So long, dont bump into the door on the way out

[Abaddon]

As the Simpsons tells us, people fight very very easily:

1st person: "Wana fight?"
2nd person: "Them's fighting words"

*fight*

 

[MadScot]

Yes, I am an idealist. But I am buoyed by the fact that no two democracies have resorted to armed conflict and international conflict, where it violates international law, results in UN resoloutions and international reaction (as in Kuwait).

Conflict today seems to be where national boundaries cross ethnic fault lines resulting in one ethnic group having control over another.

Perhaps a review of the events in the early 19th century *cough*1812*cough* might be in order before you place blind trust in the pacific nature of democracies.

 

[bhsup]

They care a lot when they don't have a country to call their own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ethnic_groups_in_Serbia

A lot of people care.

Yeah, and it's a frequent cause of wars. I'll never understand the European obsession with bloodlines and ethnicity being a reason to consider oneself a part of a particular nation. Cultural bonds are vastly more important.

 

[MadScot]

I'll never understand the European obsession with bloodlines and ethnicity being a reason to consider oneself a part of a particular nation. Cultural bonds are vastly more important.

Well, given that bloodlines and family ties WERE the sole determinant of status and of who you owed allegiance to and could demand it from, for the best part of a millenium at least, it's hardly surprising they get considered quite important. Half the wars were probably fought on the basis of an inheritance or a claim to one, not on what we'd now consider 'nationalistic' grounds.