Recently I had a casual exchange with contributor Bruce of Newcastle on the OT.
The guts of our remarks was the number of wars fought by Russia and how this had shaped their national psyche. Further, that Western attitudes and policy towards Russia will continue to be largely ineffective, if not counterproductive, until the West at least accepts that Russians don’t think like us. Their beliefs have been baked-in over hundreds of years and formed their protective stance towards Mother Russia.
This led me off on the tangent of wondering about loyalty. The Russian populace in Australia is relatively small and certainly by comparison to the Chinese, Indian and Jewish communities and of course, those from the assorted Middle Eastern and Asian nations.
Therefore, I wondered, if push really came to shove, who would leave the relative safety of Australia to fight for their birthplace? The question is predicated on the person being born overseas and armed conflict between their birthplace and another nation was either commencing, or imminent. Moreover, any reasonable assessment concludes that the military forces of your birthplace are very likely to be overwhelmed.
Imagine it is all but certain that your birthplace will cease to exist as the nation you were born to.
And if you were to leave to fight, would you do so only as a member of the regular military forces or, would you engage as a guerrilla? Or, if incapable of bearing arms, would you instead act in a direct support role?
Those thoughts naturally lead to a question about an Australian born person living overseas. There are several Cats living overseas or who travel overseas extensively for their work. Would you return to Australia to defend her if necessary, or remain in the relative safety of the country you were in at the time?
Rightly or wrongly, I don’t have any China born friends of whom I could ask the question. Overwhelmingly my friends are Russian born and for several, I could reasonably guess their response without even asking. But, I do have a couple of Indian born friends and rang them to test my question.
Both said they thought it was extremely unlikely (impossible) that India would be militarily overwhelmed and thus their services would not be required. Fair enough and almost certainly true. But when pressed, one of the two said that yes, despite being an Australian citizen of some 26 years (slightly more than half his life), he would take whatever steps he could to protect his birthplace even if that meant leaving his wife and children in Australia. He did, after all, still have some extended family in that country but if nothing else, would be ashamed of himself if his birth country was effectively destroyed and he had done nothing.
So, what say you Cats? If your birth nation was facing almost certain annihilation from an aggressor, would you depart (or return to) these shores to defend your birthright?
Ay age 70 years, I would fight for my Family and Friends only.
If you’re white your birth nation is constantly under attack. It’s called immigration.
Once upon a time my response would have been aggressively yes.
These days my presence and contribution is less valued, yet they still are happy to take my $$ in taxation…..my answer is ……maybe.
Would you return to Australia to defend her if necessary, or remain in the relative safety of the country you were in at the time?
From absolutely Yes to absolutely No:
My kids are now the 6th generation associated with some farmland in Victoria. Their ancestors having cleared heavily timbered country to turn it into productive farmland. These kids should not receive any special recognition due to this history. However, nor should they be considered second class citizens in their own country which is already the case in practice.
In 1996 the Australian Government decided that I was a criminal or that at least that I posed a risk of criminal activity. They subsequently confiscated my private property. Whilst they would have had no hesitation tin shoving the same equipment into my hands and asked me to defend the country.
In 2020 the Australian Government decided that it was entirely appropriate to deprive me of employment, because I would not accept experimental treatment for a disease that was highly unlikely to kill me nor anyone else for that matter.
If you want citizens to defend a nation then you must have something worth defending. Australia no longer has anything worth defending. In some ways comprehensive military defeat might be the only cure for what has become a profoundly stupid and disgusting country.
I don’t care.
Johnny Rotten is right. This is where priorities lie:
Self
Family
Community
Country?
Everything else goes to the cult of the obliteration of the self.
I’m in this boat, I do not share the so called ‘values’ of this country.
I would prefer to fight for Russia even though I have no connection to the country.
Their collective values are far more similar to what mine are though.
It’s sad that we have arrived here..
My home country is South Africa. Enough said!
“It’s sad that we have arrived here..”
