Ok. Got it.
|
Ok. Got it.
Once tyrants and dictators gain power, it's hard to get rid of them, yet there are many furilla and rebels out there still fighting them so yeah helping them as you can is okay, but with caution as our own weapons we supply can be used against us and have. One thing we must remember is we also had help gaining our own independence.
Yes the french were opportunistic
Breaking the rule of the hated British was a must way back then. You know destroy the competition, as they were growing colonies all over the place too, from Canada to the Caribbean.
Yes the British were far more successful than the French but no doubt they sowed the seeds of rebellion
The French did okay with Canada, of course Canada still bends the knee to the Queen, so not a total loss..
The French never were colonists, just opportunists
You must mean something other than what you posted. It would be true only if you don't count: (Sorry for the length. Only way it would list them.)Quote:
The French never were colonists,
Albreda Anguilla Annam Antigua and Barbuda Cambodia Chandernagore Cochinchina Colonial Mauritania Colony of Niger Dahomey Dominica France Antarctique France Equinoxiale French Algeria French Cameroons French Chad French Comoros French concessions in Shanghai French Congo French Guiana French Guinea French Madagascar French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon French protectorate in Morocco French protectorate of Tunisia French Seychelles French Somaliland French Sudan French Togoland French Upper Volta Gabon Grenada Haiti Ile-Royale Iles Malouines Isle de France Ivory Coast Karikal Kwang Chou Wan Laos Mahe Malagasy Protectorate Montserrat Nevis New France New Hebrides Newfoundland Niger Oubangui-Chari Pondicherry Saint Bathelemy Saint Christophe Saint Croix Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Saint-Domingue Saint-Dominigue Sainte-Lucia Sint Eustatius Tobago Tonkin Upper Senegal and Niger Vietnam Yanaon
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/...-colonies.html
and very few retain the allegiances today, the French were occupiers and independence was won with bitter conflicts. The British however, were more pragmatic and with the exception of the US did not need to be persuaded with widespread violence that hands off local government was a good idea
Or they left because they saw those bloody conflicts coming and sought to save their own arses.
a long french tradition
They aren't extinct so it must be working on some level even if they cannot just dominate.
yes there was a peaceful transition from British colonizing India right ? How about Ireland ? Another peaceful transition . How about Egypt ? Israel ? Cyprus ? The Zulus ? Boers ?Quote:
The British however, were more pragmatic and with the exception of the US did not need to be persuaded with widespread violence that hands off local government was a good idea
Well, other than all of those many and major exceptions, it was very peaceful.Quote:
yes there was a peaceful transition from British colonizing India right ? How about Ireland ? Another peaceful transition . How about Egypt ? Israel ? Cyprus ? The Zulus ? Boers ?
yes I did not get into some of the minor ones like Pontiac's rebellion against the Brits or the failed Aussie rebellions of the Eureka's, or the successful 1808 Rum rebellion that ousted Captain Bligh (the second mutiny he was involved in)Quote:
Well, other than all of those many and major exceptions, it was very peaceful.
Come on gentlemen: ALL COUNTRIES WISH THEY WERE COLONIZED BY BRITAIN! Go through your lists and evaluate all the countries colonized versus those colonized by Great Britain based upon:
1) Standard of living
2) Rate of growth
3) Allies to the U.S.
4) Continuity of governments
5) Dictatorships
6) Democracies
7) Level of education
Certainly, there are exceptions but then take into consideration those nations that held onto the English language: They are heads and shoulders above all others!
Not even the "WORLD'S SMARTEST PEOPLE" (i.e. Germans, if you don't believe them, ask them!) can contest the British colonies on terms of how the people in those lands fared AFTER the Brits left.
Imagine if the BRITISH had discover Central and South America? Those countries, undoubtedly every one of them, would have been far, far further along than they are right now in every aspect of development. If that one is hard for you to imagine, try this one: Imagine if Australia was colonized by the SPANISH? Well, right away, there would be no Aboriginal People left, they would have killed most of them and bred the others to small portions of bloodline.
You want to say Greece or Rome or, even, Iraq was the "Cradle Of Civilization"....O.K.: Let me tell you, BRITAIN WASN'T FAR BEHIND! You can credit it to luck, planning, or God's divine intervention but the facts are facts!
The English language is the language of Civilization and Civility the world over! No nation speaking the English language has ever produced any dictators....never produced any Gas Chambers...never produced any Holocaust....and we won't even get into the literary contribution of the English language....or The Magna Carta...or The United States Constitution.
Are we Blessed to be speaking English? Uhhh, Yeah!
