Britain caused many of the world's problems

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visagrunt
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07 Apr 2011, 1:31 pm

Tequila wrote:
I'm sure they would have. However, the desire for independence was never really there in any serious guise up until the 20th century. When they asked for it, they got it.


That made me laugh so hard I think coffee came out my nose.

It took a World War for Britain to reach the point where she could no longer afford to maintain the empire. India had to go not because Indians were asking for independence, or because it was the right thing to do, but because WWII had so shattered the British economy that she could no longer afford to keep it.

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Don't judge the past by the standards of the present.


I agree. But let's judge the past by the standards of the past, then. If we simply restrict ourselves to the question of Jammu & Kashmir, the British still have a significant question to answer about their approach to the partition of that state. The principle of partition may be sound (although the Québecois, the Irish, the Palestinians and the Kashmiri may think otherwise). But allowing the views of a single prince to override the majority of the population over which he is established is, I suggest, just asking for trouble--even in 1947.

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When I look at the state of some of the countries (not all) of the former colonies that became independent… I think remaining British would have been better for them.


Let's consider, however, that they were never British. Conrast them with the residents of the French départements d'outre-mers, the residents of French Guyana, St.-Pierre & Miquelon, and all the other french colonies that are not independent are French citizens, with the same rights (including EU rights) as any other French citizen. The representation of colonies in the French National Assembly dates back to the Third Republic.

So while Britain was contemplating how to shed itself of an empire it could no longer afford, France was busy giving her colonies full participation within France--a right that Britain has never extended, to this day, to any of her remaining dependent territories.


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Tequila
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07 Apr 2011, 1:38 pm

visagrunt wrote:
Let's consider, however, that they were never British. Conrast them with the residents of the French départements d'outre-mers, the residents of French Guyana, St.-Pierre & Miquelon, and all the other french colonies that are not independent are French citizens, with the same rights (including EU rights) as any other French citizen. The representation of colonies in the French National Assembly dates back to the Third Republic.


Erm, they were British subjects until the end of Empire. It was only when the peoples of their colonies started banging on the UK's door that citizenship rights were curtailed.

Though I agree with you about the lack of integration offered to the subjects of our overseas territories. Integration as an idea was rejected in Northern Ireland even by the Unionists (though Enoch tried, bless him). The Gibraltarians were told it was not an option when the Integration with Britain Party seriously suggested it. The Maltese were treated appallingly when a deal to make Malta a full part of the UK was discussed in the 1950s. And, more recently, Britain's treatment of the Hong Kongers and Ilois was shameful.



Last edited by Tequila on 07 Apr 2011, 1:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.

ruveyn
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07 Apr 2011, 1:42 pm

NationalSocialist wrote:
Britain is responsible for many of the world’s historic problems, including the conflict in Kashmir between India and Pakistan, David Cameron has said.


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The Prime Minister appeared to distance himself from the imperial past when he suggested that Britain was to blame for decades of tension and several wars over the disputed territory, as well as other global conflicts.

His remarks came on a visit to Pakistan, when he was asked how Britain could help to end the row over Kashmir.

He insisted that it was not his place to intervene in the dispute, saying: “I don’t want to try to insert Britain in some leading role where, as with so many of the world’s problems, we are responsible for the issue in the first place.”

His remarks about Kashmir were greeted warmly by the audience of Pakistani students and academics, but drew accusations from historians that the Prime Minister was wrongly apologising for Britain’s past.

Daisy Cooper, the director of the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit, said: “This is typical of the UK’s schizophrenic relationship with former colonies where it is both proud and embarrassed about its past. The Coalition has said that it has big ambitions for a modern Commonwealth and the UK should stop being embarrassed about its colonial past and they should work with other countries to help improve their human rights.”


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/8430899/David-Cameron-Britain-caused-many-of-the-worlds-problems.html


A Tory admitting that Britain royally screwed the world? Sorry Mr Cameron, April Fools has past.


I see you are channeling Lyndon Larouche again.

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07 Apr 2011, 1:47 pm

visagrunt wrote:
The principle of partition may be sound (although the Québecois, the Irish, the Palestinians and the Kashmiri may think otherwise). But allowing the views of a single prince to override the majority of the population over which he is established is, I suggest, just asking for trouble--even in 1947.


You're right. Why didn't the British ask the peoples of the territory what they wanted?



