Britain - colonises half the world . . .

[fleur-de-lisa]

[Meldread]

1. LOL. Love it. K&R

[Aristus]

2. We in the US sport much the same hypocrisy.

We lay waste to Vietnam for fifteen years, and wonder why so many Vietnamese followed us home. We seem to be blissfuly unaware that for many people around the world, emigrating to the country that is bombing you is the best way to avoid getting bombs dropped on your home.

We steal one-third of Mexico, and then complain about all the Mexican people in our country. All the while ignoring the fact that many of them didn't cross the border; the border crossed them.

We have no right to point fingers at the UK.

fleur-de-lisa!

[fleur-de-lisa]

3. I agree 100% Aristus.

And I am about 75% Irish/British, so I feel comfortable mocking them.

[Aristus]

6. I would have thought that with your user name, you were mostly French.

I'm partly French, but mostly British Isles in ancestry. And I mock like crazy, too.

I'm much more of an advocate for the French, which in the US is a little like telling chickens that that guy with the white suit and the goatee has their best interests at heart.

[ProudProgressiveNow]

4. +1000 nt

[joshcryer]

11. The US holds 20% of the world's immigrant population.

...by far the most immigrant friendly country on the planet.

And we're fine with it. We're not falling apart, despite Trumpism.

[Aristus]

12. And I'm proud of that.

I love our diversity. And I'm tired of the nativism.

[joshcryer]

14. Mind you...

...the whole history of our continent was colonial. What you call Mexico was Spain, for instance.

[IronLionZion]

17. Trump will take care of that

the US easily has the widest gap between perception and reality. Many Americans and many immigrants still believe that Americans are white and brown people are immigrants. The idea that a brown person could be a born and raised US citizen with US citizen parents baffles way too many people who just refuse to accept it.

This is highly evident amongst Trump supporters and many normal people too. It is precisely what is going to win Democrats the election this year. They don't know how diverse Americans are.

[awoke_in_2003]

24. We're not falling apart

but we do have a large percentage of xenophobes here.

[whathehell]

28. Apparently, the entire

has "a lot of xenophobes" at least last at the moment.

[swhisper1]

29. we have alot more acreage

[IronLionZion]

15. And constantly telling everyone that America is the greatest country

and then act surprised when everyone wants to come to the greatest country.

[Aristus]

16. I don't think they come here because of the constant "USA#1!" bellowing.

As I pointed out above, the US is one of the few countries in the world the US hasn't bombed for no readily apparent reason. The person safest from the bombs in the guy inside the bomber.

[IronLionZion]

18. I'm not sure how safe we are from terrorism though

since the USA does have a lot of enemies and many domestic mass shooters. It may be safer to go to another developed country with less weapons.

[Aristus]

25. True.

However, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the Netherlands or Denmark or someplace have a strict 'No Americans' policy...

[whathehell]

30. Funny, I keep hearing that from our critics, but I haven't heard that from any but

certain politicians & talking heads in the media...No one I know says anything like that anymore.

[IronLionZion]

35. Trump will make America great again

[whathehell]

37. Riiiight..

[treestar]

23. We do

We did not colonize and area. We allowed Vietnamese refugees. We never considered the Latinos already in the US to be aliens, they were born in the US - they were citizens.

This land was conquered by the British so it could export its own people. The way the society was set up, only the eldest son inherited and younger sons had to find something to do. A cruel culture that did not have a place for each person born into it. Many emigrated and when the US was cut off, there was Australia, Africa, India, Malaysia, etc.

[Quayblue]

5. Lulz

[hunter]

7. Ha!

There will be no progress until we humans realize we're all in this together.

We all breathe the same air, the same rain falls on all of us.

[underpants]

8. The sun never sets on hypocrisy

[Igel]

9. That map's wrong.

Greenland hasn't ever been British.

Nor has Colombia or the southern part of the isthmus.

Mozambique was Portuguese. As was Angola.

Iran/Persia hasn't been British.

Indonesia was Dutch. As was Zaire.

And so it continues.

I really hope that this wasn't made by a Brit. It would be like a US child coloring in a map that showed he thought at some point Uganda was a US territory.


May I suggest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#/media/File:The_British_Empire_Anachronous.png . This map, by the way, was intentionally made in a way that ignores that the British Empire changed over time. It lost the US over a century before it gained Namibia.

Wiki puts the maximum land area of the British empire at 22.6%, just a bit head of the Mongols. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires

[TheBlackAdder]

10. +10 I thought it looked like bullshit. The premise is valid though, even at 22%.

.


They love telling other people what to do, but not the other way around.


American colonists were no better, since the main driving force of the American Revolution wasn't taxation, it was the Royal Proclamation of 1768. The one which the King made stating that land West of the Appalachia was Indian land, bound by Indian laws. The land to the East was bound by Western laws. Colonists were forbidden from encroaching onto Indian land. The colonists wanted to expand further, and displace the Native Americans. But, in order to violate the King's orders, they had to break from the kingdom. The spin about taxation was to give legitimacy to the colonist's perversions and deceptions. They repaid the Indians, the ones who taught them farming and survival, with continual encroachment and death.


This country was not built on honor and virtue, but a desire for colonial hegemony.

.

[hatrack]

13. Peru? Tierra del Fuego? Thailand? ALASKA?

SRSLY?

I mean, it's a good point, but shitty geography.

[Wounded Bear]

20. You know, I didn't even look at the map LOL

You're right, of course. Not sure where that came from.

The basic premise is still kind of funny, even at 22%.

[ozone_man]

36. Forget that map

Here's a more interesting one.

http://www.humanosphere.org/basics/2013/08/map-of-the-day-where-the-brits-never-invaded/

[workinclasszero]

19. Englishmen invade America and commit genocide

against the original Americans.....

And now we want to build a huge wall to keep out 'foreigners'.

Irony huh?

[treestar]

21. Here here!

So true.

And a lot of problems left that can be traced back to it.

[sangfroid]

22. Interesting Point

How many times have we invaded Mexico?

[zentrum]

26. That's it exactly.

Throw in some Iraq War support and you have the perfect immigrant storm.

[BumRushDaShow]

27. I posted in another thread about that

It is unfortunate that many on DU only want to attribute all of this to Shrub and Darth's adventures. The sad fact is that this mess started all the way back from the time of the European quest for resources outside of Europe (trading in both people and natural products for their benefit), generally starting in the 1400s. And multiple centuries and wars later, including partitioning of similar empires like the Ottoman empire, partly precipitated the environment that we are seeing today - the consequences of taking over other people's land and imposing what were alien cultural practices on the indigenous populatons.

Contemporary Europeans are sadly left to deal with what some of their ancestors did in the past.

I will say that Queen Elizabeth did at least grant "independence" to much of Britain's modern colonies but as we know, most are still basket-cases and will probably continue to be so for some time.

[dubyadiprecession]

31. Have you ever noticed that the very wealthy are usually for free trade?..

yet the torries have pushed this vote. Why i don't know.

[kcjohn1]

32. How many of would support open borders?

Where any one from the Americas from Canada to Haiti can come and work in the US, and US couldn't control the number or type of immigrants?

[hunter]

34. I've got nothing against leaving the U.S.A. if everything turns to shit here.

That's how my European ancestors ended up in the U.S.A. West. They were escaping troubles in Europe, or troubles with the British.

[niyad]

33. k and r

[SoLeftIAmRight]

38. ouch!

...