The United Kingdom Elections 2010

Originally Posted by Furunculus

straw-man, and absolute bobbins!

there are always nut-cases, they they always shout loud, should I tar germany with the visible presence of their neo-nazi groups...........? no, because it doesn't reflect germany as a whole.

clegg is talking utter guff, and repellent guff at that. i do not want him representing me.

The phenomenon which I and Clegg are talking about has nothing in common with the far-right. The far-right is a minority group of mentally challenged extrremists. Anti-German sentiment in the UK is something which is far deeper and more insitutionalised.

80 per cent of British schoolchildren, when asked what they associated with Germany, mentioned the Second World War, and 50 per cent mentioned Hitler. Even John Cleese hates it, saying at a competition at the German Embassy ""I’m delighted to help with trying to break down the ridiculous anti-German prejudices of the tabloids and clowns like Basil Fawlty, who are pathetically stuck in a world view that’s more than half a century out of date...I think the German contribution to literature and philosophy is extraordinary, and to music and science is enormous.". To say that this a "strawman" argument is to say that we live in a nation of scarecrows.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/worl...ugh.2442846.jp
http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~joyce1/ab.../whygerm1.html

Originally Posted by Subotan

The phenomenon which I and Clegg are talking about has nothing in common with the far-right. The far-right is a minority group of mentally challenged extrremists. Anti-German sentiment in the UK is something which is far deeper and more insitutionalised.

80 per cent of British schoolchildren, when asked what they associated with Germany, mentioned the Second World War, and 50 per cent mentioned Hitler. Even John Cleese hates it, saying at a competition at the German Embassy ""I’m delighted to help with trying to break down the ridiculous anti-German prejudices of the tabloids and clowns like Basil Fawlty, who are pathetically stuck in a world view that’s more than half a century out of date...I think the German contribution to literature and philosophy is extraordinary, and to music and science is enormous.". To say that this a "strawman" argument is to say that we live in a nation of scarecrows.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/worl...ugh.2442846.jp
http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~joyce1/ab.../whygerm1.html

This is something pressed by the government, almost the entire history curriculum from GCSE onwards is either 1914-46, with a focus on Germany, or is more generally about Israel!

no wonder we have anti-German prejudice ingrained in the school children.

Originally Posted by Subotan

80 per cent of British schoolchildren, when asked what they associated with Germany, mentioned the Second World War

I don't quite see why you are surprised or shocked by that statistic? The biggest single contribution (if it can be called that) Germany has made to history is World War Two, that event has shaped everything that has happened in the last 60 years. That doesn't mean they haven't made other contributions, and it doesn't mean we can't recognise those other contributions to science, literature, etc, but it also doesn't mean we should ignore or forget what happened.

There is an important difference between understanding and recognising history (which should be encouraged) and trying to continually blame people for it (which should be discouraged). Obviously when you have people randomly insulting German tourists then there is a problem, but pointing out those people and saying they represent everyone in England is just as bad a stereotype and, as explained above, using a statistic that says schoolchildren associate Germany with WW2 does not prove that they all then hold a negative view because of that.