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Another Perspective
Why We Should Give Thanks for the British Empire
On Thanksgiving Day, let’s remember where our ideals of freedom and limited government came from.
As we Americans celebrate on this day of gluttony, football, and prayer (not necessarily in that order), we might offer up thanks for the institution that gave us our glorious traditions of liberty and prosperity. That institution would be the British Empire, which not only put us here, but gave us Christianity, limited government, and a system of rights founded in British common law. Somehow many of us tend to overlook that — something to do with 1776, most likely, and the idea that we rebelled against the tyranny of effete, toffee-nosed British snobs.
But really, it wasn’t quite like that. As every American schoolboy should know, but probably doesn’t, the British colonies of North America were the lightest taxed, most liberally governed (in the classical small government sense), freest, most prosperous, and most equitable portions of the eighteenth century world. The very rights the colonists believed they were fighting to defend were the traditional rights of Englishmen.
Indeed, many of the British generals assigned to put down the rebels agreed with them, and only parted ways with the colonists, and then reluctantly, when rebellious Americans took up arms against representatives of British authority.
Of course, some Britons — equally devoted to British ideals of freedom and limited government — scoffed at talk of “oppression” and mocked colonial hypocrisy. Samuel Johnson famously quipped in his essay Taxation No Tyranny, “how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”
Rudyard Kipling took a similarly cynical view, “Our American colonies, having no French to fear any longer [after the French and Indian War], wanted to be free from our control altogether. They utterly refused to pay a penny of the two hundred million pounds the war had cost us; and they equally refused to maintain a garrison of British soldiers…. When our Parliament proposed in 1764 to make them pay a small fraction of the cost of the late war, they called it ‘oppression,’ and prepared to rebel.”
In this view, the War of American Independence was actually the War of American Ingratitude. King George III saw things as they were: “The rebellious war now levied [in 1775]… is manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing an independent empire.”
That was precisely right, though it’s a shock to some Americans who blithely assume that “empire” and “America” are like oil and water. The Founders certainly didn’t think so. George Washington referred to America as “our rising Empire.” Thomas Jefferson wrote of America as an “empire of liberty.” Alexander Hamilton in Federalist One called America “an empire, in many respects the most interesting in the world.” And John Adams and Benjamin Franklin both envisaged that the United States — because of its potential wealth, size, and resources — would become the seat of a greater empire than the British. The Founders were not opposed to “empire.” They merely wanted an empire of their own, and were in fact appalled at British attempts to limit the colonists’ expansion west across the Appalachians, which the British had designated as Indian territory in the hope of avoiding costly Indian wars.
When the Founders set about framing the Constitution, many of them thought as John Dickinson (one Delaware’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787) did, “Experience must be our only guide, reason may mislead us.” The Americans’ actual experience of liberty, rights, and limited government had come, part and parcel, from the British Empire, as had their confidence in practical experience and their rightful suspicion of reform based on reason alone — which goes a long way to explaining why the American Revolution didn’t turn out like the bloody and destructive French one.
The British Empire gave birth not only to the United States, but to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with their similar traditions of freedom — countries with which most Americans feel a sense of kinship. The Empire also created the free trade centers of Hong Kong and Singapore. It was responsible for the abolition of the slave trade on a global scale. It fought, and won, two world wars, with America eventually at its side; and the Empire was, in its declining phase, our most loyal ally in the Cold War.
So today, as we tuck into a great feast, play touch football in the yard, and give thanks for our many blessings, let us give thanks as well to the British Empire that gave us our liberty, language, and laws, and remember that, despite a few in-law unpleasantries (now 200 years old), of all the available families of nations, our Mother Country was the best.
About the Author
H. W. Crocker, III is a bestselling author. His most recent book is The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (84) | Leave a comment
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Michael Tomlinson| 11.23.11 @ 6:29AM
As we watch majority ruled South Africa slip into a despotic tyranny one can only look back on its Imperial heritage to appreciate how far it has deteriorated. Yet, in India where many of the institutions of the Empire have been maintained democracy and prosperity are steadily growing in the future superpower.
Jacob R| 11.24.11 @ 7:24AM
You're crazy.. You think S Africa was better off with no technology and leaders more brutal than the British who sold their own people into slavery?
Despite the leftist media machine, S Africa is richer and more prosperous than most other recently third world countries.
You probably think the Aztecs would be better off sacrificing innocent people than praying to the Christian God.
RonRonDoRon| 11.25.11 @ 4:25PM
Did you actually read Michael Tomlinson's post before responding to it?
John Daniel| 11.23.11 @ 6:50AM
Ah, Sir, but empire to what end? Mr. Jefferson's agrarian republic was indeed devoted to the transplanting of liberty, but Col. Hamilton's commercial empire was something altogether different. The former virtuous, the latter merely stock jobbing....
Jacob R| 11.24.11 @ 7:29AM
I think you've fallen prey to the romantification of Jefferson.
Your modern mind sees a difference between agrarian and empire, but "agrarian farmers" are the basis of empire.
And Jefferson was standing up for an idea, I don't think he was naive enough to believe we would all be farmers forever.
