AIBU to not want to go to war

[TemporaryPosition]

It's expensive and it hurts and it helps nothing, it just puts innocent sons, brothers, fathers, uncles and friends through the meat grinder. The only people who benefit are those who make a fortune from selling weapons and are granted contracts for reconstruction.

Haven't we learnt anything? What happened to "never again".

AIBU to really really really not want to be involved in any war?

I do think.there is a difference between having war on your own soil or continent or chosing to go to war somewhere else. There are still enough Europeans alive to know how it feels to be invaded especially by Russia.
So no America does not know how it feels to have your own country invaded and due to its size geographical position probably never will.
Also let's not kid ourselves a lot of wars were started by America themselves due to meddling all over the world, Afghanistan anyone.

@TemporaryPosition

Do you have a national or ethnic identity? You are living in Scotland but not Scottish. I'm not very interested in football either but I recognise that Rangers/Celtic is not the same as Hibs/Hearts - it's also very, very different in Glasgow than other parts of Scotland.

Re Welsh culture, you get a dozen Welsh people singing Hymns and Arias and you've got a choir! The rest of us just belt out our anthems.

I find it extremely difficult to believe a Scot would think they're no different to the English. The Scottish side of my family would strongly disagree with that idea!

Not entirely though, as they will have formed a different cultural identity growing up and that makes a big difference. For instance I grew up in England, with a Finnish mother, and moved to Finland at 20. I will never have the same Finnishness as those that grew up here, despite always being Finnish and always having a strong connection to Finland (almost every holiday was in Finland for example), because my childhood experiences in England shaped my identity so strongly.

Yup, its an entirely difference experience of war when you're the invading country and not the country being invaded.

I agree.

I'm Scottishish, but have always felt an outsider, both where I live and my ethnic homeland. I don't fully belong to either.

There are posters here saying we already are at war.

People keep saying this. And then dissappear when I ask them to lay out what those differences are.

Haggis, Katie Morag, Buckfast... they're not really cultural differences. Let me put it another way then, using these metrics the regional and class differences of Scots are greater between one another than as a whole between England or rUK taking into account similar regional and class differences within these too. Kind of like men and women. If someone insists that women are different to men, they're talking about more than how they wear their hair or how their clothes are cut. And people get very uncomfortable talking about any differences that aren't entirely superficial and argue about it because they can think of so many exceptions the rule is undermined. So maybe differences are alcohol and drug use, knife crime, but I don't want to paint such a poor picture. It seems the main difference is the national identity itself, rather than something anyone can put their finger on in terms of attitudes, values, outlook - compared to the South of England perhaps but that's more a class issue and doesn't apply to those living in Northern England. I don't think this was always the case, but we are both Americanised and Internationalised now. Cultural differences have become a touchy subject because where you have culture you have those who belong and that creates other, those who don't belong and that's exclusionary, and that's everything we must hate. So the only time you'll find people talking about Cultural differences than go any deeper than clothes or food they're virtually always talking about being open and tolerant and inclusive and embrace other.

TLDR version: regional differences within Scotland and England are far greater than aggregate differences between the two nations

I cannot make head nor tails of this post!
Who is/isn't Scottish/Celtic/South Sea Islander?
Does it matter?

You are misusing the word ‘empire’. We (the UK) are not part of any American Empire, we are a sovereign nation. We have historically had a close relationship which we have sleepwalked into relying on too heavily - but we are not part of its empire.

By all means yes we should stop relying on Russia to defend us.

I assume you meant America here - or perhaps you didn’t? The words may be interchangeable shortly, anyway.

You keep saying ‘we’ as if you are from the UK. Are you? I’m shocked at anyone living in the UK and having barely left their home country trying to lecture anyone on cultural identity or regional differences. If you haven’t made an effort to travel your own nation, what right do you have to make any comment on the importance to others of preserving cultural heritage?

I think the differences are subtleties in culture, humour, outlook on life, priorities to a certain extent. Scots are excellent at black humour and seem to have quite a philosophical view of life. I think English people are more neurotic but very tough on the inside and focussed. The Welsh are a bit more ‘live for the moment’ with a good sense of fun. That’s not getting into the cultural aspects of tradition, food, landscape, politics etc

That’s my personal observations anyway.

History, food, customs, ways of talking (not just language but other things like levels of bluntness, formality, openness etc.), humour, and a myriad of other things including the more obvious such as national dress.
It can be harder to see or understand cultural identity when you don't fully have one of your own, or when it's so mixed.

Yes different languages, they have their own government etc

Exactly.

There are regional difference within countries, let alone between them. Northerners, southerners, those from the Black Country, the West Country…

We might be immersed in hideously homogenising American and social media content, but we have not all started watching baseball instead of football or thinking cheese comes in a tube.

Yes he should just roll over give up Ukraine and let Putin have what he wants. We should all do the same, give in to any country that attacks, no more wars, just roll over. Which country should run over next then?

Terrorists should just be given what they want. There you go, no more wars @TemporaryPosition . Let the likes of Hamas, the Houthis, ISIS run everything. You do realise these shits also fight against each other, how do you plan to stop that?

I mean seriously, you really didn't think this through. 🙄 of course most people don't want wars but sadly cannot roll over as you would have everyone do.

Zelensky needs to back down before we have WW3, but he won’t and the UK will back him.

He is backing down, and the U.K. have told him to sign anyway.

@ImmediateReaction there have been updates this morning.

What are you talking about? All the main European leaders and Trudeau were in talks - with Zelenskyy - yesterday.

Bit different to the US / Russia having a private chat in Saudi to the exclusion of the country they were talking about.

Not ethnically Scottish? What are you on about?

Mind sharing them?

If the general public are sick of war, perhaps they should ask their Government more questions about why they are the number 1 global arms supplier? What do you think happens when you supply weapons on mass scale and reduce the foreign aid budget?

But we digress, which seems to have been @TemporaryPosition's goal, since they've dropped the pretence of their original post in favour of getting their opposition to fight amongst themselves.

@ImmediateReaction yesterday Mandelson said go sign, followed by Z who has said yes he'll sign

"Barely left their home country"? What does that mean