Discussing - Unless you count the fact that White, Christian…

Unless you count the fact that White, Christian Britain was the First Nation in thousands of years of human existence since Creation to not only question human slavery but to take meaningful action against it, abolishing the Slave Trade throughout the entire Empire in 1807 and banning all slavery, period in 1833 throughout its Empire. It then went through Africa in its colonising expeditions liberating more humane tribes from the savagery of cannibals and slave-driving tribes who oppressed them, hunting down and putting to justice slave traders across the continent and doing everything in its power to advance natural rights in Africa. Millions upon millions of human beings were liberated from slavery because of White Christian Great Britain, and would still be languishing in it had the anti-colonialists won their wars against Britain. In addition to this Britain advanced free trade and free institutions, education, roads, Christianity, and many incalculable assets in its colonies. It abolished barbaric and savage practices in the Indian Subcontinent such as widow-burning, wherein widows would be quite literally burned alive before an audience of gleeful spectators to die in the most barbarous and humiliating way; and also kept the fragile peace between sparring religious in the Indian Subcontinent from murdering each other. When it disastrously granted "India" independence in 1946, millions of these heated zealots would murder each other – and even now we see the results of religious persecutions since Britain's humane rule ended. You better thank your lucky stars (or better yet come around and thank God) for the Empire, because it quite literally saved human civilisation itself from the evils of Nazism in World War II, in addition to saving Europe from Napoleon's Evil Regime. You would be, if alive at all, a subject of the Third Reich if not for the British Empire. While it did have it faults (It was at fault in our war of independence), which I do not deny, the British Empire was incontestably a good thing on balance. It brought humanity and civilisation to uneducated peoples across the world. It advanced freedom and dignity across the globe and banished the most horrible Tyrannies from the face of the earth.

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@9CJ6CB6 from Virginia commented…2mos2MO

For starters, that was Haiti, which abolished the trade of slaves and slavery in its country in 1804. Jefferson made sure to try and strange their nation economically though, but that’s besides the point. The British abolished slavery because nations and areas like Haiti were rebelling, and Britain didn’t want to deal with the revolts, nor did they wish to deal with the widespread protest their government was facing. The French and British only ever banned slavery beforehand inside of their nation upon white residents, instead opting for indentured servitude that was, for Al pract… Read moreical reasons, the same thing. The British government however cared very little about the moral issues of slavery itself, as shown by a rather common trend of British ships taking ships carrying slaves in their waters, killing the leaders, and often selling those slaves into slavery again to turn a profit in nearby nations or colonies.

The British didn’t care much, they were pressured to do it. The colonizing expeditions largely occurred off of the desire for money and power, with little to no solid moral justification other than the “civilizing mission”, an excuse frequently proven to be false by their obviously horrific treatment of their colonies, and only when they were weakened did colonies like Canada ever get to leave without violence, because their nation was crumbling in its imperialist ways. Many of the described cannibals and savage murderers paled in comparison to the murder and death the British committed in order to supposedly civilize them. A large chunk of the stories about the tribes and civilizations were flagrant lies sent back to the British as fuel for their civilizing mission.

The nations who were forced into liberalizing have only ever shown improvement from growing their own economies through whatever trade they could’ve gained by themselves. During colonization, their personal growth was languishing in comparison to what it could’ve been had the British simply provided them with the means to grow themselves as they were claiming to be doing. The British in turn gained massive quantities of wealth, stealing the modern-day equivalent of 42 trillion dollars from India over the course of its colonization. Gandhi touched on this often, the sense of betrayal that proxy companies like the EIC had left India with after devoting so much to supposedly becoming friends. Equal treatment and basic respect for their rights was lacking, and their economy has grown little in comparison to their promises. While Ghandi was with the British, he worked in the military area, hoping he’d be treated better, but it was no different, for a lot of his life, and the life of others, it was worse due to the scientific racism the British employed to maintain their status.

