Want to hear something funny?
I left Ukraine in 1998 because:
1. People did nothing to help themselves except for pouting that “the government” wouldn’t solve their problems.
2. Nobody could be bothered to pick up their own shit, and the streets were hideously dirty.
3. People were scared to have opinions. They were passive and obedient like sheep.
It was such a relief to come to North America and see the exact opposite. It was glorious finally to live among people who were proud of their surroundings, proud of their freedom.
Clarissa's Blog 
That attitude has been common in SA for years. Seems like it is becoming more common elsewhere as well.
https://dailyfriend.co.za/2023/01/03/2023-heading-in-the-wrong-direction/
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I suspect that there is an inverse relationship between nationalism (of the classical 19th-century liberal kind) and wanting things from your government. If having say an American identity is something valuable in itself then I do not need my government to give me anything other than the opportunity to be an American. The moment that I stop thinking that being an American is valuable then why should I want to be an American unless I get a sufficiently large goody bag. What I find fascinating about the Ukrainian response to the invasion is that right now the Ukrainian government can offer its people nothing but suffering and an opportunity to be Ukrainian and somehow that is proving to be enough. I am reminded of the Battle of Britain where the Luftwaffe’s strategy of trying to break the will of the English people through mass bombing ended up backfiring. The English did not do the “reasonable” thing and throw out Churchill and replace him with a Nazi collaborator. Getting bombed simply reminded the English that they were English and, in the end, the English valued being English more than not getting bombed.
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Exactly! I was listening to this famous Ukrainian journalist yesterday, and he said precisely this. “All we want our elected leaders to do is give us the right to be Ukrainian on our own land. The rest – the wealth, the good standard of living – we’ll do that ourselves.”
He’s also saying that they are building the 19-th century nation-state in Ukraine today. Everything as you say.
Of course, this journalist is Jewish.
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” inverse relationship between nationalism (of the classical 19th-century liberal kind) and wanting things from your government”
Not 100%…. the idea was that the government and the population were in it together and the government was able and willing to help those who could (or even just wanted) to contribute. That was the social model when I grew up (aka the Great Compression).
Now the US is run by 3rd world predators (the decision makers in both parties) who see the weakest, most vulnerable parts of the population the way a meat packing plant sees a herd of cows…..
The streets of Philadelphia or Seattle are just the killing floor while value is extracted from the animals….
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Many of the SA elite were educated at leftist British universities. All the talk was about rights with no obligations. Their main policies are council housing and the dole.
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