What is Britain's greatest institution?

[Philosophy Explorer]

I can think of several possibilities. But I'm sure you have your own ideas.

PhilX

[FlashDangerpants]

That's easy. It's called the NHS, and if you had one there would be no question about what America's greatest institution is.

[Philosophy Explorer]

That's easy. It's called the NHS, and if you had one there would be no question about what America's greatest institution is.

Do you live in Britain Flash?

PhilX

[FlashDangerpants]

Yup.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Yup.

Why do you regard it as Britain's greatest institution? Have you had personal dealings with it?

PhilX

[thedoc]

Their colonies, which they were smart enough to get rid of.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Their colonies, which they were smart enough to get rid of.

Maybe teaching the Indians scalping could be right up there. Many an American movie features that.

PhilX

[FlashDangerpants]

Yup.

Why do you regard it as Britain's greatest institution? Have you had personal dealings with it?

PhilX

Of course, everybody here has. It's why we watch your TV shows and wonder what an insurance deductible is, and how a science teacher has to become a drug dealer to pay for cancer medicines.

I know it's a bad thing to mention, but quite a lot of ideas in this world that are good are not actually American. But many of my compatriots have an inflated idea about how many of them are actually British - a lot of those we are given to claim are really things whose development our ancestors contributed to, but only after importing them. And of those things we pioneered (such as modern police forces) few are truly national institutions.

So we have the modern parliamentary system. That's a national institution of a sort. But our favourite thing about that really is that some guy tried to blow it up once and he nearly got the fuckers. So perhaps Guy Fawkes Night where we all enjoy celebrating that dude's daring plan is one of our better national institutions.

But other than that, the institution which provides the hospitals in which nearly all of us rich or poor are born, and where we get our broken bones set after we play Rugby, and generally fixes us up until we can't be fixed up any more, so it holds our hands while we die, is the one national institution that regularly intervenes in our lives without making us surly and resentful. It's the one such thing that we did first and which every rich nation in the world bar one has had the sense to copy.

You can tell how important it is to us by the fact that it plays a large part in every election campaign we ever hold. The right wing party is always accused of secretly wishing to destroy it, but they always charge the left wing party with mismanaging it so that one day it will become financially unsupportable. Both sides are lying, because they know that there is one institution above all else that Brits will never relinquish. If a political party broke it, they would never get another vote again.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Yup.

Why do you regard it as Britain's greatest institution? Have you had personal dealings with it?

PhilX

Of course, everybody here has. It's why we watch your TV shows and wonder what an insurance deductible is, and how a science teacher has to become a drug dealer to pay for cancer medicines.

I know it's a bad thing to mention, but quite a lot of ideas in this world that are good are not actually American. But many of my compatriots have an inflated idea about how many of them are actually British - a lot of those we are given to claim are really things whose development our ancestors contributed to, but only after importing them. And of those things we pioneered (such as modern police forces) few are truly national institutions.

So we have the modern parliamentary system. That's a national institution of a sort. But our favourite thing about that really is that some guy tried to blow it up once and he nearly got the fuckers. So perhaps Guy Fawkes Night where we all enjoy celebrating that dude's daring plan is one of our better national institutions.

But other than that, the institution which provides the hospitals in which nearly all of us rich or poor are born, and where we get our broken bones set after we play Rugby, and generally fixes us up until we can't be fixed up any more, so it holds our hands while we die, is the one national institution that regularly intervenes in our lives without making us surly and resentful. It's the one such thing that we did first and which every rich nation in the world bar one has had the sense to copy.

You can tell how important it is to us by the fact that it plays a large part in every election campaign we ever hold. The right wing party is always accused of secretly wishing to destroy it, but they always charge the left wing party with mismanaging it so that one day it will become financially unsupportable. Both sides are lying, because they know that there is one institution above all else that Brits will never relinquish. If a political party broke it, they would never get another vote again.

I'll take good ideas from everywhere they come from (plus I have some of my own).

PhilX

[thedoc]

Of course, everybody here has. It's why we watch your TV shows and wonder what an insurance deductible is, and how a science teacher has to become a drug dealer to pay for cancer medicines.

In America we watch a lot of British comedy and Sci-fi. The only good things out of England these days.

[FlashDangerpants]

Of course, everybody here has. It's why we watch your TV shows and wonder what an insurance deductible is, and how a science teacher has to become a drug dealer to pay for cancer medicines.

In America we watch a lot of British comedy and Sci-fi. The only good things out of England these days.

Direct that stupid yanks v limeys shit at somebody else please. I find all of that bollocks quite tedious.

[thedoc]

Of course, everybody here has. It's why we watch your TV shows and wonder what an insurance deductible is, and how a science teacher has to become a drug dealer to pay for cancer medicines.

In America we watch a lot of British comedy and Sci-fi. The only good things out of England these days.

Direct that stupid yanks v limeys shit at somebody else please. I find all of that bollocks quite tedious.

Why do you post on a public forum if you can't deal with the responses?

[FlashDangerpants]

In America we watch a lot of British comedy and Sci-fi. The only good things out of England these days.

Direct that stupid yanks v limeys shit at somebody else please. I find all of that bollocks quite tedious.

Why do you post on a public forum if you can't deal with the responses?

Why do you do it when you have nothing interesting to communicate?

[thedoc]

Direct that stupid yanks v limeys shit at somebody else please. I find all of that bollocks quite tedious.

Why do you post on a public forum if you can't deal with the responses?

Why do you do it when you have nothing interesting to communicate?

I'm just keeping in the spirit of the other posts.

[attofishpi]

Commissioners in Lunacy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioners_in_Lunacy