Britain should have conquered the world

[Thoth]

Yeah, but it was canucks that spawned him

And spewed him forth asap.

It took Texas to accept him.


(although, now that I think about it, he'd probably do OK in Scandinavia)

[BlackCat]

(although, now that I think about it, he'd probably do OK in Scandinavia)

Yeah, I guess that he will feel comfortable in countries with social security, public health care, abortion, sex ed, redicule of religion etc.

[Thoth]

He'd always have something to piss and moan about.

[BlackCat]

Yeah, but he wouldn't find any supporters as he do in canucki/yanky-stan

[Thoth]

He doesn't have any supporters in Canuckistan.




(Albertans don't count)

[bc1871]

Western Canadians hate social security, public health care, abortion, sex ed and redicule of religion, just as much as any patriotic American does.

[curtis290]

I think it's because, for the most part, the former British colonies were created for the purpose of settlement. The US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were settled by whites who came there to make a new life and killed the native population, so there wasn't the problem of a racially bifurcated society and the economic arrangements that characterize such a society.

Contrast this to Latin America, where the conquistadors went to get rich quick and enslave the locals. The economic arrangement is highly unequal, with a small group of white and mestizo Spaniards controlling all of the wealth, with a large, indigenous laboring class. Over time, slavery stopped but this legacy continued and their slow pace of development (and slow start) combined with the type of resources present in these countries meant the economies were still highly unequal, and in a racially hierarchical society where economic and racial lines coexist and reinforce each other, you're going to stay unequal, and the darker skinned peoples won't mix with the whites and they'll remain poor. It should be no surprised that these societies during the 20th century suffered from a complete lack of order and many socialist uprisings. It's a recipe for disaster.

The white British colonies, however, got rid of their natives and they all came there for purposes of settlement and growing new lives. So those societies remained relatively equal in terms of the distribution of wealth, meaning they had order and no socialist revolutions.

[Heraclitus]

Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique, Iraq....Pakistan, Malawi...

You hand pick a few good examples, but a few are inapropriate:

Zimbabwe- it did very very well as Rhodesia even after British rule as long as Whites ran the country.

Mozambique- Portugese

Iraq- was only British for 1921-1932. The British did no worse than the Ottomans in ruling those lands.

Tanzania- was German untill WW1, and Zanizibar was ruled by Arabs (untill the Africans slaughtered them all). But its a much better example of your point than the above.



I'm not saying everywhere the British boot trod paradise ushered, what I'm saying is that on average peoples and lands where better off being conquered by the British than by say the Belgians, the Ottomans or the Japanese.

This is why I won't bother talking about British succes stories like Singapur, Hong Kong, Jamaica and South Africa (the last two are great sucess stories compared to nearly all African majority lands). I will bother talking about how on average their colonies are today better of in number of people, quality of life, rule of law and GDP.


I'm very suprised no one has pointed out the most obvious criticism on my position. Britain was a great superpower. It took the best lands for itself, so of course ex-British colonies do better than average.

[Heraclitus]

I think it's because, for the most part, the former British colonies were created for the purpose of settlement. The US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were settled by whites who came there to make a new life and killed the native population, so there wasn't the problem of a racially bifurcated society and the economic arrangements that characterize such a society.

Contrast this to Latin America, where the conquistadors went to get rich quick and enslave the locals. The economic arrangement is highly unequal, with a small group of white and mestizo Spaniards controlling all of the wealth, with a large, indigenous laboring class. Over time, slavery stopped but this legacy continued and their slow pace of development (and slow start) combined with the type of resources present in these countries meant the economies were still highly unequal, and in a racially hierarchical society where economic and racial lines coexist and reinforce each other, you're going to stay unequal, and the darker skinned peoples won't mix with the whites and they'll remain poor. It should be no surprised that these societies during the 20th century suffered from a complete lack of order and many socialist uprisings. It's a recipe for disaster.

The white British colonies, however, got rid of their natives and they all came there for purposes of settlement and growing new lives. So those societies remained relatively equal in terms of the distribution of wealth, meaning they had order and no socialist revolutions.

I'm not talking primarily about places like the US, Canada, New Zealand or Australia. But even if I was Argentina serves as a good counterexample.