Also why didn't he transplant liberty to his slaves if that was his singular devotion? There were plenty of abolitionists by that time, why don't we know him as a great abolitionist?
In any case he was one man and didn't decide the meaning of America for eternity.
RJ| 11.23.11 @ 7:14AM
We and the free people of the world owe a debt of gratitude to Britain for being a historic leader in the cause of individual freedom and prosperity. Nonetheless, the rebellion began with colonists who were defending their rights as Englishmen. Even in Parliament, it was said that colonialist arguments should sound familiar, as they were raised previously during the era of the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
POST American| 11.23.11 @ 8:16AM
Can someone please explain how the
private, corporate, USURY driven,
opium and Marks-ism pushing,
EUGENICS begetting, 'British' Empire
EVER benefited the English, Irish, Welsh
and Scots themselves?
The heyday of empire, the nineteenth century,
saw the darkest chapters of enforced
'IN--DUST--realism' which had even Marx's sidekick and
'benny factor', Engels remark, the slaves in
America had a far better deal than the workers
of Manchester.
As far as the BEST of Britain, that would
have to be Calvinist giants like John Gill,
Bunyan and Milton.
NO respecters of 'Political Correctness',
inflated personages, or state idolatry
were they. They were liberty itself, and are still
at large in the hearts of the free.
rn| 11.23.11 @ 10:37AM
Yahoooooo!! Pilgrim's Progress. A must read. Right on, right on, right on, Post A.
Margie| 11.24.11 @ 7:32PM
Heh, didn't know Bunyan was a "Calvinist." Whatever that means.
But yes, Pilgrim's progress is a must read.. and re-read, and then keep reading for life.
Also, if one wants to see clearly the difference between legalistic Religion, and saved by Grace, read his book entitled, "Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners."
Bunyan had it right. It's interesting, because he suffered under the yoke of slavery called legalism for years, and then God opened his eyes!
It's a wonderful thing to be set free from Religion and into the relationship with God under His amazing Grace.
RCV| 11.27.11 @ 2:05AM
You should read Bunyan's "Of the Trinity and a Christian" Margie, on the essential necessity of coming to accept the Triune nature of God if one is to be a Christian.
Papist Dan| 11.27.11 @ 11:34AM
Margie can't accept that Jesus is God. But she sees fit to lecture on Christianity.
RCV| 11.23.11 @ 11:26AM
One of the few well-said coherent posts from someone I usually scroll through.
Occam's Tool| 11.23.11 @ 8:27PM
The Brits allowed us to assemble behind them for WWII, at the cost of their own destruction as an empire.
This was due to the efforts of antisemites such as Burton K Wheeler, about whom, RCV, tell me he doesn't remind you of Ron Paul? (If you don't remember him, the Wiki is fairly accurate)
Oh, and RCV---have a kick ass TURKEY DAY!
RCV| 11.24.11 @ 12:18PM
Same to you and your family, OR! We have so very much to be thankful for, including the reality that Ron Paul will never be President. And yes, I do remember Burton K Wheeler.
Clint| 11.26.11 @ 6:53PM
ObamaBoy Israel Firster RCV Is Scared Of The Tea Party & Our Presidential Candidate Dr.Ron Paul.
" Ron Paul is surging, an Iowa and New Hampshire front-runner and powerful third-party possibility
By Brent Budowsky - 11/21/11 10:04 AM ET
There are now multiple polls that show Ron Paul has gained support and has a legitimate chance to come in first or second in Iowa and New Hampshire. I would now call Ron Paul one of three front-runners in both Iowa and New Hampshire alongside Mitt Romney and a third candidate, currently Newt Gingrich. If Ron Paul wins Iowa, which he might, all bets are off. Also, most analysts miss the fact that many states have open systems where independents, and in some cases Democrats, can vote for a Republican nominee. This could give a further boost to Paul.
It is now time to give Ron Paul the attention he deserves in debates and throughout the political community."
The Tea Party Rebellion Is Here & In Iowa.
Margie| 11.24.11 @ 7:34PM
The Brits set free my Mother in law from her slavery in a Nazi prison camp in Germany during WWII.
By the Grace of God, I thank them for ever.
RCV| 11.24.11 @ 11:49PM
As you should. We have much to thank England for: they've been a loyal ally, the source of our great legal institutions and culture.
Clint| 11.27.11 @ 5:19AM
Bullcrap, Israel Firster PropagandaGirl Smear Artist,Tool Job.
"In 1924,The Progressive Party (using the old 1912 name) called for public ownership of railroads, which catered to the Railroad brotherhoods. La Follette ran with Senator Burton K. Wheeler, Democratic Senator from Montana. The party represented a farmer/labor coalition and was endorsed by the Socialist Party of America, the American Federation of Labor and many railroad brotherhoods.
Wheeler did not, however, vote against America's participation in World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, saying the only thing left to do was "to lick hell out of them".
Tool Job Is The RINO-CINO Screwball Israel Firster Propaganda Squad Smear Artist, Who Says He'll Vote For The RINO-CINO Frontman, Mittens Romney.
