have you ever lived in europe or spent a lot of time here?
Lived for an extended period of time, as in had my own place, a job, etc., no, spent significant time, yes, have pretty extensive collegiate and post-collegiate education in European history and politics, yes. Have a diametrically opposed ideology and historiography to your own, definitely. Ignorant on the subject, not to toot my own horn, no way.
this european identity evolved with the european union and is about freedom to move, speak and think. and true european spirit isn't about excluding people (but as you can see, the EU commission is on a good way to fuck that up right now).
before the EU, there wasn't such a thing as a european identity ... before this european movement (which began after WWII), we had one war after another and nations despised each other (much more than nowadays).
Ahistorical nonsense. Look beyond the last century. The European identity evolved with about a thousand years plus before the E.U., the Church, the Crusades, and so forth, yes there was intra-European warfare but there was still a concept of Christendom, which degenerated when the various schisms in the Church, culminating in the Protestant Reformation, damaged the European identity. This lead to an avalanche setting off the the rise of organic nationalism in the 18th centuries further fractured things and in turn lead to the series of wars which culminated in the World Wars of the 20th century, which lead to the modern "European project," a radical reaction to the unfortunate events of the 20th century, which is proving itself to be foul tree bearing rotten fruit, and which is what a poster above described as the "demographic suicide" of Europe. The nationalist reaction is already coming and the old guard leftists are dying out. There is a lot of potential for change in this century, thank God, hopefully it comes soon enough before we find ourselves with literal barbarians at the gates in a modern day Tours or Lepanto.
... and this identity has nothing to do with christianity, which will become more and more unimportant (thankfully) ...
And you have the gall to accuse others of prejudice?
and to be honest, those who are against immigration and for closed borders are nationalists and right-wing bastards, who want less EU. only if the EU manages to deal with this mass immigration from the middle east (and africa) in a reasonable and humane way, europe will thrive. if we decide to be selfish and close the borders even more, everything "Europe" and the EU stands for is at stake.
I'm absolutely a right-wing bastard, if you want to call me that, and if I were a European, I would probably be considered a nationalist, well, perhaps not in the traditional sense, but an identitarian, but in the way I see things American nationalism is a contradiction as America is not really a "nation" in the classical nationalist sense. And I want less EU, although I don't have skin in the game in the sense that I live there, I still feel a tremendous cultural affinity for the land of my ancestors, and it breaks my heart to see it's integrity threatened. The primary reason I want to see less EU is because the EU tends to push a leftist and frankly totalitarian agenda. I would like to see some sort of pan-European nationalist project that still allowed some national autonomy but still worked together in the common interests of the European people.
You don't believe in national or European identity, myself and the other posters disagreeing with you do, that's the crux of it, and I doubt we'll convince one another.