Ethnic violence was perpetuated both during and after their occupation, the British leaving simply meant nothing held them back from fighting, because it failed miserably to actually do what it planned to do in its century-long ownership of India. They were not humane, the Coolie trade, the Sepoy Rebellions, and massacres of civilians proved that without a shadow of a doubt. Not only did the british save us from Nazism, they literally caused it in the first place using the disgustingly brutal Treaty of Versailles to create the conditions necessary for Hitler’s rise in the first place. Had Britain and France lessened the power of the Treaty, Hitler wouldn’t have happened, and Europe would be safer, but as usual, Britain dragged its colonies into its own wars to assist smaller nations in WW1 in the basis of its own greed. The Third Reich didn’t have world-wide ambitions, Hitler didn’t have the power for that kind of operation, he planned mostly to get america to simply isolate itself and keep Europe under his control, though the likelihood of him gaining in ambition in that scenario is decent, there were no announced plans to take the entire planet.

The very tyrannies it banished came from its own unlawful tyranny, and then rebellion against it in the first place. The British were on of the greatest hypocrites of all time, claiming they civilized nations when they were exploiting them, killing rebels who they claimed were terrorists, then blaming the nation they ravaged for being poor once they left. That is true hypocrisy, they created so many of the things they claimed to save us from. There’s a reason that so many nations despise the British, and it’s ridiculous to state that only OUR revolution was the one where the British were the bad guys.

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@Patriot-#1776Constitution from Washington commented…2mos2MO

Maybe I should have said first "notable" nation because of Haiti, but whatever. Point still stands. Apparently you have no understanding of the British Slave Trade – they didn't abolish it to stop slaves from rebelling, the abolished it because of the diligent efforts of Whig MPs William Wilberforce and Edmund Burke ("The Father of Anglo-American Conservatism") who revealed in the halls of Parliament through fiery speeches the evils of the slave trade and fired all Britain up with moral outrage that led to the destruction of the slave trade. Morality and humanit… Read morey were the factors of principle behind that decision, but regardless of their intentions – Even IF they abolished slavery purely of selfish motivations, as you claim – the Fact still remains that they did, in fact, abolish it, which incontestably was a good thing, and that that inspired many a colonial expedition into Africa.

No, the cannibals and savage murderers in fact were the driving force behind the continuation of the slave trade (and in a delicious irony for today's leftists, these cannibals and murderers were Black) and they captured and sold other tribes, with whom t hey were constantly warring, to sell into slavery. The Europeans purchased these people from the black Africans who had captured them in the first place. This obviously is not an oppressor vs. oppressed situation, a white vs. black situation – horrible people were on both sides of it. Yet Britain it was that first abolished slavery, ended the wicked practices of the savage tribes, and freed the slaves. And you are now in the awkward position of arguing that their abolition of slavery somehow doesn't count as a good thing. While talking about this I might also add that the Catholic Church abolished slavery in Europe in the MIDDLE AGES – yeah, white Christians, CENTURIES BEFORE HAITI, ABOLISHED SLAVERY ACROSS AN ENTIRE CONTINENT, while MUSLIMS continued to enslave ONE MILLION WHITES. White Christians sure did a lot to snuff out slavery, more than any other group of people on the planet.

So essentially you're dead wrong on the slavery issue, moving ON...

Have you read into any depth whatsoever about the economies of the British colonies? Do you lack eyes to see what's happened to CANADA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, since the British? Those places were DESOLATE WASTELANDS POPULATED BY SAVAGE TRIBES, now they are CIVILIZED STATES because of Britain!

You're dead wrong on the ethnic warfare situation, and demonstrably so. If Britain accelerated such tensions, why was it only AFTER THEY LEFT that millions of zealous cultists slaughtered each other in the Indian SubContinent? And the Third Reich did have world ambitions, this can be proven if you bother to read any of Hitler's surviving correspondence (which I have read some of, in Andrew Roberts' "The Storm of War"). So yes, they saved the European Continent in 1815 and the World itself in 1939-45.

