Ashermusic wrote on Sun, 25 November 2007 16:41 |
I agree with 90% of this although one could argue that in the British Colonial period they treated their colonies horribly, worse than the US has ever treated its territories.
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Probably true - nonetheless Britain has given the world great things as regards the advancement of democracy - which is particularly what I was thinking of - and they figured out the slavery issue way before "the Colonies" did.
Ashermusic wrote on Sun, 25 November 2007 16:41 |
And let's face it, France has not been really an important power in a long time. Their performance in both World War was, err....unimpressive.
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Well, we could argue that old cliche but I won't. France likewise stands very high in the history of propagating democracy, including helping the US with its own, several times. We, and the world, owe both nations a lot, notwithstanding their nasty colonialism.
BTW, it would take a very good argument to convince me that what we are doing in Iraq is much different than the British in India. How massive is our embassy? How many bases are we building? How many US companies are reliant on our presence there? Seems very traditionally colonialist to me; an ancient tradition.
DS