I don't dispute that . I think anglo countries would be well served to have economic and military ties . That doesn't change the fact that the Brits held onto their empire long after their ability to do so. This was especially true in India where the cost of India nationalism cost millions of lives years before their final independence . And that was before the partition . Just check out the Bengal famine the Brits engineered in 1943 .
tomder55: The British weren't the Germans....If India was a German colony, they would have held on until someone came and SAVED the Indians. What I am getting at is that the Brits could have held-ion much longer than they did: The "holding on" capacity is really a measure of how determined and how far the "holder" is willing to go toward retaining the "holdee".....when you apply this the Britain-India relationship, the Brits look to be fairly generous.
The British were also masters at using opposing sides in a country as a leveraging tool to retain their holdings...they did so in India with Muslims Vs. Hindus and also in Canada when they imported Labrador Indians to Newfoundland to exterminate native Newfoundland Indians and when they had finished off the native Indians, they deported the Labrador Indians back off Newfoundland.
Except that the Bengal famine of 1943 was a direct result of Churchill's policies . It was not a natural famine .There was plenty of food . Churchill plundered the food to feed British troops . It was an intentional genocide as bad as Stalin ever did to Ukraine. 10 million Indians died from the policy . The problem is that we are not taught these things .WE are taught about Gandhi's non-violent protests . The truth is that his was just one movement . The rest were quite violent .
tomder55: I must plead ignorance about the Bengal Famine and certainly would not have thought it to be manmade by the Brits....Now, Churchill, he is another of history's complicated characters, and not entirely clean: When he was Minister Of War in WWI, he purposely made false statements about the Lusitania being loaded with weapons and war materials knowing that there were American citizens aboard and knowing that the Germans would clue their U-Boats in on the information to sink the ship...his whole purpose was to drag the U.S. into "The Great War"...and, it worked.
Conquerors conquer for their own glory, and any excuse will do, because they can. This excuse of how benevolent they are is just that an excuse. Fact is ruthless domination for profit or gain is the bottom line. Dress it up all you want but the nature of man always comes out for good or bad.
yes I admire hm as Brits leader of UK WWII .He was the right man at the right place at the right time . But the rest of his history is far less admirable .The famine was real and engineered by Churchill . The harvest was above average and could've easily fed the population .Instead he diverted the harvest to use in the Middle East where it was not needed for the war effort. He blamed the Indians for the famine saying they breed like rabbits .Quote:
.Now, Churchill, he is another of history's complicated characters, and not entirely clean: When he was Minister Of War in WWI, he purposely made false statements about the Lusitania being loaded with weapons and war materials knowing that there were American citizens aboard and knowing that the Germans would clue their U-Boats in on the information to sink the ship...his whole purpose was to drag the U.S. into "The Great War"...and, it worked.
tomder55 and Talaniman: I think it is safe to say that the "GREAT MEN" of history, with the exception of Jesus Christ, were all paradoxs of virtue, effectively living, walking contradictions of who we think they are or, even, the characters that our history books have portrayed them to be all this time. Churchill was an example...Kennedy is another: A heroic figure that had trouble keeping his britches pulled up....Franco, whom we were taught was an evil dictator, was a dictator BUT also a man who kept Spain free of communist tyranny....Nixon is shown to be "a crook" in history but he got the U.S. out of Vietnam....there are many more examples like this but the evidence shows none of these "Great Men" were entirely with a darker side.
yes . FDR had internment camps that Congress approved of and SCOTUS validated .Both Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson violated habeus corpus and threw opponents in jail .
The "Great Men" are all despots, consumed by purpose and not caring about suffering. They would all lose whole populations if it suited their purpose. Churchill was only great because he rallied a nation, Lincoln only freed the slaves for political advantage, Stalin killed millions, FDR would let Europe rot but for pearl harbour. History is full of these "Great men", despots all
tomder55: However, WE NEED HEROES! Everyone does in this world! I am not for tearing down every single person in history just to show evenhandedness or "because its truth"....My Daddy, the GREATEST MAN I have ever known, had proclivities but they matter not to me, he was still great and will always be great TO ME!
Looking at historical figures through the prism of today's lenses is ALWAYS going to be a risk...and it is entirely unfair, to tell you the truth.
Paraclete: I will defend Lincoln: He freed the Slaves, true, but as a byproduct of saving the nation: The United States would have never been the United States had Lincoln not sought to bring the Southern State back into the Union....If the Union/North had not won the Civil War, the United States wouldn't have existed and certainly would not have been as great a force for good as it has become through history since that time.
I think you guys are confusing powerful men with great men. Churchill, FDR, and Lincoln could probably be referred to as "great". Stalin? Nope. Powerful, but not great.
That is just not true . The whole purpose of the Republican party origins was to advance emancipation . He was personally morally opposed to slavery . But as the chief law enforcer of the land he had the enforce the constitution . So he could not do it immediately upon inauguration . He could not declare them free . The Emancipation Proclamation was of questionable constitutionality . He took advantage of war powers to declare slaves in rebellious states free . That only became a permanent state when the constitution was changed with the 13th amendment . Presidents do not unilaterally make law .Quote:
Lincoln only freed the slaves for political advantage,
Lincoln and others proposed a Constitutional amendment that would have perpetually established slavery in the states which then had it but would not have allowed it in new states. They did this in the hopes of avoiding secession. Lincoln was on record that he would abide slavery in order to preserve the union.
as I said a despot
A despot would have imposed his will. Lincoln, not being a despot, could not do that.
