[Humour] Does Everyone Hate the English?

Leighgull said:

When you say “oversaw” I guess you mean the monsoon crises that decimated rice crops, tea crops, drowned thousands.is that it “yeah”

I don’t know if you realise what plantation farming entails.? It meant that British plantation owners paid people who, historically, would die of hunger on an annual and biblical basis (because of said Monsoons) to terrace the land and improve sidings, drainage, roads to allow them to sell their goods locally AND internationally.

Terracing reduced the annual catastrophic mudslides which would, literally, wipe out small towns.

So. Here we are. We have Plantations. Admittedly run by deeply racist types, paying people to do work that, previously they had been indentured to do by the Rajahs. Those people, within 100 years formed the Indian CivilService and Railway managers which served India in becoming a behemoth. And, post independence, still function today.

You might next bring up the Irish potato famine ( which directly affected my family) and the Highland clearances (again affecting my family) as evidence of mismanagement...god knows there’s a lot of it. But do t blame natural disasters on the Empire...Yeah?

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daveinplzen said:

Strangely, the British managed to continue sending food to Britain from India during this natural disaster.
We did many good things, and many bad things. We didnt go around the world for altruistic reasons. We went for money, land, and power.
We had not one, but two wars with China because they wouldnt buy our drugs. We carved up Africa regardless of the tribal boundaries, which
causes conflict to this day. We have much to be proud of, but we have much that we shouldnt have pride in at all.

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daveinplzen said:

Strangely, the British managed to continue sending food to Britain from India during this natural disaster.
We did many good things, and many bad things. We didnt go around the world for altruistic reasons. We went for money, land, and power.
We had not one, but two wars with China because they wouldnt buy our drugs. We carved up Africa regardless of the tribal boundaries, which
causes conflict to this day. We have much to be proud of, but we have much that we shouldnt have pride in at all.

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Leighgull said:

I have laboured hard at this point...the one about our lack of inclusiveness during the age of empire...all I’m saying is that Great Britain was faced with a scenario where there was massive innovation in rail, road, machinery and weaponary, all of which was going on in our mills, docks and armouries in the late 18th and into the 19th century.WHAT ELSE WERE WE GOING TO DO? Given that Britannia ruled the waves, had relationships with client states who would have traded with anyone who rocked up with Gold. Were we either going to let France have it, or Spain, or Holland and then what? We buy the raw materials on their terms?


Trying to retrofit 21st Century morality on those guys is a BIG mistake. It was another world and we got where we were by being more savvy, more ruthless and yes...more damned hard than anyone else.

Sobbing into our beards about it now is just ludicrous and you lot...you’re too soppy to count.

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portlock seagull said:

Obviously Palace are the Germans in this scenario...

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Bodian said:

You mean - we shout out about them, say we hate them, make up bad stories about them - but secretly admire them, and wish we had their drive and efficiency, whilst our ultimate ruler is descended from them (and we generally fancy quite a decent proportion of their women). That sort of analogy??

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The Clamp said:

Wrong. Our morals were exactly the same as they are now and always have been . It’s our scruples that were different back then. We should have known and done better.

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Bodian said:

You mean - we shout out about them, say we hate them, make up bad stories about them - but secretly admire them, and wish we had their drive and efficiency, whilst our ultimate ruler is descended from them (and we generally fancy quite a decent proportion of their women). That sort of analogy??

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DavidinSouthampton said:

At this particular moment the rest of the world is laughing at us. I read an article by a German journalist (Der Spiegel) in an English newspaper a few days ago where he said he loved England and the English (British), but that we are seen as a laughing stock over BREXIT and all the shenanigans over it.

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