If the EU collapses it'll be disastrous as the good scenario in that event would be widespread civil disturbance. Not to mention the chance of a trade or actual war and the breakdown of multi-lateral co-operation.
I never thought the EU would fall over if we left, quite the reverse. My concern is that when something ends the consequences grow more dire the deeper the integration. If you and I have an argument now, a bitter and serious one, perhaps we don't ever respond to one another on PB any more. That is not a serious consequence. If you and I fall in love, get married, live together, have children, get a dog *and then* have a terminal breakdown in our relationship the negative consequences are infinitely more profound.
It's why I have more respect for Verhofstadt than might be assumed given we're on opposite sides of the aisle when it comes to the EU. He at least recognises that there's a danger in power without democracy and the only possibly way the EU can progress (short of a looser association which sadly seems impossible) is to integrate more but in a political manner so the citizens of the EU can actually have some electoral power to match the political responsibility the bloc has drawn to itself that had hitherto been the preserve of the nation-states that comprise the organisation.
The problem is that national identities are not so easily wiped out (look at Scotland, Yorkshire, Cornwall). When political integration has been completed but some are constantly in a minority or feel they're being ridden over roughshod, the penalties for leaving become ever higher. But if there's no alternative, that will happen. The one-size-fits-all model will, I fear lead to a catastrophic breakdown.
But that’s an assertion without much evidence.
First-time visitors to the US are often struck by the strength of state loyalties - particularly as Americans seem to move around so much - but there they are, and back in history there was a time when they were stronger than US identity.
One of the reasons Lee did not see himself as a traitor for resigning from the US Army and joining the Army of Northern Virginia was because he saw himself as a Virginian, describing it as 'my country' ('I cannot and do not, see the good of secession but I will not lift a hand against my wife, my family and my country').
He was a scrub. The Confederacy was founded and dedicated to the preservation of slavery, the openly declared cause if the South. All the talk of honour and states rights was a load of bunk. And that is judging him by the standards of his time, too.
Lee should have swung, along with Jefferson Davis.
The difference between Washington and Lee is clear.
Washington succeeded, while Lee failed.
Should Washington have swung though had the British prevailed?
Personally, I don't think so.
Washington was a traitor to King George III in British terms, he would at least have been punished.
Lee lost lands and the right to vote
When you mentioned King George I was expecting a betting tip!
Betting on him last time seemed crazy, and people worry about ruling him out too soon, as Fishing suggests. But even those who like him one would hope are getting tired of his schtick of complaining about losing all the time.
I think Dura Ace is right that Pence has no viable route to nomination. We know he had fans amonst the evangelicals, but at the moment he's just vaguely anti-Trump, but in a wishy washy way despite what Trump would have been happy to see happen to him, which hardly shows strength.
On Ukraine/UK and the EU, I remain baffled why people cannot figure out that people might rationally support different paths for countries in different situations. I'd be in favour of both being in, now, but there's nothing illogical in seeing it as good for one and not the other.
On progress of the war, commentators do seem to be being cagey during the winter, presumably seeing what the Russians are able to come up with next after a burst of optimism following the recapture of Kherson. We can but hope forward momentum for Ukraine can continue to be maintained - quite aside from any moral considerations, it will be considerably cheaper for all concerned if they can press on and retake as much as possible.
Talk of the revolutionary war is a good coincidence, I was gifted the Cornwell book Redcoat yesterday.
His chances are small, but he does surely have the slim chance of what one might call the John Major or Biden route to the top?
Xmas Eve Dad (80) admitted to A&E with a chest infection By 10pm situation deteriorated , heart failure, we have hours. End of life discussion. Machines turned off.
Xmas Day. After 2am Dad seems to strengthen and by lunchtime on Christmas Day medics see Dad and reverse decision to withdraw treatment. Not in end of life mode. He smiles.
He is still in a serious position with pneumonia, and as dementia patients our family has some serious questions to deal with, but goodness that was a roller coaster.