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07 Apr 2011, 2:00 pm

Britain did some bad things in the past. If there is a country with no blood on its hands, I'm more then happy to hear about it. Frankly its not even worth discussing. It is worth remembering, but pointing fingers doesn't accomplish anything. I wouldn't expect a National Socialist troll/parrot to understand that. The last thing on a Nazis mind is reason and forgiveness


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07 Apr 2011, 2:06 pm

Am surprised that the Torygraph speaks ill of there Messiah, the son of Thatcher.

Tequila wrote:
David Cameron is a Britain-hating idiot.


The foreign aid spending compared to the spending cuts domestically in last two budgets of the current government might
back up that point.

Tequila wrote:
I bet you're dying to break out into Fields of Athenry.

That could be say of the Irish this side of the Irish Sea. Personally I might break out in the Fields of Anfield Road.

Tequila wrote:
What good is an apology for some of the events anyway? The people responsible are either elderly (for the colonies that were late in achieving independence) or, more usually, long dead.

It's like asking modern-day Germans to apologise for the crimes of the Nazi German state as if to say that they are responsible solely for the fact that they are Germans. It's ludicrous


In 2007 the government apologised for our country's involvement in the salve trade. In 2007 London did the same, tho Liverpool apologised for my city's involvement in the Atlantic slave trade back in 1999.

MotherKnowsBest wrote:
Personally I don't think Britain caused the world's problems. I think it was squirrels. Constantly squirrelling things away. Selfish little gits


Its the Gray squirrels displacing our Red squirrels. Then again where do the Gray squirrels originate from in the first place?

Henbane wrote:
I'm also a bit suspicious about his historical knowledge given that he has also said that Britain was the 'junior partner' to the US in WWII in 1940. Given that the US hadn't joined the war at that point it made him look both ignorant and pathetically subserviant.


Yes, were were the Yanks before Pearl Harbour? debating which side to take.



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07 Apr 2011, 2:13 pm

cdfox7 wrote:
MotherKnowsBest wrote:
Personally I don't think Britain caused the world's problems. I think it was squirrels. Constantly squirrelling things away. Selfish little gits


Its the Gray squirrels displacing our Red squirrels. Then again where do the Gray squirrels originate from in the first place?


See, racist, empire building, little buggers too.



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07 Apr 2011, 2:17 pm

cdfox7 wrote:
In 2007 the government apologised for our country's involvement in the salve trade. In 2007 London did the same, tho Liverpool apologised for my city's involvement in the Atlantic slave trade back in 1999.


An utterly empty, vacuous and ludicrous gesture and I said so at the time.



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07 Apr 2011, 3:05 pm

Britain has had its good moments, in the same way it had its bad moments. Let's just leave it at that, shall we? =/ Unless you guys want to make this into a history research project. =.=



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07 Apr 2011, 3:25 pm

maybe they just wanted to get back at denmak for raiding their shores and raping their sheep. :lol:
sorry but why is this being brought up?
does it matter?


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07 Apr 2011, 3:40 pm

Tequila wrote:
Henbane wrote:
I'm also a bit suspicious about his historical knowledge given that he has also said that Britain was the 'junior partner' to the US in WWII in 1940. Given that the US hadn't joined the war at that point it made him look both ignorant and pathetically subserviant.


Yup. We stood on our own in Europe. To carry on fighting like that took an awful lot of balls. We may have been less powerful militarily than the other 'big three' major players but we still had an Empire then, which was essentially destroyed by the war.


I think you'll find that you carried on fighting because you started a war with Germany and then went on to turn down several peace offers from Germany, but alas to no avail, no, the British wanted "total war", which in itself was an unusual phrase to use since their so called war affort was consistent almost entirely of exterminating millions of civilians through bombing, culminating in the most sadistic act of the war, the daily firestorm attacks over a defeated people, truly chilling.



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07 Apr 2011, 3:42 pm

Oodain wrote:
maybe they just wanted to get back at denmak for raiding their shores and raping their sheep. :lol:
sorry but why is this being brought up?does it matter?


Because the OP is a racist with an agenda.



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07 Apr 2011, 4:29 pm

NationalSocialist wrote:
Tequila wrote:
Henbane wrote:
I'm also a bit suspicious about his historical knowledge given that he has also said that Britain was the 'junior partner' to the US in WWII in 1940. Given that the US hadn't joined the war at that point it made him look both ignorant and pathetically subserviant.


Yup. We stood on our own in Europe. To carry on fighting like that took an awful lot of balls. We may have been less powerful militarily than the other 'big three' major players but we still had an Empire then, which was essentially destroyed by the war.


