I see that Rita Verdonk is playing the Nationalist card. I’m sorry, but there’s something about her views that simply makes my skin crawl. I’m reminded of Samuel Johnson’s aphorism, recorded by Boswell, that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". Of course, as Boswell wrote, Johnson "did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak of self-interest". Somehow Verdonk’s love of the Netherlands has never struck me as "generous". She strikes me as being close to the sort of patriot described by Johnson thus:
A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion. The fallaciousness of this note of patriotism is particularly apparent, when the clamour continues after the evil is past.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 
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