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Let's pick on another example besides America. How about France? After all, they're famous for being fiercely French -- the snobby, tourist-hating Frenchman is still a stereotype in the USA, and we fully expect them to hate us if we don't speak perfect French when we travel there. Now consider this: In 1789 only 50 percent of the people in France actually spoke French, and only 12 to 13 percent of those folks spoke it "fairly well."

And the same was true in other countries across Europe; people just didn't see themselves as citizens of a particular nation. Which is why the national anthem of the UK, for example, is "God Save the Queen." Not "God Save Our Kick-ass Country."

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It wasn't until the Enlightenment-inspired Founding Fathers of the U.S. and their French cousins got it into their heads that states should be governed by the people, that the people actually got boners for the state. Which is probably the best description of nationalism anyone's ever going to come up with: state boners.



His state boner was THIS BIG.

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You can find more from Eric Yosomono over at GaijinAss.

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