I think you'll find that you carried on fighting because you started a war with Germany and then went on to turn down several peace offers from Germany, but alas to no avail, no, the British wanted "total war", which in itself was an unusual phrase to use since their so called war affort was consistent almost entirely of exterminating millions of civilians through bombing, culminating in the most sadistic act of the war, the daily firestorm attacks over a defeated people, truly chilling.


do you know the exact wording of the peace offers??
im curious could be fun to find them and see what conditions there was.

i for one am pretty happy no matter what reason, denmark is a little close to germany for my liking were that scenario true.

it is true that allied bombings led to very heavy civillian casualties, especially during the first months after d day, many villages were obliterated by navy batteries and bombing runs during this period, one town lost some 500 out of 600 residents.
i dont know much of the losses and intensity of the bomings over germany.

but despite the heavy civillian losses the french people welcomed allied occupancy, though there were plenty of comlpaints of raided farm animals, something the german army never did to the same scale.
but cows for freedom is a pretty good trade considering.

as for defeated people, the germans might have been beaten to their knees but they fought to the very end, shold we just have left them be to recuperate as they saw fit?

no doubt emotions were involved in the mix but all in all the allied were fighting a war and the german civillians were not the main priority(questionable but still).


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07 Apr 2011, 4:47 pm

NationalSocialist wrote:
Tequila wrote:
Henbane wrote:
I'm also a bit suspicious about his historical knowledge given that he has also said that Britain was the 'junior partner' to the US in WWII in 1940. Given that the US hadn't joined the war at that point it made him look both ignorant and pathetically subserviant.


Yup. We stood on our own in Europe. To carry on fighting like that took an awful lot of balls. We may have been less powerful militarily than the other 'big three' major players but we still had an Empire then, which was essentially destroyed by the war.


I think you'll find that you carried on fighting because you started a war with Germany and then went on to turn down several peace offers from Germany, but alas to no avail, no, the British wanted "total war", which in itself was an unusual phrase to use since their so called war affort was consistent almost entirely of exterminating millions of civilians through bombing, culminating in the most sadistic act of the war, the daily firestorm attacks over a defeated people, truly chilling.


Who invaded Poland in 1939? Two days after Poland was invaded France and Britain declared war.



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07 Apr 2011, 4:53 pm

cdfox7 wrote:
NationalSocialist wrote:
Tequila wrote:
Henbane wrote:
I'm also a bit suspicious about his historical knowledge given that he has also said that Britain was the 'junior partner' to the US in WWII in 1940. Given that the US hadn't joined the war at that point it made him look both ignorant and pathetically subserviant.


Yup. We stood on our own in Europe. To carry on fighting like that took an awful lot of balls. We may have been less powerful militarily than the other 'big three' major players but we still had an Empire then, which was essentially destroyed by the war.


I think you'll find that you carried on fighting because you started a war with Germany and then went on to turn down several peace offers from Germany, but alas to no avail, no, the British wanted "total war", which in itself was an unusual phrase to use since their so called war affort was consistent almost entirely of exterminating millions of civilians through bombing, culminating in the most sadistic act of the war, the daily firestorm attacks over a defeated people, truly chilling.


Who invaded Poland in 1939? Two days after Poland was invaded France and Britain declared war.


The Soviet union for the second time, Britain going to war to save Poland worked all right then I take it..................oh.



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07 Apr 2011, 5:03 pm

NationalSocialist wrote:
cdfox7 wrote:
NationalSocialist wrote:
Tequila wrote:
Henbane wrote:
I'm also a bit suspicious about his historical knowledge given that he has also said that Britain was the 'junior partner' to the US in WWII in 1940. Given that the US hadn't joined the war at that point it made him look both ignorant and pathetically subserviant.


Yup. We stood on our own in Europe. To carry on fighting like that took an awful lot of balls. We may have been less powerful militarily than the other 'big three' major players but we still had an Empire then, which was essentially destroyed by the war.


I think you'll find that you carried on fighting because you started a war with Germany and then went on to turn down several peace offers from Germany, but alas to no avail, no, the British wanted "total war", which in itself was an unusual phrase to use since their so called war affort was consistent almost entirely of exterminating millions of civilians through bombing, culminating in the most sadistic act of the war, the daily firestorm attacks over a defeated people, truly chilling.


Who invaded Poland in 1939? Two days after Poland was invaded France and Britain declared war.


The Soviet union for the second time, Britain going to war to save Poland worked all right then I take it..................oh.


Germany did 16 days before the Soviet's