The slow, painful death of UK armed forces

[Tamas]

Not what Berkut is saying. He is saying that it is inappropriate to, for example, blame me for the British role in the slave trade and for me to then defend it or mitigate it as if I was a defendant in the dock. As people with a purported interest in history we should instead discuss what actually happened and why it happened that way.

But that is where he and the other yanks here are mistaken and get defensive - we (well, me and Sheilbh for sure) are not handing out blame or saying that the US was doing extraordinarily evil things.
We are saying that they have done similar stuff as any other great power at the time, and pretending otherwise is incorrect, and pretentious.

It would have required inhuman forbearance by the Americans not to have helped themselves to those under-exploited lands. I don't think it was even possible for the American state to have prevented what happened. So I do have some sympathy for the view that it was different to, say, British colonialism in India or Africa.

I have been talking about their wars all along. And anyways, again, I am not judging them. I am saying that they shouldn't judge other powers of the period from the position of moral high ground, which they did not have.

[Ideologue]

You guys colonized Croatia.  I judge ye: guilty.

[Tamas]

You guys colonized Croatia.  I judge ye: guilty.

just keep ignoring what I am saying. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT BEING GUILTY. God damn you americans can be so dense about this topic. It is annoying because otherwise you are quick to judge others.

And, Croatia was a dynastical union of two civilized countries, thankyouverymuch

[The Larch]

So, if you want to debate the Spanish American war, why not shift the focus from the Philippines and look at Puerto Rico and Guam? not every territory that changed hands in that war underwent the same political route.

[CountDeMoney]

You guys have shit all over my thread, when it would've been much more fun shitting on modern British defense spending.

[grumbler]

So, if you want to debate the Spanish American war, why not shift the focus from the Philippines and look at Puerto Rico and Guam? not every territory that changed hands in that war underwent the same political route.

Good point.  Wish I'd said that... wait!  I did!

The results of the Spanish-American War somewhat muddy the field, in the several different types of territories resulted (those given immediate independence, those that were established as proto-independent states, and those that got citizenship but not statehood), but none of these resemble European imperial gains.

[The Larch]

You did not mention the key words. -2 points. You can do better.

[Berkut]

I have been talking about their wars all along. And anyways, again, I am not judging them. I am saying that they shouldn't judge other powers of the period from the position of moral high ground, which they did not have.

I don't think you should judge the Americans based on a moral high ground that nobody has.

But in any case, I still don't see why Europeans get so defensive about this stuff, and start flailing about and demanding that things that are clearly different are somehow "all the same". It is really quite bizarre.

Especially since if you really want to talk about "blame" and "judging" you should be talking about people or cultures, not nations. And in that sense, there is exactly no division between Europeans and Americans when it comes to questions of our interactions with other cultures and peoples. The Americans, to the extent that we are identifiable as "the people who kicked the shot out of the Native Americans or the Spanish or the Mexicans" are in fact the exact same people who kicked the shit out of the Indians, Algerians, and aboriginal Australians.

The replacement of hunter-gatherer societies with food producing societies is a phenomenon that has very little to do with nations at its root cause.

[Berkut]

You guys colonized Croatia.  I judge ye: guilty.

just keep ignoring what I am saying. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT BEING GUILTY.

Of course you are - you are claiming that Europeans are not any more or less relatively guilty because "the Americans did it too!".

Which is really dense on a variety of different levels, not the least of which is that you don't share guilt with your ancestors, so what fucking difference does it make anyway?

God damn you americans can be so dense about this topic. It is annoying because otherwise you are quick to judge others.

I think you are being very quick to judge how quick Americans judge others. Not to mention rather bigoted and you are rather grossly over-generalizing.

I don't know about "Americans" or "Europeans" quickness or lack thereof in judging others, but YOU at least sure are being rather defensive and rather, well, jingoist?. That may not be the right word.

In any case, not agreeing with you does not make anyone dense. Indeed, not agreeing with anyone who makes arguments of the form that involve gross over-generalization of hundreds of millions of people based on a rather infantile and simplistic stereotypes is almost the very opposite of "dense".

[Admiral Yi]

I am suprised that you think it is an apt comparison, or that you aren't aware of such commentaries.

Feel fee to elaborate.  The only negative judgement I've ever read is about Bismark's gaming of the telegram.

My take on the Mexican American War: Mexico was dysfunctional, the US was not. The US was experiencing rapid population growth and Texas was almost empty. A bunch of Americans moved there, and were predictably dissatisfied with the government they received. Hence a sequence of events that led to their independence and incorporation into the US. Quite different than the Franco Prussian War.

The Texas war for independence was quite different from the Franco-Prussian, which is why no one has made the comparison.  I've been talking about the Mexican-American War.

[Admiral Yi]

So, if you want to debate the Spanish American war, why not shift the focus from the Philippines and look at Puerto Rico and Guam? not every territory that changed hands in that war underwent the same political route.

Sure.  Why not?

[Razgovory]

Not what Berkut is saying. He is saying that it is inappropriate to, for example, blame me for the British role in the slave trade and for me to then defend it or mitigate it as if I was a defendant in the dock. As people with a purported interest in history we should instead discuss what actually happened and why it happened that way.

Except he is.  He's hand waving certain periods of history because that's a "phase" they went through.  If we use this criteria any country can do anything, since it's just going through a "phase".

[Sheilbh]

Calling the US spread throughout the continent into what was formerly "native" lands "colonialism" is confusing expansionism with colonialism.

Not really.  As I say the comparison I'd make in a colonial sense is with Canada or Australia.  But I think Argentina and Russia are decent examples too, it just seems the state following the colonisers is based on the same land mass.

It is transparently false to anyone who has a more than passing interest in history and doesn't really mean anything anyway - so what that many nations engaged in colonialism in the past?

The debate started because Tamas said that the Spanish and Mexican-American wars were imperialist conquests - I like  many Americans at the time agree with that view - Americans bridled at the label of them as imperial conquests.  Which actually made Tamas's point.

If I was British, say, I would not feel a singel iota of guilt about my nations colonial and imperial past.

No-one does.  I think that's a big problem actually.  We moved from an Empire, to kitsch-Imperial nostalgia at an alarming speed with barely any pause for reflection, education or, yes, a little bit of guilt in between.  If you bring up the British Empire you're more likely to be told about railways and the wonderful English legal system than the institutionalised economic exploitation of large parts of the world, the famines and the wiping out of native populations in certain areas.  I think we need a bit of guilt because it comes from self-reflection and a degree of empathy with the victims of our past. 

I think you can go too far in being guilty, but that there's a balance to be struck between Germany's relationship with her past and Britain's.

Of course you are - you are claiming that Europeans are not any more or less relatively guilty because "the Americans did it too!".

Not at all.  In terms of guilt European colonialism was a whole magnitude worse, I think that's obvious.

[Sheilbh]

Except he is.  He's hand waving certain periods of history because that's a "phase" they went through.  If we use this criteria any country can do anything, since it's just going through a "phase".

I think the language of 'phases' is unhelpful, as you say they're something you go through.  They seem to me a bit like viewing history through a strict Marxist analysis or like a series of geological ages.

I think the role guilt and reflection play in how we read history is that it returns it to being about choices and self-deceits.  So I think the German way of thinking about Nazism is going to be less what happened and why and more, how did people let this happen.

[The Larch]

So, if you want to debate the Spanish American war, why not shift the focus from the Philippines and look at Puerto Rico and Guam? not every territory that changed hands in that war underwent the same political route.

Sure.  Why not?

So, when are you giving them independence? What's taking you so long?