Also this characterization of the British coming in and killing the natives is mostly false. Population densities where much lower in the mentioned lands than in the old world, the natives often had primitve if any agriculture and disease in the new world killed off a large chunk of the population. And to top it all off Indians actually sold much of their land to British settlers, somethign that can't be said happened with the Spanish or Portugeese. No mass slaguther nessecary (thought there was plenty of that too). British settlers mostly found empty land. The British at the height of thei power where obsessed with the "white man's burden" that Kipling so slyly criticized:

ake up the White Man's burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden—
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden—
The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden—
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper—
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward—
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard—
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:—
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden—
Ye dare not stoop to less—
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.

Take up the White Man's burden!
Have done with childish days—
The lightly-proffered laurel,
The easy ungrudged praise:
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.

They considered their mission to "civilize" colonized peoples. The same impulse that sometimes drives American foreign policy (bringing "Democracy", "Freedom" or "liberating women"). A exercise in futility, but perhaps not as futile as other nation's attempts.

[MikeH]

Britain should have conquered the world

Should have? We basically did.

[Heraclitus]

Should have? We basically did.

You guys came about 3/4 short.

[MikeH]

Left behind all the **** bits.

[Barnabas]

Heraclitus, if I recall correctly, as late as the last century they were selling licenses to hunt Bushmen as if they were foxes, and killing Australian Aborigines as if they were pests.

The population density of amerindians in the USA (the 13 colonies) was low, but so it was in Brazil or Argentina, only in the Andes and Mexico you had empires with millions of inhabitants.

There were 3 big differences between Spanish and British colonization,

The british colonists were mainly families.
The spaniards were mainly single men.

The british colonists were concentrated in a relatively small area (the 13 colonies)
The spaniards were thinly spreaded through a huge area extending from Mexico to Argentina. They were never most of the population anywhere in their colonies.

In the british colonies the amerindians were not a part of society, in the spanish colonies, they were a part of society (even if opressed), and in some places like what is now Bolivia, they were most of society.

What the spanish did is something similar to what the Aryan invaders supposedly did to the Indus Valley civilization, a group of warriors (mainly men, like all groups of warriors) with superior military technology, invade a country, take local women and create a mixed race chaste society in which the more you look like the invader the more power you have, while the more you look like the invaded the less power you have.

The main difference between Australia/Canada and Argentina is that Australia/Canada have always been european societies, Argentina before 1870 (whe millions of european immigrants moved there) was your average latin-american society, it is a european country overlayed over a latin american country, and the tensions created by that are still an unresolved issue. The other difference is Argentina received mainly italians and spaniards, and not brits and germans like the USA, so, what can you expect.

[Traianvs]

i don't think rwanda is that bad these days, it's come a very long way since the genocide. in fact in recent years it's been held up as an example of good governance in africa.

i'd say burma is one of our worst former colonies.

A case of good governance indeed, if you don't pay attention to the authoritarian repressive regime effectively crushing every form of opposition. If you don't pay attention to the genocidal frenzies Kagame unleashed upon the fleeing hutu's (among which - of course - many génocidaires but a lot of innocent people as well) but most importantly if you don't pay attention to the horrible role he played in the Congolese war of the nineties (and noughties as well - in fact the conflict is still going on, albeit in a more covert way).

Kagame is an opportunist moneygrabbing powermongerer stealing whatever he can from other countries to fuel his economic expansion. While economic development is a commendable goal, it's not a good idea to wage war with your neighbour, overthrow its government and funding rebel groups in order to pillage and extort Congo's riches to boost said economic improvement.

Saying Rwanda is a case of good governance is nothing less than completely insane..

Oh and btw: since he's grafting an English speaking elite (he and his troupe went into exile for a long period of time) onto a French speaking majority in such a volatile context, I'm expecting a good deal of revenge arising sooner than later..

[C0ckney]

1) I think there has been some whitewashing of their government by Western media due to the genocide. They may not be the worst actors in the region, but they have been caught playing with fraternal guerrilla groups in neighboring countries, and the government ****s with the opposition fairly regularly in undemocratic ways

i not convinced that's the case. their involvement in the congo is pretty well documented and the recent concerns about Kagame's government and the reaction of western diplomats to that have been widely reported, at least in britain.

2) When we're talking about the state of affairs in various colonies since liberation, it certainly is ignoring history to point at the last 15 years in Rwanda and think that somehow counts for anything near as much as the genocide itself

as i said before, the country is being talked about as an example for other african nations to follow, and seems to have a bright future. it does a great disservice to the people of rwanda to think about the country only in terms of the genocide and to ignore the positive things that have happened since then.