A near identical Xmas. Dad (96) set off his alarm before my sister arrived to bring him around to us for Christmas. The alarm company contacted me and a neighbour and an ambulance. I arrived and relieved the neighbour and later my sister and her husband arrived. My dad was lying on the floor and didn't know who I was and couldn't speak. He deteriorated dramatically. Ambulance arrived and he was taken to the ambulance. They called for more help and a paramedic arrived in an ambulance car. We were told he was unlikely to survive the trip to the hospital and asked about resuscitation which luckily both myself and my sister agreed on. His heart beat was over 200.
30 min later he is sitting up in the ambulance talking to us!!!! We heard more words from him in 5 seconds than we had heard in the previous 4 hours (ie none)
He is now in hospital with an infection and COVID. How he got COVID goodness know.
My sister decided not to come around for Christmas. We had a very late dinner and have the most enormous quantity of food
Best wishes @kjh - I hope he makes a complete recovery too.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
A sort of Starmer...
Starmer is hardly imposing.
Washington was, by the standards of his time, a physical giant. And possessed a taciturn dignity, which isn’t quite how I’d describe Starmer.
The cultural Marxists, the Wokies and the Muslamics are taking over! Surely only a matter of time before rumours surface that Meghan has converted to Islam.
I was going to sarcastically ask which experts he consulted about that muslim claim (probably Professor Farage), but I bet I can figure out the slither of reasoning employed - 46.2% said they were Christian in the last census (in England and Wales), a drop of 13.1%. Assume it drops by the same amount for the next 3 censuses, and that takes it down to 6.9% only. The muslim population was 6.5%, up 1.6%, assume that goes up at the same rate and that is 11.3%, the highest of any religion, therefore predominantly the county is muslim.
It's just maths people, you can't argue with that.
At best that would be a plurality, not a majority of Muslims.
I think the GBNews audience already "knows" that the Muslims are approaching a majority.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
I went to school in the US from ages 12-14 and the only things I can (mis)remember about George Washington from my American History class are:
1. Was ginger. 2. Tormented by bad teeth. 3. Intended to join the Royal Navy as a teenage midshipman and was sat on his sea chest ready to go when he was talked out of it at the last moment by his mother.
The whole of US history could be seen as the pursuit of superior dentistry.
To be fair, in 250 years that is their finest achievement.
If the EU collapses it'll be disastrous as the good scenario in that event would be widespread civil disturbance. Not to mention the chance of a trade or actual war and the breakdown of multi-lateral co-operation.
I never thought the EU would fall over if we left, quite the reverse. My concern is that when something ends the consequences grow more dire the deeper the integration. If you and I have an argument now, a bitter and serious one, perhaps we don't ever respond to one another on PB any more. That is not a serious consequence. If you and I fall in love, get married, live together, have children, get a dog *and then* have a terminal breakdown in our relationship the negative consequences are infinitely more profound.
It's why I have more respect for Verhofstadt than might be assumed given we're on opposite sides of the aisle when it comes to the EU. He at least recognises that there's a danger in power without democracy and the only possibly way the EU can progress (short of a looser association which sadly seems impossible) is to integrate more but in a political manner so the citizens of the EU can actually have some electoral power to match the political responsibility the bloc has drawn to itself that had hitherto been the preserve of the nation-states that comprise the organisation.
The problem is that national identities are not so easily wiped out (look at Scotland, Yorkshire, Cornwall). When political integration has been completed but some are constantly in a minority or feel they're being ridden over roughshod, the penalties for leaving become ever higher. But if there's no alternative, that will happen. The one-size-fits-all model will, I fear lead to a catastrophic breakdown.
But that’s an assertion without much evidence.
First-time visitors to the US are often struck by the strength of state loyalties - particularly as Americans seem to move around so much - but there they are, and back in history there was a time when they were stronger than US identity.
It is perfectly possible to feel two affinities or indeed more. I think it very likely that the EU will outlive the UK. There is no reason for for the EU to break up. Indeed in the not too distant future I think that the entire continent will be in the EU or at least part of its Single Market, including us.
