a way that more virtous ideals can only dream of.

many of UK's miseries are more self induced compared to externally induced.

and for that matter. Indian friends of mine and people i know or are close to my family, who go to britain and canada and the US, jsut to get the passports and nationalities and then come back here calling themselves and insist they are ">insert western nationality here< and try to put on fake accents, make me sick to my core.

[Pneumonica]

In America, illegal immigrants contribute about 10 times more to society than the amount they take. I should check the link to the academic journal, iam sure i ahve it as i had an essay on illegal entry a few years ago.

I have to take issue with this statement. While I don't want to get into a numbers war, I will point out that illegal immigrants funnel US currency out of the United States. (Note - I don't think this is a conspiracy, it's just a side effect.) They do this most often to provide support to themselves for when they end up (often unexpectedly) going back (nest eggs go to the nation of origin). The problem with this is that there's vastly more US currency outside of the US than within it, and the more currency leaves the country the more debased the currency becomes.

Legal immigrants actually spend a good deal of their money here, since they are more invested (figuratively and literally) in their presence here. While they do often end up taking money back to their home nations, they don't do nearly so much - instead, they bring much more of their wealth in the form of possessions purchased in the United States. More of the money that they earn is reinvested into the United States economy.

In either case, the contributions of immigrants to the United States is never in the form of currency (again, not a judgement of the value of their contribution, merely a description of the type).

At any rate, one cannot claim to have entered a country to provide any betterment to it if the very act of entering the nation broke its laws unless one is entering the country in order to violate its laws (such as the cases of illegal immigrants into countries ruled by tyrants to aid in resistance cells, as happened in France in WWII). If you wish to be supportive to a nation and to the government that operates that nation, you must, by definition, be a legal part of it. I'm not saying you need citizenship (certainly not - I expect citizens of other nations to be patriots as much as I am), but I am saying you need legal residency.

[Tenjen]

True.

The values surveyed, if i remember, was based on productivity generated from their work and labor force activities. Rather than monetary spending and activities.

THey can do that legally too and if they can contribute that much illegally, then legally they can do much more.

but the situation is not a matter of choice for them. If they had the avenues available, they wouldnt be risking thier lives. Many pay phenominal amounts to have a live threatening trip to get into the US.

Hell the UAE has a huge problem with illegal immigrants. Now more so because criminal aspects are using thier routes to get in now. However there was an amnesty period where illegal workers were free to leave the country last year or so. That is...under the knowledge that after the amnesty period, the government was gonna clamp down hard on the whole matter.

Their bringing up a ID card system here now. and bio checks at airports and docks. [eye scans, thumb print scans etc].

*******************

Mind you, we get a lot of richards and chavs moving here for the night life. They dont make a good impression. THough its actually the large british presence here that loathes them the most.

[Bear]

and for that matter. Indian friends of mine and people i know or are close to my family, who go to britain and canada and the US, jsut to get the passports and nationalities and then come back here calling themselves and insist they are ">insert western nationality here< and try to put on fake accents, make me sick to my core.

See.. thats the sort that I take issue with, the ones who are their to deliberately exploit the system and call themselves >insert nationality here< when they are not and have no intention of ever being. Thats why I dislike being called British as it lumps me in with them.

And its not everyone that takes offense at it, just some people. Scottish and Irish people don't like being called British as they think it means they're being called English, which they're not. Its different for everyone, but in effect alot of it is the same as calling a Canadian an American for instance.

I was just putting accross the other points of why I personally dislike being refered to as British. I'm not offended by it though if someone does.

[Tenjen]

People who i know who are british fully accept being called so.

BUt many of t heir own friends have that nationalistic pride of being one of English/Scottish/IRish/Welsh and dont like being thrown together all in one pot with the others.

[Bear]

Yeah, basically it boils down to what people feel comfortable with calling their own national identity, and how history, politics etc have effected or distorted that veiwpoint.

Like.. your in Uraguay... I don't know how it is there but I'd guess you'd probably take offense at being called Brazilian... its the same sort of principle at least in my mind.

[Bear]

Its's on the East Coast of South American between Brazil and Argentina

But as you get now, its kind of the same principle at the basic uncomplicated level that the different groups don't want to be grouped together for their various reasons.

[Bear]

Mmm.. double everything

*snugs a T2B*

Now to attempt to distill it down to teach your students and confuse the hell out of them ;)

[Phoenix]

Yeesh, Steph really dislikes me, as this is the 3rd or so time she's chosen to over-analyse a comment I've made. I'll elaborate on it tomorrow. But you can rest assured that you misinterpreted what I posted

[Pfhreak]

Great Britain refers to E, S, W and N.I
United Kingdom refers to E, S, W only.

google it.

You have it backwards. First few Google hits for each:

United Kingdom:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom
https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/uk.html
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108078.html

Great Britain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Great_Britain
http://www.great-britain.co.uk/
http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/scotland/britain.html

"Great Britain is the term used for the island containing the contiguous nations¹ of England, Scotland and Wales....England, Scotland and Wales together with the province of Northern Ireland, form the country officially known as 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' or simply the United Kingdom."

...Now that you mention Americans, I don't like very much to speak about the US as America, as in fact America is a whole continent. But I don't want to start a discussion on this topic, because I would be a hypocrite if I did it. Despite I don't like it, I use the terms "Americans" or "America" (to refer to the US) many times, as I was taught that this is the appropriate way (and I have to teach that to my students). However, when I can, I try to avoid using those words. Anyway, let's not start another debate, please.

Unfortunately, English doesn't have a separate demonym for people from the United States of America, nothing equivalent to "estadounidense".

[Don Alexander]

I'm gone a few hours... and a thread of four pages length full of very strong emotions developed from a word I used which I actually considered to be better than another one...

Ok, I think it was my fault that this debate started.

Well, it was me who used the B-Word...

It's an issue I feel VERY strongly on, and my usual response to being called "British" is by being very aggressive, and insisting on an apology.

Well, luckily, I didn't call you that. And the two guys who I did give the moniker did not seem offended.

I'll even tell you why I used it. Firstly, I was utterly unaware of so many people from "across the channel" hating this word... My reason was that I know (or assume to be true) that people from Wales and Scotland are often very nationalistic and utterly hate being called "English". So I wanted to generalize a bit and include the whole island, just in case I made a geographic miss (But then, seems all people from the England part of the British Isles actually write "England" as their country... And people historically despise us Germans for being nationailsts??? ).

Anyway, you, phoenix, placed me in the US, which is an unforgivable crime in itself, so you have no reason to complain to me.

I'll also note that this thread has remained peculiarly on-topic...

Otherwise, I'll keep out of this discussion, it seems to easy to step on people's feet totally innocuously.

[Don Alexander]

We're both to blame, as usual It was me who asked the question and who gave the definition of the British Isles. Anyway, I apologised for any possible offence I may have caused, as you did.

Ah, but I didn't... I just explained myself, that's different from an apology. I apologize if I've done something wrong and actually consider it to have been wrong later. I'll not apologize here!
Anyhow, I did not call phoenix B... so all is cool.

[Tenjen]

i have some actual british indian friends as well. Their parents migrated there, stayed there, lived there and had them. THey pretty much dont know any life out of being british.

[Bear]

See... everyone is capable of keeping on topic without the threat of Beary-Wrath descending upon them