RonRonDoRon| 11.25.11 @ 4:28PM
Your standards of coherence must be pretty low.
RCV| 11.27.11 @ 9:17PM
You haven't read her other posts
Jacob R| 11.24.11 @ 7:31AM
I agree with your sentiments..we do have a lot of lazy entitled boomers.
However the Scots and Welsh would still live like heathens if not for their joint efforts with the English.
nathan| 11.23.11 @ 9:13AM
Mr. Crocker is rather selective regarding his choices here isn't he? Let's ask the people of Iraq, a country created solely so that the British could exploit the Mesopotamian oil fields, with a map that in no way took into account the ethnic divisions existing at the time, let's ask them how they feel about the "noble" British. Or how about the people at the time of the British conquest who had a thriving civilization who saw it reduced to poverty and privation by those noble British who rolled into the area with just the purest of motives, let's see how they felt about all this. There are any number of places we name starting with Bengal.
We can also ask the Zulus whose land was taken without their consent. Oh by the way, he mentions Australia. We wouldn't care to ask the aborigines how they felt about the British incursion and what amounted to virtual genocidal policies against them later? I'm equally sure the Indians in the American side of North America, subject to what also amounted to ethnic cleansing, genocidal policies (no disease was not the sole cause of the estimated population going from around 10 million in the 1600's to around one/two million in the late 1800's) were equally thrilled at the presence of the noble British and their descendants in their midst.
You all do know right, that every place he mentions was inhabited by other people before the British got there? We conservatives ranted and raved about Kelo VS New London and how Kelo's property rights were HORRIBLY violated. Well what pray tell were the noble British with their concept of rights and the things he mentioned, what pray tell did he think they were doing in places like Australia and India and elsewhere? Kelo on a huge monstrous scale. And after WWI, they went out and totally consistent with that glorious empire of theirs, got involved in the Middle East which they had absolute no right to do, (what was their basis for thinking that the local populations wanted to exchanged Turkish rule for British rule) and royally (pun intended) screwed things up. Lawrence of Arabia spent the rest of life advocating to undue the injustices done those peoples at Versaille. You all really want to defend them occupying the Middle East? The Arabs who fought with Lawrence went to Versaille expected to be granted independence having fought against the Turks. They didn't go there begging to be ruled by the British and the French. Please kindly justify the noble British throwing them under the bus.
And what you have to love here as we so moralistically complained about WMD's in Iraq is that the British, oh so noble used poison gas there first to suppress rebellions as a way of minimizing their own troop losses in the process virtually wiping out whole villages. Noble indeed. That Mr. Crocker is empire and that is what empires always descend to. Ask the detainees at Abu Ghraib or 124 in Kabul.
Please once and for all, there was nothing noble about the British empire or any of those empires. The British went out to exploit people less technologically advanced than themselves and often times weren't very nice about it. Have you all forgotten how they fought the Boers? Concentration camps didn't start in 1939 folks. Or read about how they acted after the Indian Mutiny in 1857. Not for the faint of heart.
And for the most part all the rights they reserved for themselves at home, well often times those rights didn't travel all that well abroad. Again, care to ask the aborigines in Australia how THEIR rights were respected? No, I guess not.
Please once and for all. There was no white man's burden. No, there was nothing noble, honorable or wonderful about these British imperialists or imperialism in general. They went in and stole what wasn't theirs. How is that consistent with the unalienable rights doctrine?
Please enough already.
Austin Scott| 11.23.11 @ 10:08AM
The moral corollary of this view is that people non-native to the Americas should be resettled in their places of origin.
But since the history of humanity is the history of migration, invasion, and empire, that would undo all of civilization and every state.
Cultures, states, and empires are mixed bags of good and bad. On the whole, given time and circumstances, the British Empire had more good than bad. The alternative was not no empire --it was an empire run by the French, or the Spanish, or the Mughals, or the Zulus, or the Aztecs.
BTW, the "genocide" of the Australian native people is not well supported by historical evidence, though alive in political myth-making.
John Brody| 11.23.11 @ 10:18AM
Very well said. The modern liberal view of the "noble savage" has been disproven numerous times. Humans are what we are and any attempts to make "utopia" via social engineering (or re-writing history as above) have failed as well.
Timothy L. Pennell| 11.23.11 @ 10:13AM
Really? I wonder how many AFRICANS long for the Days of European Colonialism, as opposed to, Muslim Domination, and GENOCIDE perpetrated on them by their Fellow Blacks?
I wonder if the Starving Zimbabweans, miss all of the FOOD that the White Farmers grew, back in the days of Rhodesia? I wonder if South African Blacks think that the HELL HOLE that they now live in, is preferable to the Low Crime JEWEL of the Continent, that used to be South Africa?
These lands were CIVILIZED by Europe, in the same way that ROME civilized the Barbarian Tribes. Fresh Water. Security. A Functioning Court System. FOOD. Hot Baths. Theatre and other Recreations.
As in those times, when ROME went away, their former possessions suffered through The DARK AGES. I wonder how many of them, longed for the days of Roman Rule?
How did you put it? Oh, yeah.