Look at the shameful scenes last week in Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra, and in Auckland on Saturday when Kellie-Jay Keen tried to speak. She and other women were screamed at, physically assaulted, and virtually lynched in broad daylight. Why? Because she believes in such quaint notions as…
1. Biological sex is immutable, you cannot change sex. Cutting off your dick doesn’t make you a women.
2. Sexual deviants and perverts don’t belong in women’s prisons or private spaces, such as bathrooms and changerooms.
3. Women don’t have dicks.
4. Children shouldn’t be surgically and pharmaceutically mutilated.
5. Children shouldn’t be sexually groomed.
Nup, the West is done. I won’t fight for it, I’ll defend my family, but nothing more.
As a former Australian citizen (and RAN Rtd) i look at what the country has become and i honestly would not waste my time.
I was asked that very question by my lefty little brother.
I said no and he wasn’t amused and I don’t care. This is my adopted country and I strongly suggest all other new Australian leave loyalties and baggage behind. If not go back.
I’d go and fight for my father’s homeland, though I was born here I do have dual european citizenship as does the rest of my immediate family. We have the option to go if we want, had never intended to but these days it is becoming an evenly weighted option.
If Australia was attacked, I would recommend we all return to our ancestor’s homelands and then the so called “first nations” folks can defend their “always was always will be” land or have a treaty with the invader and a “voice” in how things shall be done (ha ha ha ha ha). Should be all over in around 3 hours and they’ll be dead or in chains.
We’re second class citizens here now, and the government of the day wants to cement that into the constitution, fine, it’s a democray.
However, that, in my opinion, relieves me of fighting for this land.
I was born here, love it here, but disagree with what it has become and the pandering to all the grifters in our society at the cost of our sovereignty. The “voice” and all the other mechanisms to cancel my love of this country don’t come cheap. The cost is loyalty and that appears to be in one direction as is the reconcilliation process. Another one way street where we are expected to give forever and be called rascist and other names and disadvantaged as well.
I won’t die for Australia, nor do I encourage anyone else to. We’re hated here now and the governments just encourage more of that. Let th woke and their ilk fight the next war, if so inclined, though I suspect they will become Eloi.
Bugger it, says I
A correspondent angrily rambles:
Not allowed to buy…
https://www.japanesecartrade.com/5487555-japan-used-toyota-celsior-sedan-car-1999.html
Sorry wrong thread!
Ex RAN fighter pilot, from the days when we had real aircraft carriers. I was ready to defend my country any where any time.
That country no longer exists, & it is becoming more distant daily. What is left is not worth defending
Possibly??
To have to endure “welcome to country” when my ancestors came here in 1839, to be told repeatedly that only post WW2 migrants built this country, really gets my goat. That there are any number of dual passport people in this country that would bugger off as soon as an invasion of Australia occurred shits me to tears. (That’s not to say that many post WW2 migrants didn’t work their guts out and become very productive members of society, nor that there are a number of dual passport holders that may fight for this country.)
What is more galling is my own children, who I have tried to raise to be proud of their ancestry and their country, have feelings of being pariahs in their own country.
100%
I seem to recall that this question was asked of the Millenial generation in the USA. Somewhat less than 50 percent (someone else may recall the exact figure) said that they would leave the country rather than fight for it.
Is anyone else sick of rather pale women appearing on TV saying things like “I’m a proud Witchety Tribe Woman” and somehow linking this vacuous assertion to whatever spin they are engaged in?
Apart from the fact that they are not much more indigenous than that one in the USA who proved to have stuff all native DNA, what’s to be “proud” of?
Are they proud of how their men used to (or still do) brutalise women? Are they proud of how their offspring are running around town at all hours and vandalising, assaulting, stealing?
Are they proud of the use they’ve put their “sit down money” to?
Are they proud of the awful record of criminality that lands so many in jail?
Are they proud of the humbugging, or the diseases that both adults and kids get unnecessarily, including STDs?
Really, what’s to be proud of? The Voice? It’s a distraction, another virtue signal that won’t do anything good.
Personally, I would fight.
The question is, would I frag the officers if they were ex-ABC presenters, pink-haired trannies and fake Liberal stooges?
If they had stuck around to become officers, they would be worth saving.
Probably.
