Dulce et Decorum Est

Look at your passport / ID card.  Whatever country is listed on there should be your country at Chess.com; or at least pick a country that actually issues them.  I'm reasonably certain Wales, Scotland, and N. Ireland don't issue their own passports, since they haven't been independent countries for several long centuries now.

You don't see a separate flag for every U.S. State - not even for Texas, which was an actual independent country for like a minute or two - meaning Americans generally don't deal with the same nationalistic insanity that seems to plague that tiny, island-based country across the Atlantic (You could probably get up from your window-seat in an airplane shortly before it crosses the British isles, go to the bathroom, and by the time you sit back down you'll have missed the whole thing).  It also means we have over a million members and make up more than one third of chess.com.  There's strength in numbers, you know.

In cemetaries across the world, departed geography teachers are spinning like a top inside their coffins.

You just opened a whole can of worms. I made the argument that Scotland and Wales weren't contries a year ago, and ended up in a legnthy argument.

I pointed out that those territories do not have their own armed forces, legislature, or court system. In fact, by those lights, they are less a country than a U.S. state is. We might as well be able to be from the "Confederate States of America."

But anyway, enjoy your soon to begin flame war.

Wales isn't a country.  It was conquered by Edward I in the 13th century.  England & Scotland however, were united by the act of union in the 17th century.  Whilst under British rule, Scotland was still its own country.

Of course, any welshman worth his salt will disagree with this, and rightly so.  But it's true all the same.  Wales is no more a country than Cornwall.

Stop press: There's talk of Scotland becoming an independent country again!

ya but they wont win cause all the jedis are welsh.  and besides the scots have a droid army led by general grievous and well we know how that ends

The UK's just wrangling for additonal seats at the U.N. 

I thought when James the VI of Scotland took on the English crown, becoming James the I there, that Scotland subsumed England.  Does Scotland now want to relinquish their claim to the English crown?

Sounds pretty stupid to me.  I'm glad we revolted from that insanity, set up the first functioning, full-fledged democracy, and did away with royal titles.  Makes things a lot simpler, despite the recent questionable political decisions in the USA.

But we digress from the point of this forum: why are there flags for entities that are in no way independent countries?

The ancient Greeks might like to argue with you over the first democracy claim, tdbostick.

Their form of democracy, which only existed in a few city states not run by tyrants, died out, was replaced by Alexander III and his newly-created empire, which was then conquered by the Romans, then partially by the Islamic Caliphate, then totally by the Turks under a Sultan, regaining independence under a European-style monarchy in the 19th century, only becoming a democracy again after WWII.  The U.S.A. is the oldest democracy still in existence, and the written evidence for our laws far outweighs the documentation the Greeks have.  Sure, they invented democracy (δεμοκρατία - rule by the populace), but Greece hasn't been practicing it for as long or in as complete a form as we have.

Greeks aside, there are many issues with claiming the US to be the oldest democracy.  But if it makes you feel better to think it then great.

When will South Sudan be added to the countries list (on chess.com)?

I was wondering that too.  It will still be a little while (several days at least, maybe longer) before the UN adds them to their list of sovereign nations.  I might fly their flag for a day on my profile to welcome the new country.

Here's the original poem:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs 
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge. 
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; 
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)  
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, 
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time; 
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, 
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . . 
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light, 
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. 
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning. 
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 
Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)  
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, 
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)  
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory, 
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 
Pro patria mori.(15)