Texas Republicans want to eliminate critical thinking
- Thread starter Aroddo
- Start date
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
Little known fact that the channel islands are the true geographical pivot of history.
Ajidica
High Quality Person
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2006
- Messages
- 22,482
Leonel
Breakfast Connoisseur
Are the British known for snuff films because this is the first I'm hearing it. Maybe it didn't go out into the colonies?
Aroddo
Emperor
And yet the empire is gone. And I'm sure it wasn't because Germany is better at football than the UK.
This is pretty surreal when visiting ex-british colonies in Africa. People tend to like Germany because the Nazis essentially liberated them.
The sort of people who believe that are the same sort of people who refused to eat chips/fries because France opposed the US over Iraq (i.e. overly nationalistic, spoiling for a fight and careless of history).
biohazard5500
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2012
- Messages
- 10
how ridiculous...
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
The Empire began to break up when Hitler was still in the queue for his demob suit. Just because most of it broke up after the Second World War doesn't imply that there was any direct and unique causal relationship between the two. It was a factor, certainly, but not the be all and end all.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
What? That's extremely bizarre. I'd give credit for decolonization to these guys before I gave it to Germany. Or this guy at least.
Aroddo
Emperor
lol, right, the irish did it.
of course, there are other factors. but having their fleet shot to pieces and being bankrupt at the end of ww2 are likely major factors for a world spanning empire. and given the starting points of nazi Germany and the British Empire it seems even more remarkable.
i'm not sure if you can attribute the german "achievements" to their form of government, though. you can have good state-sponsored education under most forms of government if the leaders are willing.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Firstly, I didn't say "the Irish did it", I said that the break-up of the British Empire was a process that can be identified as beginning a minimum of two decades before the Second World War. (That runs the risk of teleology, of course, and it would be better to say that through the establishment of the Dominions and the Irish Home Rule crisis we begin to see a reconfiguration of the British imperial system towards a less centralised and at least theoretically more democratic form, and that for various reasons both structural and contingent this process of reconfiguration collapsed and produced the outcome that we eventually saw, but at any rate this process can be identified as beginning long before Hitler even began glancing speculatively at the Polish border.)
Secondly, if it is the war alone to which we can attribute the breakdown of the empire, then why didn't Scotland or Wales or the Six Counties or Nottinghamshire or Stoke Newington break away after 1945? It seems pretty obvious that, while the war was a factor of tremendous importance, there were other factors at play.
Secondly, if it is the war alone to which we can attribute the breakdown of the empire, then why didn't Scotland or Wales or the Six Counties or Nottinghamshire or Stoke Newington break away after 1945? It seems pretty obvious that, while the war was a factor of tremendous importance, there were other factors at play.
GinandTonic
Saphire w/ Schweps + Lime
- Joined
- May 25, 2005
- Messages
- 8,898
Mass education seems a rather odd thing to mention in context. Of all the colonial powers the Brits did the most with building an education infrastructure. Deliberate denial of colonial education systems didnt work out so well for Portugal.
What exactly is the point you are reaching for here?
EDIT - at arrodo
What exactly is the point you are reaching for here?
EDIT - at arrodo
caketastydelish
Deity
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2008
- Messages
- 9,721
Thank God I've graduated from Texas school's before this went into action. And for whatever it's worth, I'm going to college in Oklahoma now.
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
It's not a thing that's going into action, it's just ways Republicans want to make Texan schools worse than they are already.
del62
Deity
Pressure from the US (whom Britiain owed loadsa a money) had probably the most significant effect on the break up of the British Empire.
ParkCungHee
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2006
- Messages
- 12,921
I always find it weird that people regard the British Empire as a fixed thing that would naturally have lasted forever without outside intervention, rather then a process that continuously needed to be modified, adapted, and reinvent in order to maintain it's existence.
Similar threads