It would depend on who the invader was. If the poms invaded, I’d fight them, and I used to be one, technically.*
(* For much of my childhood and youth, I was basically an Aussie, but was trapped in a POM’s body. )
One of the foundations of modern Australia is that we are a nation of migrants and, for national cohesion, we agree to leave past enmities at the gang plank when we board HMAS Australia.
Fighting for the old country, whether it’s in Europe, Asia or somewhere else is an affront to our sovereignty as a nation.
We swear allegiance to Australia. There’s no room to be swearing allegiance to a foreign country.
The left hates sovereignty and the nationalism essential to sovereignty so it has turned “multi-culturalism” into a separatist movement that champions non-English-speaking ghettoes in our major cities – that is, not letting go of the old country and bringing old enmities here.
If you want to fight a war for Russia or Ukraine or anywhere else, go ahead and do it – but renounce your Australian citizenship first or you’re just another anti-Australian separatist subversive.
I’m about 4 generations removed from my first Scottish ancestors who landed here in the 1850’s. I have no wish to go to Scotland and defend it from a Faroes Island invasion.
Would I stay and fight or get my sons to stay and fight. I’m 54 with bad eyesight and hearing. I would be picked off very easily by a trained enemy. So no I wouldn’t. I would advise my sons to leave and start afresh somewhere else. The country would be wreck for at least 20 years after any war if they survived.
“This is my own, my native land.”
I would fight to defend Australia against an external enemy, but I would not travel to defend the lands of my ancestors (variously Irish, English, Dutch and German).
As for the internal enemies, I would treat those who proved to be such with the contempt that they so thoroughly deserve.
I’m a proud Witchety Tribe Woman
We really need to bring back Eric Jollife!
One problem with defending Australia is not just the issue with defending a country that offers you nothing in return. What about the people?
There’s a vast swathe of Numale’s in the country like munty, dedicated to wrecking the joint by all and every means. They will not step up to defend Australia, but they will insist that you do!
I’m late 50s with reasonable health. I wouldn’t fight for my forebears lands but would for Australia. I know politically it’s gone to the dogs. But as Daniel Hannan recently remarked, we are the luckiest people on earth.
There are still values worth fighting for. My dad enlisted as a teen in 1939. His example is worth something. A dear late friend of mine from the Northern Tablelands when the Pacific war broke out rode his favourite and much loved horse with his mate down the mountains to enlist in Coffs Harbour. They took his horse away and he never saw it again. Yet he served with distinction.
Those old guys didn’t care much for ideology. They believed in freedom and fought to uphold it.
As an older guy now, I couldn’t do much. But I would want to do something. Maybe a padre or something.
Dot:
Remove ‘country’ and replace with ‘society’.
No – I wouldn’t lift a finger for my society. My community? Perhaps. Family? Certainly. Self ditto.
I don’t recognise my society. I wouldn’t give it the steam off my piss.
After the treatment of the last three years, it has no right to ask a damn thing of me.
Rickw, Cumborah Kid and others more or less sum up my feelings on the matter. I’m told I’m a second class citizen in my own country, that my values are irrelevant, and I should be guilty for all the bad things done, but not proud of any of the good.
Once I would have fought for this place, but not any more.
When I was young I put the Green suit on and would have been ready to defend. Now I wouldn’t even do a staff job to free up a younger fighting man.
I’m a first gen Aussie, would I fight for my mother’s country, Germany? Then, when I wore the green, certainly if the Soviets invaded, now only if the French invaded !
Would I fight for dads country, legally Romania, but he was always claimed he was Hungarian? Romania, no way! Hungary, only if NATO invaded.
It’s very hard to separate “family” from “country”. Without a country then family/friends/community would have nowhere to be. Fighting for your country really means fighting for your family and its right to exist in the country.
Much as I despair of the Marxist takeover of Australia, should there be a call to arms to defend this country, then I would do so since it actually means defending your family.
In reality, all I could do would be to join a Dad’s Army brigade. Better than nothing. It may be a sacrifice that prevents kids and grandkids paying the ultimate price.
