Which major empire was your current area once a part of?

[Ferocitus]

So, any plans to level that sentiment against bankers, industrialists and those who inherit significant wealth, but who don't have the accident of fate to have an inherited title as well?

(Also, good luck defining what your provisos actually mean in practice.)

Why would anyone pursue those people if they inherited it legitimately from people
who didn't accumulate their wealth illegally.

(Also, good luck defining what your provisos actually mean in practice.)

No luck needed. Just the right conditions, and the whole lot can be seized in one fell swoop.

 

[Lexicus]

So, any plans to level that sentiment against bankers, industrialists and those who inherit significant wealth,

Yes

 

[Arakhor]

Why would anyone pursue those people if they inherited it legitimately from people who didn't accumulate their wealth illegally.

So you consider wealth gained from exploitation, expropriation and nefarious means to be fine, provided that it was technically legal to do so?

Yes

I'd expect you'd say that.

 

[Lexicus]

I'd expect you'd say that.

I just couldn't resist chiming in. I was actually going to quote this post from the last page:

What is with these republican wet dreams where suddenly everything that royal family has ever owned is stripped from them, including their bank accounts?

And reply "don't worry, the other rich people won't be left out", but then I noticed there were 3 more messages on the next page...

 

[Traitorfish]

I don't know why British people get so indignant when somebody suggests abolishing their sordid little monarchy. As if republicanism is some swivvle-eyed utopian dalliance, and not the global norm?

 

[JohannaK]

It's not like most deposed monarchs got to live a luxuriant life in exile. Wait, they did.

 

[Ferocitus]

So you consider wealth gained from exploitation, expropriation and nefarious means to be fine, provided that it was technically legal to do so?

You and your friends are very welcome to come before our "special" court/star chamber
and plead your case in person.

 

[W|M]

It's not like most deposed monarchs got to live a luxuriant life in exile. Wait, they did.

Unless their heads got seperated from their bodies, in which case they never really lived in exile

 

[Ferocitus]

Unless their heads got seperated from their bodies, in which case they never really lived in exile

I'm for it: forced to quit while they were a head.

 

[JohannaK]

That's why I said most: the ones who knew when to call it quits. Leave a king or live long enough to get executed.

 

[RFormica]

Maybe you should make it so that you can choose as many options as you want... I currently live on land that was once claimed by the British and the French, but was also part of the Iroquois Confederacy at a point.

 

[Zkribbler]

Just so we're clear, Webster's (via Wikipedia) defines an empire as an aggregate of nations or people ruled over by an emperor or other powerful sovereign or government, usually a territory of greater extent than a kingdom. Thus, 'just' indulging in genocide against one's neighbours in pursuit of a self-appointed 'divine' mandate makes one a very unpleasant nation, but not actually an empire until one succeeds to a notable extent.

Wow, someone who actually uses a dictionary.

 

[Lexicus]

Wow, someone who actually uses a dictionary.

Yeah, but using a dictionary to define a concept as deep as "empire" is like trying to drain your bathtub with a teaspoon.

 

[Lohrenswald]

dictionaries are the arbiters of truth

how do I know that?

looked it up in the dictionary

 

[sophie]

Wow, someone who actually uses a dictionary.

Dictionaries tend to have fairly minimal application in academic discussions. It's like wikipedia, or referring to an English translation of a document or text. It's good as a quick reference, and serves as a wonderful jumping-off point for further investigation, but any use of it for close study quickly reveals its insufficiency for the task.

 

[Zkribbler]

You either base your meaning of words on the dictionary or on the philosophy of one Humpty Dumpty, who undeniably had a great fall.

 

[JohannaK]

Then how do the people who write a dictionary know what words mean? They must be so lost.

 

[sophie]

You either base your meaning of words on the dictionary or on the philosophy of one Humpty Dumpty, who undeniably had a great fall.

A dictionary - or at least, a good dictionary - is a reflection of the way the word is most commonly used by an average speaker. It's simply not a good reference point for rigorous academic discourse. In an academic discussion you would create your own framework for a term's meaning, either by logical or evidentiary arguments (e.g. if you were talking about views of imperialism in Medieval Byzantine society it would make sense to identify how Byzantine writers viewed and interpreted the concept, rather than how a modern contributor to the OED would), or by scaffolding off existing frameworks by academics who did the same previously.

For example, the first half of the first chapter of Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West is devoted solely to unpacking and creating a framework for the word "ethnicity", in which Guy Halsall quotes extensively both from academics who have researched and discussed the concept of ethnicity, as well as ancient ethnographies for historical perspective on how contemporary sources viewed the concept.

 

[Cutlass]

I don't know why British people get so indignant when somebody suggests abolishing their sordid little monarchy. As if republicanism is some swivvle-eyed utopian dalliance, and not the global norm?

Isn't that what the hoity-toity have been saying all along?

 

[Virote_Considon]

The Roman Empire, the North Sea Empire, the British Empire.