"PLEASE. Once and for all" about the Evil White Man.
John Brody| 11.23.11 @ 10:20AM
I can't cheer you enough on this! Civilization is our natural progression. Liberal guilt has no end, but should end.
Da'ud Muad'dib| 11.23.11 @ 11:32AM
All of you arguing for the glory of the Empire still miss the point. Spend a day in the shoes of the up until then free American Indian of the time or the recently enslaved African, forced from his homeland and family, to decide how benevolent British rule was. As for the East Indian, African and Middle Eastern colonies of the 19th and 20th century note that none of these were mentioned in the original article. Only those nations whose original inhabitants have been relegated to insignificance in population and cultural influence were mentioned, lands where the existing peoples and cultures have been nearly wiped from the map and replaced with European cultural standards were mentioned. If you were a member of the original peoples either in the currently anglicized or neo-anglicized societies, at the introduction of British influence or today, the vast majority would rather live in poverty under their own leadership than to life in poverty under someone else’s rule. Don’t kid yourself into believing that the native peoples who were at the bottom of the social ladder before European interference in either category have as a group made up a major percentage of the middle and upper classes in today’s societies.
Crocker is correct in his assessment that we as a colony were unappreciative of how good we had it but knew that as good as it may have been it could be better. This idea permeates our culture to this day. It is the basis for our striving to form a more perfect union. We recognize for each step we may take backward, we eventually take two forward. It is to our creator and our heritage that we truly owe thanks and yes the ideas of our European forbearers have been both a blessing we should be thankful for and a burden we continue to strive to overcome.
Jacob R| 11.24.11 @ 7:38AM
You romanticize the lives of those natives.
They lived in Darwanistic socieities where you were far more likely to be murdered or dominated by a strong man.
Nothing's perfect but there are obviously far more recourses for those who are weak in some way in civilized society.
When you throw in modern medical technology and the fact that they've been civilized and set free,the natives came out in the positive without question.
The Romans civilizing Celts in Britain is the perfect comparison. It was harsh and ugly, but the Brits obviously got some benefit from it! (Anythings better than worshipping rocks and sacrificing innocent people!)
markenoff| 11.26.11 @ 8:03PM
1) Africans were enslaved by other Africans before being sold to Europeans
2) The Spanish and Portuguese were the primary buyers and traders in slaves, not the British
3) Following the Napoleanic wars not only did the British pay their allies the Portuguese and Spanish hundreds of thousands of pounds to forego the slave trade they also spent hundreds of thousands of pounds and the lives of thousands of the Royal Navy's sailors to end the practice.
4) England abolished the slave trade in 1807 and slavery in 1833. Brazil, following its detachment from Portugal abolished slavery in 1888. Cuba abolished slavery in 1886. Saudi Arabia aboliton slavery in '69.....1969.
Osamas Pajamas| 11.27.11 @ 1:03PM
I believe Saudia abolished slavery in 1965, possibly embarrassed by the US Civil War centennial. Not that that brought slavery to an end in the Islamic Empire --- far from it, for millions are now slaves to Allah under the Sharia laws. As well, I see no mention in Markoff's remarks of the role played by Arabs in kidnapping and selling thousands upon thousands of Africans into slavery to Europeans.
markenoff| 11.27.11 @ 5:27PM
The article is about the British empire, only used Saudi Arabia as a single counter example.
But if you want to talk about Arabs and slavery they primarily enslaved Africans on the east coast of Africa for their own purposes and rarely sold them to Eurpopeans for transport to the western hemisphere. The distances were just too great when slaves were just as available from the native African chieftains along the west coast.
Moslems, including Arabs, did enslave more Europeans from the southern coast of Europe during the 16th century than Europeans enslaved Africans during that time period. The Ottoman Empire and its vassals staged huge slave raids from Spain to Albania depopulating whole regions.
Vern Crisler| 11.23.11 @ 9:33AM
Crocker's view of the American Revolution is misdirected. I've written a critique of all this sort of "revisionism":
http://vernerable.wordpress.co.....evolution/
That being said, I agree that except for 1776 and 1812 (a war fought because the British were, inter alia, kidnapping Americans) we have a lot for which to thank old imperial Britain, though not for much else after the Beatles.
Jacob R| 11.24.11 @ 7:41AM
You don't think the modern banking system and the Internet are things to be thankful for?
Britain and America might as well bethe same nation. All of our successes EVER have been joint operations and Brits or former Brits were there helping and leading, not just reminding us of our historical relationship.
Vern Crisler | 11.25.11 @ 2:17PM
In modern times, except for Ms. Thatcher, the politics of England has always veered left, much more so than in the US.
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.23.11 @ 10:26AM
Mr. Crocker,
SCREW the British Empire!
Certain, (and minority), Brits were on the right page…but the “Empire” never was….and never has been. You, Sir are full of diverticulitus.
(to those of you in Rio-Linda…that means BULGING full of fecal matter.)