The true answer to the age old question: Why was the Civil War fought? It wasn't fought to free slave, it was fought to reunify the Southern States back into the Union. Today's history books teach "revisionist history" and its a damned shame.
The civil war was fought over slave policy and what new states would be able to do about slavery. It was open to negotiation until the south attacked a union fort.
it all went back to slavery . Why did the southern states secede ? Because Lincoln and the Republicans supported abolition is one reason . The bigger reason was that the Dredd Scott decision broke the Missouri compromise . Instead of having a hard border for free and slave stated now every new state being admitted could be contested . That is why the Kansas territory was so violently contested .
Talaniman & tomder55: O.K., the "distilled" reason for the Civil War would be Slavery, that's the "root cause"...I honestly never thought about in those terms but that is WHY the Southern States broke away...I was wrong!....and the North wouldn't let that status of separate Southern States stand: I have always attributed the War to that, breakaway Southern States, as being the solitary reason for the execution of War. Above all of these reasons, it comes down to control and unification, I don't believe there was a "NOBLE" reason of freeing Slaves as much as it was that the Southern States could govern themselves and enforce their own rules and have their own privileges, having Slaves being nestled amongst those rights...the Union was determined to enforce administer equal laws and rights to all states.
Lincoln would have tolerated slavery in the existing southern states if that would have held the Union together.
jlisenbe: You said it much better than I did: crisply and to the point!
yes there was a lot of tolerating slavery between 1782 and 1861 . The framers wrote in a grace period that would last until after they were gone because they knew that intolerable institution was enough to break apart the nation.In exchange for a 20 year ban on any restrictions on the slave trade, southern delegates agreed to remove a clause restricting the national government's power to enact laws requiring goods to be shipped on American vessels (benefiting northeastern shipbuilders and sailors). The same day this agreement was reached, the convention also adopted the fugitive slave clause, requiring the return of runaway slaves to their owners. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison claimed the constitution was "a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell"? If the Constitution temporarily strengthened slavery, it also created a central government powerful enough to eventually abolish the institution.
As far as the state's "power " to secede ;I think Grant summed it up best in his memoirs(the absolute best history of the war) . This chapter of the best summation of the civil war by itself is worth the price of the purchase .
http://www.historyofwar.org/sources/...hapter16d.html
Quote:
Doubtless the founders of our government, the majority of them at least, regarded the confederation of the colonies as an experiment. Each colony considered itself a separate government; that the confederation was for mutual protection against a foreign foe, and the prevention of strife and war among themselves. If there had been a desire on the part of any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the number of States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose there would have been any to contest the right, no matter how much the determination might have been regretted. The problem changed on the ratification of the Constitution by all the colonies; it changed still more when amendments were added; and if the right of any one State to withdraw continued to exist at all after the ratification of the Constitution, it certainly ceased on the formation of new States, at least so far as the new States themselves were concerned. It was never possessed at all by Florida or the States west of the Mississippi, all of which were purchased by the treasury of the entire nation. Texas and the territory brought into the Union in consequence of annexation, were purchased with both blood and treasure; and Texas, with a domain greater than that of any European state except Russia, was permitted to retain as state property all the public lands within its borders. It would have been ingratitude and injustice of the most flagrant sort for this State to withdraw from the Union after all that had been spent and done to introduce her; yet, if separation had actually occurred, Texas must necessarily have gone with the South, both on account of her institutions and her geographical position. Secession was illogical as well as impracticable; it was revolution.Now, the right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, either by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable. But any people or part of a people who resort to this remedy, stake their lives, their property, and every claim for protection given by citizenship—on the issue. Victory, or the conditions imposed by the conqueror—must be the result.
Lincoln was a racist, he wanted to deport all negros back to Africa, ending slavery was a political convenienceQuote:
Originally Posted by jlisenbe
no he wasn't. But he did consider what would happen once slavery ended ,and like many in the country ,his views evolved over time . It is very 20-20 hind sight to apply 21st century values to 19th century reality .
Lincoln said during the Civil War that he had always seen slavery as unjust. He said he couldn't remember when he didn't think that way ; and there's no reason to doubt the accuracy or sincerity of that statement.
But he did not know what would happen once the slaves were freed . So one of the options he considered early in his time was to encourage them to colonize Liberia . By the time of the emancipation proclamation he had rejected that idea.
read 'The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. 'by historian Eric Foner for more on this subject
| All times are GMT -7. The time now is 11:14 PM. |