Dear Jay,

<<That's not true, my nation was founded on Liberal and social democratic lines,...>

Let me assure you that I do not and never have denied that.

My comment was of a very general nature, unrelated to the specifics of this article, unrelated to questions of immigration, boat-people, Jews, etc.

What I wrote is simple: nationalism is an infantile bad habit and it's better to get over it, if one can. Nationalism does not contribute to liberalism, peacefulness and tolerance. The fact that Australia is and always has been more liberal, peaceful and tolerant than others, I don't attribute to its nationalism, but claim that it is in place, luckily so, DESPITE nationalism. Perhaps if we investigate further, we may even find that Australia's tolerance is because it shares less of this folly than other people.

Without nationalism we'd be being treated like the West Papuans by now. Independent nations within defined and defended territory are the only known habitats for democracy and liberty. Necessary even if not sufficient.

Dear Emperor,

There is no need for nationalistic feelings - all you need is practical common sense. You can still have an independent group of people within a defined and defended territory without that silly group-identification and fanfare, flags, emblems, anthems, parades, figureheads, history-worship, Olympic teams and other nonsense, without assuming (and enforcing) any common goals other than to defend each other so to remain free from external invasion.

To Yuyutsu.

Racism is a product of inter group rivalry and hostility, and everybody knows one group or another that they hold in contempt. Nationalism is exactly like racism, everybody does that too. Nationalism is simply group identity based upon a territory called "a nation", and every person on planet Earth has several group identities with national identity being one of the most important. You can no more prevent people forming group identities based upon race, religion, territory, or gender, than you can tell teenagers to stop thinking about sex.

Human beings should have become extinct a million years ago. Lacking teeth, spines, armour, claws, fangs, or size, we should have been easy prey for every other carnivorous species around. The reason why we survived, was because we instinctively formed self protecting groups and took on all comers, as a group. This instinct is part of our DNA and it can not be simply discarded in order to conform to the latest social theory on how to prevent human hostility.

Please look at your own post and see the obvious contradiction. How do you defend your "defined territory" if you have no concept of who that territory belongs to? A 'territory" is a geographic location with resources needed for survival that is claimed by somebody or something. Every sedentary species on planet Earth claims a territory which it will defend. A stickleback lizard might tolerate a chipmunk invading it's territory, but it will not tolerate another stickleback lizard doing the same thing. Your thinking presumes that you can have a planet with national borders which no defined group owns.

Every nation on Earth has a defined territory and it represents its national identity with a flag. That flag represents a distinct community which is supposed to have a shared concept of what constitutes correct behaviour within that national group.

Thinking that humans can conform to utopian theories which are completely against human nature is an infantile bad habit. Human beings are tribal and territorial. Any social theory which tries to ignore that is fairyland thinking that is doomed to failure.

Good post, Lego.

If everyone was happy to live a very basic existence then Yuyutsu's idea would be a good one. Because there aren't the resources to give everyone a standard of living enjoyed here, the human characteristics you noted explain observations. So we end up with a conflict of instincts to coexist amicably and to preserve our resources.

Doug Stanhope talks about some of the myths and attitudes surrounding nationalalism and immigration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UStr7iNm1A4