Reply #22: You are so off the mark.

[Taxloss]

Powerful and continuing nationalism? Nope. Study the news footage carefully - do you see any flag pins or union flags in the links? No. Are we hanging flags outside our homes? No. I saw more flags during the last Europena football tournament.

Disdain for human rights - hey, at least we have an effective oppostion campaign on that one.

Scapegoating? How exactly?

Supremacy of the military - not since the Civil War, 400 years ago. Other than the neutrals, no other country has a military that is so detached from public life. We saw military dictatorship, briefly, under Cromwell. Our entire constitution is based on stopping it happening again.

Our mass media is still far more open and free than yours has been for years. Even Sky, our Murdoch channel, is more balanced than your TV news.

Obsession with national security - yup, got us there. Has been since the start of the Troubles.

Actually our religion and government are intertwined, in ways that would make the ACLU spit feathers. The difference being that the state runs the church, not the other way round.

Corporations, labour power, crime - got us there. But one again there is effective opposition on the ground, and we are making progress.

All I'm saying is please don't accuse my country of being fascist. For all our flaws we have a deeply democratic tradition. Nordfire isn;t in power yet.