You start by asking why the person came to Australia in the first place. Of course they wont tell you directly unless it is just working here. If they migrated, then you can be pretty sure that a percentage will dislike their former country as they must constantly justify their move. It was a big decision.
Sadly this is the state of affairs. Those despised and with the least power are expected to fight for the country and then be judged as war criminals by the woke and the degenerate in this country.
Defend an Australia made up of 34% born overseas and if counting those born in the country with parents born overseas then that number rises to 50%? (as per the last census).
It’s not my country anymore because it’s not my people anymore. Which is exactly the way they wanted it. Well, now they’ve got it and they can have it.
By the way, a much more pertinent question to ask is, what will the roughly 3 million Chinese living in the country do if China and Australia go to war. Or the millions of Indians if India and Australia go to war. Because the way that the USA is going, that’s on the cards, and Australia isn’t about to renounce its prized status of best Yankee lapdog any time soon.
Yes, heartily sick of being lectured by these people who have built nothing, created nothing and live off the labour of others whom they have turned into second class citizens.
Would you defend Canbra if there was an uprising?
God no. I’d join the invading army. Depraved ‘cultures’ like Australia’s don’t deserve to survive.
I’d be a handicap not a help.
I tend to agree but I am tempted to leave and think the regions should be allowed secession, at least from their imperial state capitals.
for Cassie: from the world of maths and programming, a good word is “idempotent” : An operation that produces the same results no matter how many times it is performed
not so much when applied to culture though
you are already at war in this country and have been for about 20 years.
dunno if youse noticed but, the rules of engagement changed around early 2020.
notice any patterns to do with (-)ve and (+)ve rights for instance?
fighting the post-modern enemy is like sword-fighting with a fart.
Nice post Speedbox.
All the Russians(quite a few) that I know were escapees from the cold war or children of post WW2 refugees. They have no allegiances, ditto the Ukrainians that I know.
Do Russians think differently?
Definitely.
And do not play chess against a Russian unless you need a good thrashing.
Same response as most.
Family stretches back to 1841 when the ancestors emigrated from what was Prussia back in the day. Now though, I wouldn’t lift a finger to defend this country that isn’t mine anymore. Let the lefties and immigrants defend it.
Although, the ensuing chaos of an invasion would be interesting to settle some old scores with certain people…
Hurt me baby, hurt me!
Rhetoric. Virtue signalling.
Hitler thought the Poms wouldn’t fight because of
and an instant later
When the rubber hits the road, we will put green and gold overlay on our facebook profiles and start GoFundMes so that no soldier will live in poverty by 2083.
Shy Ted:
Shit no!
I’d probably sell T shirts to the invading hordes.
Will says:
March 28, 2023 at 10:10 am
Interesting responses, my family came a bit later, I don’t know what I would do to be honest, never been a soldier and just over the call up age anyway.
But there is a lot of truth pointing out changes in society and whether it’s worth fighting for.
I mean society not the actual geo. place.
It must have changed a lot if even we, who lived here all our lives notice it, despite the slow changes.
Imagine an infrequent visitor, who, say comes here every 10-20 years?
He would hardly recognise the place but for the landscape.
No one has told ME I’m a second-class citizen. I also have no disputes with any of the many many indigenous folk I know and see around town. Have played numerous sports with all manner of “ethnically diverse” Aussies. The NO vote is probably 90% up here, with local Pacific Islanders telling me they don’t want “lazy bludging Murrays telling them what to do”. This sentiment includes the Murrays themselves who are NOT bludgers = only city slickers in govt employ want this shyte!
From my perspective nearly all this depravity is an inner-city thing, so why don’t the decent people living in the adjacent ‘burbs clean the stables out, FFS? THEN the whole place might be worth fighting for. Maybe.
BTW: No poofter Mardi Gras was held here!
One of the foundations of modern Australia is that we are a nation of migrants and, …
Bullshit.
The British conquered the Country, it belongs to the British bred people.
Makes me laugh hearing all the warriors bagging Australia and bagging Aborigines, but if you asked Aborigines if they’d fight for Australia, the response would be 100%.
If “tradition means giving votes to…our ancestors”, then men should stick with tradition and fight to defend the country.