RCV| 11.23.11 @ 11:32AM
A rare "Amen" from me, Ken. The British left many fine political institutions behind wherever they came and went, including the jury system and the common law. But the "Empire" itself was nothing to celebrate. Human self-determination and liberty are higher values. Ask the 13 year old Irish lads who were "transported" to Australia for stealing a loaf of bread what they thought of the Empire; or the Irish Catholics who had to say Mass out in a field in secret. Let's not romanticize Empire.
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.23.11 @ 12:46PM
RCV,
you and I can heal our country...if we get our heads together. Call me on my cell 713-569-3896
Heh, we might argue a lot...but we love our country.... and we are the smartest of the smart....and experienced.
RCV| 11.24.11 @ 12:19PM
Have a happy Thanksgiving, Ken!
Mark| 11.24.11 @ 2:20AM
In Australia those Irish lads had food.
Jacob R| 11.24.11 @ 7:45AM
I'm part Irish and as Roman Catholic as I could be, but I still don't pretend that the barbarian pagan Celts would be doing much but going to their temples and living like heathens if the English hadn't civilized them the way they'd been civilized by the Romans and the Romans by the Greeks.
RCV| 11.24.11 @ 12:23PM
The Christian missionaries civilized the Irish Celts, not the British. The British disenfranchised them, stole their land, outlawed their faith, and starved them during the Famine. That's not "civilization". Gandhi's quote on British civilization applies aptly to their rule in Ireland.
markenoff| 11.26.11 @ 8:07PM
Um, yeah, those "Christian missionaries" such as Saint Patrick, were British or at least English. The famine was a coincidental convergence of a blight on the potato crop and the Corn Laws left over from the Napoleanic Wars.
Papist Dan| 11.27.11 @ 11:34AM
Wasn't St. Patrick a Roman?
markenoff| 11.27.11 @ 5:33PM
Actually Scotch of Roman parents:
Apostle of Ireland, born at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, in Scotland, in the year 387; died at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland, 17 March, 493. Some sources say 460 or 461. --Ed.
He had for his parents Calphurnius and Conchessa. The former belonged to a Roman family of high rank and held the office of decurio in Gaul or Britain. Conchessa was a near relative of the great patron of Gaul, St. Martin of Tours. Kilpatrick still retains many memorials of Saint Patrick, and frequent pilgrimages continued far into the Middle Ages to perpetuate there the fame of his sanctity and miracles.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11554a.htm
Papist Dan| 11.27.11 @ 10:31PM
Thanks Markenoff
RCV| 11.27.11 @ 9:19PM
There was no" coincidence" in the British refusal to feed the Irish poor with the food grown in Ireland.
Reprobate Charlatan Vomitus| 11.27.11 @ 10:13PM
I don't bother with silly sanctimonious hypocritical aptly applied "civilization", when the disenfranchised over 54 million innocent defenseless Americans have been brutally slaughtered civilly by the party of civility I belong to, as I sanctimoniously hypocritically espouse civilly what a lifelong constitutional scholar and what a lifelong biblical scholar I am, and sanctimoniously hypocritically espouse civilly what a devout churchgoing Christian I am, and sanctimoniously hypocritcally espouse civilly how I abhor tea party conservatives because they are wholly lacking in any intelligence uncivilly and are wholly lacking in any Christian compassion uncivilly, on sanctimoniously hypocritically espousing civilly that, at least, I care civilly about human beings AFTER they're born civilly matters.
RCV| 11.28.11 @ 5:02PM
Snore....snore....snore....
Reprobate Charlatan Vomitus| 11.29.11 @ 3:23AM
I don't bother with silly sanctimonious hypocritical aptly applied civility, when forgetting to include how I also civilly abhor tea party conservatives, because they are wholly lacking in any real Christian love uncivilly, how civilly silly to forget THAT, on sanctimoniously hypocritically espousing civilly that, at least , I care civilly about human beings AFTER they're born civilly, excepting those 3,938 civilly, on average civilly, each civilly and every civilly day, these last civilly 14,190 or so, since that civil day on civil January the civil 22nd, in the civil year of Christ 1973, in civilly real Christian love, civilly sanctimoniously, civilly hypocritically, civilly monumentally civilly epically civilly idiotically, civilly matters.
RCV| 11.29.11 @ 10:52AM
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....
I'm flattered by your unhealthy obsession with me, Skip, but you're boring the rest of the crowd to death.
Reprobate Charlatan Vomitus| 11.29.11 @ 2:23PM
I don't bother with silly being a lofty liberal, with the certainty I am smartest of the smart, on matters of importance, doggedly posting eagerly for the benefit of the crowd of readers, who benefit from my stewardship, that encompasses both the aspects of my scholarly learning and of my cultural wisdom, while I habitually repeat the same old ad hominem slurs, constantly, with the same old habitually caressing fondness, constantly, repeating habitually the same old insistent feelings, constantly, repeating habitually the same old meager thoughts, constantly, which I am habitually certain are fiercely passionate and lofty rational revelations, since, after all, I belong to a party, at least, that cares about human beings AFTER they're born, concerning matters of importance matters,
when in reality, and in all truthfulness, which no doubt does not ecape the crowd of readers, but rather amuses them, is the truthful reality that I am in fact the epitome of the definition of a liberal, as revealed from one of the crowd of readers, the magnificent John II:
~
"a liberal is person who pretends to anger or indignation over ad hominem slurs while dispensing such slurs himself, as you do both abundantly and ignorantly in your preceding posts, including the most recent."
