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Comment by hiddencost | Hacker News Reader

^-- Submarine argument of the current white nationalist movement. Basic flaw: it elides "the wants of white nationalists" with "the culture of the country" and tries to imply that the wants of white nationalists are the only one that exists.

A subset of people are being prodded to give up their sovereignty; a significant chunk of folks in the UK actually wanted the EU, most notably immigrants, students, young folks.

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As a British citizen I have more in common culturally with my German, Swedish, Austrian, Spanish, Danish, French etc friends and colleagues than I feel with a large chunk of my own country.

The people who tell me that I should be patriotic and culturally identify with them as British are the people I'd want to run a million miles from.

Of course. Who doesn't have more in common with actual people they've befriended and worked with, as opposed to a nebulous notion of nationality?

But that isn't a basis for political decisions. The fact that you like the people that you're friends with is no reason to be in or out of the EU.

I presume you have friends who aren't from the EU as well, yet surely you do not believe in closer integration with those countries?

I have a similarly diverse group of friends, but it makes very little difference to what I think politically. For one, I doubt they'll be kicked out, but also I can't make decisions about politics based on a few individuals I happen to know.

I was going to say that I made no claim about the role of culture and cultural identity in political decisions, but left it out. I was making a narrow point, and don't neccesarily disagree with yours.

Great comment - I wish I could vote this up more than once.

Oh, big thanks from The Netherlands!

He didn't actually mention the Dutch ;-)

Sorry! I would have done if I'd had Dutch friends.

Then I will. Hi friends in the Netherlands!

I wish I could upvote you 100 times.

Hear, hear.

That's a myopic and ignorant view. Not all nationalism is "white nationalism," and nationalism is often a strongly positive force. For example, in places like Bangladesh, Egypt, and Turkey, nationalism is the force opposing theocracy. Israeli nationalism has allowed them to carve out a relatively liberal democracy in a region that's hostile to it. (It's also a bizarre charge to level at U.K. nationalism, given that the U.K. is less white than the E.U. as a whole. Moreover, Indians - the largest non-white ethnic group in the U.K. - voted leave/remain along class lines, like whites: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world...).

^-- Submarine argument of the current globalist movement. Basic flaw: it elides "the wants of globalists" with "the culture of the world" and tries to imply that the wants of globalists are the only one that exists.

Calling Leavers "white nationalists" is like Glenn Beck calling Obama a communist.

Jews voted for Leave more than any other demographic group, even more than whites. Arguing about hypothetical white nationalists is total FUD.

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