Ancestors: if you come from a long line of men on the land, tracing back to convict/settler days, then certainly Australia is your “own country” (a history now being trampled into second-class status).
Is war the only way to get rid of the Marxists? I don’t how it would play out, with a multicultural country; the architects didn’t say. (multiculturalism: something never put to the people).
you vote your way into it
but you have to shoot your way way out of it
Shoot your way to what?
Marxism is an ideology, how do you shoot that without shooting everybody that might buy into it?
1.5 billion Chinese agree
Don’t make me laugh.
Look what happened to the all conquering Roman Empire once it went multicultural!
test ✔
I’ll leave that to “First Nations” warriors.
I’ll paraphrase Enoch Powell (he was a Brigadier in WW2) speaking to Maggie Thatcher.
Thatcher: We fight for our values.
Powell: No, we fight for our country. If England was communist, I would still fight for England.
That’s pretty much how I have always felt. If Australia went to war for any reason, I would fight for Australia. I did actually do that and I was keen to go.
But now, to quote Jules in Pulp Fiction, I’m in a period of transition. I don’t like what Australia has become. I don’t like what the ADF has become. I don’t want to fight so that trannies can groom children. I don’t want to fight to be a second class citizen in my own country. I don’t want to fight for the people who are blowing up Australia’s power stations. I don’t want to fight for a country that brings in millions of people hostile to us and that change our demographics. I don’t want to be in an army whose priority is to persecute its own soldiers.
On the other hand, if say, the Chicoms invaded, I’d do whatever I could to help defeat them. Probably not much because I’m too old for the army now, but I do know some stuff.
Enoch Powell’s biography makes interesting reading – he was a man of towering intellect, with no time for fools.
During the North African campaign, the official Party line was that the German Army would find it difficult to deploy tanks to that theater of war. It was Powell who spotted that the Germans had requisitioned a merchant ship, originally designed to transport railway locomotives, and, as such, very capable of transporting tanks……
Never really been keen on getting a 20mm cannon shell in the chest at any point in time to be honest, but always thought I would man up if required. Now, at 52…. I would welcome our new overlords, whoever they may be. Australia has changed terribly in the last 20 years. Covid was the final straw. It’s done. I just look to family and close friends now and try to do my best for them and that is it.
Talky fighty bullshit.
This certainty isn’t the country I fought for.
Go ahead and fight, the smast arses get richer off your sweat and blood.
Anybody fighting for a cause is a mug.
Having said that, feel free to fight for your home. Even a septuagenarian would do it.
Stand easy youngsters, you can’t fight for shitless.
Talky fighty bullshit.
This certainty isn’t the country I fought for.
Go ahead and fight, the smast arses get richer off your sweat and blood.
Anybody fighting for a cause is a mug.
Having said that, feel free to fight for your home. Even a septuagenarian would do it.
Stand easy youngsters, you can’t fight for shit.
Ukraine was invaded by Russia. The rich on both sides left dodge immediately. The same would happen here.
O/T – Powell was Professor of Greek, at Sydney University in 1937 – one one his students was one Edward Gough Whitlam. Powell described Whitlam as having a “very second rate ” mind….
I am from Canada. Nope. I have no urge to defend those woke idiots.
I’m too old to be much use except making the tea in a ‘Dad’s Army’.
But there’s no way I’m lifting a finger to defend Melbourne who voted for Dan Andrews three times!
In Sydney I’d turn the spits for the good burghers of the Western suburbs as they roast the gutted Teals voters on Manly beach, after the CCP blows the bridges and mines Port Botany, and the food runs out by Friday week.
What would we be fighting to defend? Freedom of speech? Nope, thats already gone. Aussie Culture? No, every other culture already gets priority. Land ownership? No, thats been handed to the ‘First Peoples’. Traditional family values? No, our kids have been brainwashed to despise those. Western Civilisation? Nah, thats just another name for white supremacy. Democracy? See The Voice.
.
The primal bond that should exist been us and our place of birth has been shattered by Welcome to Country ceremonies and other bullshit. I guess I’d fight but I’m not sure my heart would be in it.