yeah ok, attacking Babiš for being a Slovak is seriously pretty stupid, i have a very low opinion of slovakia personally, but what does Babiš even have to do with it, he doesn't have his business there, he is not trying to import their stupid political ideas, he does not live there, he was just born there and keeps using strong slovakisms in his speech, that's not much of a connection

@pony

> i have a very low opinion of slovakia personally

What a beautiful display of primitive nationalism. Man, did you even read it after yourself?

This election campaign in the little country of yours is really very interesting to observe from far outside. Thanks to these primitive polarising factors one gets to observe what is "under the surface" of even many intelligent and otherwise accomplished people. It's nothing different than elsewhere: primitive atavistic emotions rooted in "us good, them bad" 🤦‍♂️ That's no surprise. But it's fun to observe the society discovering this about themselves - because they thought that "we are better than that" - no, you are not.

@FailForward i just really don't like the place and think it mostly sucks, it's not that deep and i am not claiming any kind of moral or any superiority over it, how is that a problem? do i have to like every other country and think they are amazing?
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@pony "Not liking" and "having a very low opinion" are two different things. One is a statement of subjective emotional attitude, the other expresses a subjective qualitative judgement. I might not like broccoli, but I certainly do not have a low opinion of its vegetable qualities. But no worries, it could have been worse, such as an attempt at a negative objective qualitative judgement.

@FailForward would it be somehow better if the judgement was positive and why (also where do you get the us good part, i have not really made any comparison)

@pony I am not going to argue about what you think or not, it's not necessary, nor do I think me or you care that deeply.

My comment was in a broader context of me observing this election campaign from far away and seeing that many respectful people suddenly have no problem to publicly express their open dislike for their neighbouring country and its society, or use either open, or veiled nationalistic rhetoric just because it's easy and convenient - as you also pointed out in your original post. As I said, that's nothing new or weird in the current European context, but I find it somewhat amusing for a society where a significant portion of intellectual elites prides (prided?) themselves with strong humanist and democratic heritage from Masaryk to Havel. Such statements, even if we agree that they are not exactly harmful, are still in a strong contrast with those national myths. I guess we agree that besides being useless, such statements certainly do not improve relations with the other side - rather the contrary. And that is what I putting my finger on.

@FailForward Masaryk, to my understanding, thought of himself as a Slovak kinda? what i wanted to condemn is the personal attack line on someone's nationality, which btw. kinda happened in 2013 too, when people attacked schwarzenberg as being austrian, and yeah, saying you think slovakia sucks in any official and public capacity would obviously be a serious fuckup, the true meaning behind the remark (but the author is dead so who cares) was to distance myself from the broken dumb ex-czechoslovakianism and all that "brotherly" and paternalistic attitude towards slovakia, which i think many treat as kind of a little lost czechia or something (which it is not, it's a fairly distinct place in many regards, and yeah, i don't like it, but ofc it's not overly important and i qualified it with 'personally' for that), they just do it with nice and soothing words, so it doesn't stand out like what i said
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