Comment 4 on Ashley Farrish's Being Bad blog - Patriotism

Patriotism - or the lack of

I think a discussion on patriotism as suggested by Ashley in his Being Bad blog would be a good idea for week 12. I believe that Brits are way less patriotic than years ago, and i think that is definitely bad. Perhaps the lack of it reflects in the attitude of the ASBO culture that exists on some estates and among some cultures in the UK. The rise of ASBO's and the decrease of patriotism could be linked, after all, if you are proud to be part of something and are loyal to your homeland, you wouldn't wreck and ruin it or milk it dry dry for benefits as some people do in our country. I mean, who actually celebrates St Georges Day in the UK? Apparently the number of ASBO's issued last year decreased by 34% compared to previous years but I'm sure its pretty easy to fiddle the figures. Have a look at the ASBO history timeline.




I once worked a delivery driver using my own vehicle. Being proud to be British i put the St Georges Cross on the back of my car as i do with all my cars. Unfortunately my boss who was not British said that the sticker had to be removed as it was upsetting workers of other nationalities. What a load of crap. Maybe the lack of patriotism is linked to the increase in our PC culture, because no matter what anyone does these day there always seems to be something wrong with it, like its upsetting certain religions or races. I think these days people have forgotten the sacrifices that were made for Britain to be free during the World Wars and this is also reflected in what is taught in schools these days. I think that's enough of that or people will be slating me no doubt.

Social class and bad behaviour
After discussing the notion of being bad with my family and friends, it was easy to see the differences in opinions about certain things. When i asked my pals how bad they thought certain thing were, like adultery, it was obvious that the older generation believed things like this were a lot worse than people in my age group. However, i noted it was also social class that affected the answers. My friend who i would say is working class and lives on a council estate said having an affair and cheating on your partner wasn't actually that bad and was just a part of life that happens to everyone at sometime. However my mom said it is really bad and should be punishable Bobbitt style (the guy who got his bits chopped off) for men. People i know who were brought up a lot more shall we say 'loosely' than i was believe that things classed as evil by my parents are not really that bad. Maybe its this change in attitudes that has seen affairs and adultery increase over the years.

Cashing in on bad behaviour

Something i was thinking about today was should people who are bad be allowed to cash in on their behaviour and make money from it? There are endless examples, the Kray Twins, who sold millions of books and had a film about them made, Nick Leeson, who they made a film about after his illegal gambling with other peoples money whilst he worked at a bank nearly crashed the words finances, the list is endless. Its mental there seem to be no laws that prevent bad people from cashing in on their behaviour. Its even worse when there are victims left behind picking up the pieces while the person who ruined it for them is making a killing. Another one that springs to mind is octuplets mother Mandy Allwood who lost all of her eight babies yet continues to cash in on her losses. The question is does she have a right to do this? It makes me wonder if she should be considered responsible for the deaths after taking fertility drugs without her doctor knowing, then continuing the pregnancy to the end despite pleas from doctors to terminate some of the foetuses to give the others a chance. Either way, she supposedly got a million pounds for her story and is now making more with the furor over the recent octuplets. If there was no money to be made from her pregnancy, would she have still continued with all 8 of the babies to the end? or did she realise aborting some of them makes her story less spectacular and therefore worth less money? I understand that fertility drugs are worth their weight in gold to childless couples, but who needs and can justify wanting eight? I think she can be classed as bad for continuing with all of them even though she knew the chance of all of them surviving was very slim. Of course that's just my opinion, but she already had 3 kids so she can't be classified as desperate and childless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_and_Lorena_Bobbitt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krays
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorena_Bobbitt
http://beingbadwolv.blogspot.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/27/asbo.timeline