~
"A liberal is a person who pretends to a lofty rationality as a kind of veneer to cover fiercely resentful passions, which leak out constantly in the form of crazed projections revelatory of ignorance, arrogance, and a certain dogged stupidity that encompasses an odd fascination with violence. In public policy, this aspect of liberalness translates into the intellectually and morally bankrupt habit of doing the same failed thing again and again and again.
In short, as a dog returns to his vomit, so the liberal returns to his folly. (cf. Proverbs 26:11)"
~
"A liberal is a person whose thoughts are so meager and whose feelings are so insistent that his caressing fondness for those thoughts and feelings drives him to repeat himself endlessly."
~
"A liberal is a person of small learning and large ego who is eager to be counted among the self-appointed stewards of a culture slouching toward degeneracy."
~
"A liberal is a person who promotes political correctness as a substitute for morality"
~
"A liberal is a person with a soft head for criminals and a hard heart for unborn children."
~
"A liberal is . . . Ah, there are so many definitions of a liberal: where does one start? Could one ever finish?"
~
A liberal is a pathetic and a despicable person who emotionally prattles to the exclusion of any reason and experience based on any intellence and honesty to such a degree his relative words and actions blatantly reveal his absolute immorality and idiotic stupidity.
Blackwatch| 11.23.11 @ 12:53PM
Ken,
I worked in Rio Linda, CA yesterday and found it to be a pleasant experience. I wish El Rushbo would drop that Rio Linda dig as it is no longer deserved. I do remember the mountains of front yard, back yard, front porch "stuff" that the residents were infamous for storing there though. Its not that way anymore--mostly thanks to the Mayor of West Sacramento, Rush Limbaugh, embarrassing them on national radio.
James Hughes| 11.24.11 @ 8:52PM
I'm a Scot could someone enlighten me what the 'Rio Linda' stuff is about?
Osamas Pajamas| 11.27.11 @ 12:57PM
Rio Linda is not longer the jackrabbit and prairiedog-infested trash heap it used to be, thanks possibly to the longtime over-the-air ribbing by radio star Rush Limbaugh.
Petronius| 11.23.11 @ 10:30AM
For the liberals who won't be judged by others and want no absolutes, I'd like them to tell me which nations are altruistic enough for them to live in and also grant those like me the economic liberty and social autonomy I desire. There are none. So rather than reprising the old canards of imperialism, conquest, and plunder pro forma, let us reflect on the nature of government in light of our own conditions and aspirations. The nature of government has two aspects. Economically it produces nothing. It just confiscates and consumes. Culturally it is despotic. Despotism of and by the state is manifest in what it promotes and prohibits. Look then to the true accounts of Jamestown and Plymouth. Failure and success are the antecedents of Self Control. And those who cannot or will not control themselves cannot and should not govern others. Today we are no longer a nation with the distinct identity we had a mere half century ago. Political power in these united states is now the purview of those who utilize it solely for getting their own way. The only say we have is choosing the few elected officials who would harm us the least as none are bound in any sense by Constitutional limits. Come next year at this time we will know if we will embark on restoration of Our Freedom or face its total demise at the hands of the Levelers. Welcome to the 17th century.
Lawrence D. Cannon| 11.23.11 @ 11:16AM
The problem wasn't that the British government was taxing us (then) Englishmen for the financing of the Seven Years War...it was that the King didn't allow Americans to be Members of Parliament, ie, "Taxation Without Representation".
Ben Franklin once toured Ireland. He saw the horrible suffering to which the Crown subjected the native Irish peoples. He realized the only thing keeping them from oppressing the American colonists was the 3000 miles of ocean between them.
I would think that, if America somehow settled a far-distant planet where it took months to go to or from, those colonists would have the same attitude.
Vern Crisler| 11.23.11 @ 2:33PM
Strictly speaking, it was taxation without representation for the purpose of raising revenue. Americans did not dispute England's right to tax for purposes of regulating commerce. In other words, they accepted that Britain was an empire and had the right to regulate its colonies with respect to trade.
What they rejected -- whether internal taxes or external taxes -- was the imposition of such taxes for the raising of revenue. They believed their colonial legislatures were the only bodies that could do that since they thought of their legislatures as being Parliaments in their own right.
Occam's Tool| 11.23.11 @ 9:42PM
Except that taxation with represntation in a House of Parliament in which Americans were a small minority might have been worse.
The Brits essentially faced the limits of Empire with us.
James Pawlak | 11.23.11 @ 11:46AM
'Tis so sad that the Brits have given up freedom to keep and bear arms, freedom of speech (If against Islam), a free press (Ditto), etc.
Robert Pinkerton| 11.24.11 @ 7:40AM
Disarming the commons (i.e.: Ordinary men and women) is the harbinger of indecent designs against their other liberties. In 1900, one could walk into any gun shop in Britain and walk out with whatever one could afford (Joyce Lee Malcolm: Firearms Control, the British Experience), at which time Britain was, arguably, the freest country in the Old World. Now, after the abominable Firearms Act of 1997?