You can't claim Britain was being "unlawful" when you believe government and human society are the source of our rights and laws, not God. When you claim it's violating its subjects' rights, since the government of Britain obviously approved of the situation, you must appeal to something Higher than any human government – God – in order to claim any violation of rights, as an unbeliever. Yet another hilarious example of you assuming the existence of God, the source of my ideas, in order to argue against my ideas. Hilarious!

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@9CJ6CB6 from Virginia commented…1mo1MO

For starters, when I say the government was coerced and abolished slavery for self-preservation, rioting of slaves was one of many factors, and I’m not saying their government was a homogeneous entity. They had a lot of internal discourse in a one-party majority state. The Whigs were a minority for a while beforehand, and the Tories did require public pressure to create the necessary push for anti-slavery policy. The Tories needing that pressure was how I mean it when I say their government required coercion and did it out of self-preservation, because the Tories would be entirely voted… Read more out after a massive public uproar against slavery. That’s why the Tories were so on board with the legislation out of nowhere despite previously being pro-slavery, because logistical, preservational, and social reasons pressured them, and convinced a large number of them too. The people focused on humanity, but the Tories often did not, and that amount of dragging their feet was manifested via the many times that still pro-slavery mariners and soldiers ignored their rules. They were a mixed bag, and when I refer to it being “purely” self preservation (as you claim I am, despite that merely being a factor to me), I am referring to their government’s internal sense of self preservation and selfishness, as following the public’s wants was more of a selfish matter rather than a moral one a lot of the time.

The tribes and gangs in Africa that sought to enslave one another came largely from the original Atlantic slave trade, though they did trade slaves before after winning a fight, the British offered a massive source of business during the Triangular Trade, and they grew so dependent upon it that they pillaged other villages and SOMETIMES became what their racist statements declare jn order to make large sums of money. When the British destroyed the slave trade, though it was a good thing, it dashed their economy, leaving the African continent open and vulnerable to attack from a deal the British presented first. This itself was another logistical reason their government would have abolished slavery, though it was more likely a pleasant surprise for them rather than an intended side effect. The abolition was good, but it would’ve been far better if they had never opened that trade in the first place as a method of economic exploitation, because it only truly benefitted one side: the British. The Europeans dismantled slave trade inside their continent in reference to THEIR race, not anyone else’s. They simply translated slaves they were importing to “indentured servants”, which were almost entirely the exact same thing for so long.

The British had a thousand recourses to deal with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and to be truly honest, the brutality of their residents did not excuse their complete annihilation or colonization. They had issues, but no one has the right to beat the crap out of a population for that, their cultural attitudes only became worse as the British colonized them, leading to violent repression and the eventual destruction of a large percentage of the natives. Britain had NO right to do that, regardless of what that culture was like. The British exacerbated rage between ethnic groups as it completely ignored their tensions a large portion of the time, merely holding their fighting groups apart for a bit to keep the status quo. When they left, they just resumed what they were already doing, the British did nothing to actually help those conflicts, they often just made them worse by pitting them against one another to weaken their resolve in any form of resistance against the empire. Hitler’s correspondence and old friends had world ambitions, but they had literally no chance of actually making that happen, since America and the rest of Asia were ironclad in their own defensive armies. They abandoned most every ambition they had once the walls started closing in, their ideology was extremely vague and disputable, but it’s extremely unlikely that he’d follow through on said ambitions even if he truly wanted them enough to commit. Britain was unlawful because some things transcend what the public and the government wants. Murdering and colonizing others is one of those transcendental things. They claimed god was on their side too, so your basis of following god would also be excusing this, proving that things do in fact transcend these types of thought processes. It’s not god, it’s the pillars of morality balancing effect and fairness. The colonization of these peoples was bad for both.

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