ABNCP| 11.23.11 @ 12:12PM
Come on fellas leave Nathan alone. It should be clear by now he inhabits a make believe world where only legal, moral, pure politicl actions are allowed. Unfortunatly he does not understand that is not the way the world actualy works. One day he might realize that bloody forehead he has is from beating it against the brick wall of reality.
hondr| 11.23.11 @ 12:15PM
Sorry, but the British Empire was collapsing in on itself even as the US was fighting the Civil War. In its death throes, it provoked the Great War, and all its blood and death, which didn't really end until Hitler was put down in 1945, thirty years of blood and death, then.
And the Brits were prime instigators of this. Had they exercised the good sense of the 1780's, and simply let their betters go, we might all have been spared the madness. But they scrambled for dying empire... and we suffer yet today.
No, tens of millions died horrible deaths because of their greed. We cannot in good conscience celebrate the evil doers who brought that on.
Vern Crisler| 11.23.11 @ 2:28PM
Britain was responsible for WW1? Responsible for WW2? Insanity. What planet do you live on?
ConantheContrarian| 11.25.11 @ 12:56PM
If I remember correctly, Austria wanted to punish Serbia for fomenting revolution in Bosnia and for taking land from Bulgaria. Russia said no, Germany said yes. Then the war started, and the UK and France because of their treaties entered into the war against Germany and Austria. Why didn't UK and France mind their own business? Yes, UK was responsible for a whole lot of slaughter, especially of its own.
Vern Crisler | 11.25.11 @ 2:14PM
So in what way did the UK "provoke" the Great War?
fwb| 11.23.11 @ 12:57PM
Actually it's not GB to whom we owe thanks. It is mmore appropriately owed to men like George Buchanan of Scotland and Rev. John Lathrop of England who was exiled to the US.
GB has always been run by people who want to tell people what to do and how to live. Kinda like those in power in the US.
Canada, New Zealand, and the others who didn't forceably throw out the Brits still don't fare as well in the liberty market as do People in the US.
axbucxdu| 11.23.11 @ 12:58PM
Alright we've said our thank-yous. Can we remove ourselves from the Special Relationship now?
W| 11.23.11 @ 2:42PM
It is easy to criticize for cause some aspects of the British Empire, but the only countries in the world that have consistently had representative government and the rule of law are the descendants of England: USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and formerly Hong Kong. The European countries like Italy, France, Spain, Germany are recent converts.
Would you rather have been "colonized" by Britain or Spain? Look at the history of Mexico and South America.
How about the Turks/Arab/Muslims in North Africa and the Middle East?
Or the Russians in easter Europe/central Asia?
or, the Chinese and Japanese?
History is full of invasions and colonization, but the only beneficial onea have been the British; and the Roman empire.
ABNCP| 11.23.11 @ 3:23PM
W. You are to be commended as a person of logic
against some of the posts on this site. Only left wing liberals and progressives believe in a perfect world. The old Russian saying, "Perfect is the enemy of good enough" applies here. The Brits while not perfect did good enough compared to all those others you so rightly compared them to.
Sam Vaughn| 11.23.11 @ 4:11PM
My grandfather was already very old when I was young. He had nothing but respect for the Brits he fought with in the war.
Occam's Tool| 11.23.11 @ 9:39PM
You know, I seem to remember a certain British general who was opposed to wife burning....
A lot of faults, but not all bad, the Empire. And she died in the Noblest of Causes, with the Greatest Englishman of a thousand years at her helm...
markenoff| 11.26.11 @ 8:26PM
The practice is sutte or sati and is actually the imulation of a widow on the funeral pyre of her husband. Why? :
"By sacrificing herself a widow saves herself from the cruel existence of widowhood and ends the threat she possesses for society. She is considered a member of society who has unrestrained sexual vigor, and thus may harm society with immoral acts. A widow was seen as having irrepressible sexual powers and could be a danger to her society. Remarriage in India was not favored. A widow was not allowed to remarry, nor was she able to turn to religious learning, and hence lived a bleak and barren life. The pain that a sati endures on the pyre was less painful of an experience than the torture she must endure physically and emotionally as a widow. If a widow decided not to join her husband, she was separated from the social world of the living and considered to be a "cold sati". She was only allowed to wear rags and was treated by her family and members of society as an impure, polluted being. The prohibition, in which she is unable to adorn herself, was considered justifiable, done for the widow's "own interest". "
http://www.indhistory.com/sati.html
The British banned the practice in the areas of India they governed beginning in 1829. Sir Charles Napier is the British general generally associated with the ban though the ban was actually in effect prior to his appointment in India. As related by his brother this is the story:
"A story for which Napier is often noted involved Hindu priests complaining to him about the prohibition of Sati by British authorities. This was the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. As first recounted by his brother William, he replied:
"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs." [4]
Which national custom do you prefer?
Paraphrasing a conversation he had with a local Indian noble the noble said that for a widow to throw herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband was their
Occam's Tool| 11.27.11 @ 2:10AM
I prefer the Brits.
Osamas Pajamas| 11.27.11 @ 12:54PM
Go to he UK, forthwith.
The Caped Crusader | 11.24.11 @ 1:47AM
America became great because of the founding fathers, who contributed much to the notion of individual liberty. While the American revolution was taking place, another revolution was taking place in France, which turned tyrannical and fascist. That describes the difference between America and Europe (Britain), perfectly.
If America has anything to be thankful to the British for, it's because you guys practised what the British preached, not what they practised. There were exceptions in the British rule, such as the abolition of slavery, but on the whole, peoples worldwide had a negative experience of that empire. The white paper in Palestine, for example, limited Jewish immigration there, which caused many millions more Jews to die in the Holocaust. Yet the Brits did this because they were afraid of an Arab uprising. Interesting that in '48, a rag tag army of Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors managed to defeat those same Arabs.
Yes America is empirical, but in the US's case, this isn't a dirty word.
After WWI and WWII if it weren't for America, Europe would've sent itself back to an age of feudalism. Again today, we see tensions rising there with the Eurozone crisis, yet those countries (including Britain) think that the solution to their woes (created by socialism), is more socialism.
WWII cost the British their empire. Yes, Churchill was one of the greatest Englishmen who ever lived, but Neville Chamberlain is more typical, as we see today domestically with radical Islam taking over. Opposition voices are not represented, politically, which is giving rise to white supremacist parties such as the BNP.
Had the British taken a more aggressive, logical approach to Hitler, it would've started building its military to rival Hitler's, back in '33 when it had a chance (just as America did during the Cold War - nukes). In the '30s the Brits didn't bother trying to take the Germans on at their own game, and by the time Britain finally decided to declare war on Germany, Britain had 5 military divisions, Germany had 100.
As someone who has recently left Britain (to Israel), I can say I understand and sympathise just how relieved those first migrants to the US felt.
G-d bless America! And happy Thanksgiving to you all.
Vern Crisler | 11.25.11 @ 2:12PM
England had lost much in WWI. It did not feel like fighting in another world war until it was forced into it. Remember how long it took for the US to get into the war; needed a punch in the gut from Japan before it entered.
WeMustResist| 11.24.11 @ 3:58AM
A good understanding of Cristianity must be a huge blessing.
Lank| 11.24.11 @ 10:44AM
Disgusting, the graves of my Irish ancestors, and those others who died because of the Butcher's Apron firmly state:
Tiocfaidh ár lá!
The law was given to Israel, not the UK. This is who America owes thanks to.
Occam's Tool| 11.27.11 @ 2:12AM
Lank, while I appreciate greatly your comments regarding Israel, I...what the hell. Thanks for the nice words. I once had an Irish GF who used to spit whenever Cromwell was mentioned.
Skippy| 11.27.11 @ 6:21PM
The Irish are the most bitter, angry schmucks on Earth, except the Arabs.
Despite their superior intelligence and remarkable ingenuity, they remain eternally pissed-off and violent.
While I was in England years ago, the IRA murdered a little boy in order to be free from...something.
When the Irish get the f*ck over it, they get my respect.
Till then, they and the IRA can kiss my ass.
No wonder the Brits abused them.
RCV| 11.28.11 @ 6:03PM
The IRA were not representative of the Irish people and were in fact banned in the Republic. I've been to Ireland dozens of time over the past years, and find them to be delightful and friendly, hardly "pissed off and violent" and as different from the Arab countries as could be. They suffered long and terribly under British oppression and watched 1/3 of their countrymen starve to death and another 1/3 have to leave for other shores.
And they hardly need or care about "respect" from the likes of you.
Bob| 11.25.11 @ 12:59PM
Yes, the British Empire was something to be grateful for as the latest expression of liberty at the time of the American Revolution. The ideas embodied in the success of the British Empire far predate it, however. The Roman Republic and Empire, the Ancient Greeks, Jews and Christianity are the earlier ideological foundation of the liberty that we enjoy today.
Osamas Pajamas| 11.27.11 @ 12:52PM
Too bad that when the British Empire broke up, the most of erstwhile colonies and member states looked to British socialism as a model for development.
Legacy America | 11.29.11 @ 3:54PM
Good reminder of the benefits of thousands of years of cultural development in the British Isles the United States gained from Mother England. Hundreds and hundreds of years of uprisings, civil wars, revolution, invasions and strife, a long slow evolution of rights handed from royalty to the individual. There is no other nation that America could draw it's uniquely Britian-Anglo-Saxon notions of limited and self government, life, liberty and prosperity. And for those very same reasons she is has the title of "Mother of Revolutions" having offered peoples around the world the gift of independent thinking.
It should be remimbered that England did not have a perfect form of government at the time of the American Revolution, itself soon roiled by political and economic strife with disparities between nobility, large landowners and the general populace, ie the Corn (Wars) Laws, 1815-1846.
http://www.historyhome.co.uk/c.....stress.htm
http://www.britainexpress.com/.....n-laws.htm