That will only happen if the EU, or Europe more broadly, shows flexibility.
Most of its problems result from trying to shoehorn everyone into a one size fits all model, layered on by dogma and uncompromising language and attitudes.
I went to school in the US from ages 12-14 and the only things I can (mis)remember about George Washington from my American History class are:
1. Was ginger. 2. Tormented by bad teeth. 3. Intended to join the Royal Navy as a teenage midshipman and was sat on his sea chest ready to go when he was talked out of it at the last moment by his mother.
The whole of US history could be seen as the pursuit of superior dentistry.
Mission accomplished. I was sucked into watching The Great Escape yet again yesterday, and even then the superior dentistry of the US stars over the homegrown lads was evident. That Steve McQueen was able to spend most of the film dressed as a Californian hipster mod was also striking,
If the EU collapses it'll be disastrous as the good scenario in that event would be widespread civil disturbance. Not to mention the chance of a trade or actual war and the breakdown of multi-lateral co-operation.
I never thought the EU would fall over if we left, quite the reverse. My concern is that when something ends the consequences grow more dire the deeper the integration. If you and I have an argument now, a bitter and serious one, perhaps we don't ever respond to one another on PB any more. That is not a serious consequence. If you and I fall in love, get married, live together, have children, get a dog *and then* have a terminal breakdown in our relationship the negative consequences are infinitely more profound.
It's why I have more respect for Verhofstadt than might be assumed given we're on opposite sides of the aisle when it comes to the EU. He at least recognises that there's a danger in power without democracy and the only possibly way the EU can progress (short of a looser association which sadly seems impossible) is to integrate more but in a political manner so the citizens of the EU can actually have some electoral power to match the political responsibility the bloc has drawn to itself that had hitherto been the preserve of the nation-states that comprise the organisation.
The problem is that national identities are not so easily wiped out (look at Scotland, Yorkshire, Cornwall). When political integration has been completed but some are constantly in a minority or feel they're being ridden over roughshod, the penalties for leaving become ever higher. But if there's no alternative, that will happen. The one-size-fits-all model will, I fear lead to a catastrophic breakdown.
But that’s an assertion without much evidence.
First-time visitors to the US are often struck by the strength of state loyalties - particularly as Americans seem to move around so much - but there they are, and back in history there was a time when they were stronger than US identity.
One of the reasons Lee did not see himself as a traitor for resigning from the US Army and joining the Army of Northern Virginia was because he saw himself as a Virginian, describing it as 'my country' ('I cannot and do not, see the good of secession but I will not lift a hand against my wife, my family and my country').
He was a scrub. The Confederacy was founded and dedicated to the preservation of slavery, the openly declared cause if the South. All the talk of honour and states rights was a load of bunk.
And that is judging him by the standards of his time, too.
Slavery was the Cornerstone of the Confederacy.
The Confederate constitution removed the right of states to abolish slavery.
Xmas Eve Dad (80) admitted to A&E with a chest infection By 10pm situation deteriorated , heart failure, we have hours. End of life discussion. Machines turned off.
Xmas Day. After 2am Dad seems to strengthen and by lunchtime on Christmas Day medics see Dad and reverse decision to withdraw treatment. Not in end of life mode. He smiles.
He is still in a serious position with pneumonia, and as dementia patients our family has some serious questions to deal with, but goodness that was a roller coaster.
A near identical Xmas. Dad (96) set off his alarm before my sister arrived to bring him around to us for Christmas. The alarm company contacted me and a neighbour and an ambulance. I arrived and relieved the neighbour and later my sister and her husband arrived. My dad was lying on the floor and didn't know who I was and couldn't speak. He deteriorated dramatically. Ambulance arrived and he was taken to the ambulance. They called for more help and a paramedic arrived in an ambulance car. We were told he was unlikely to survive the trip to the hospital and asked about resuscitation which luckily both myself and my sister agreed on. His heart beat was over 200.
30 min later he is sitting up in the ambulance talking to us!!!! We heard more words from him in 5 seconds than we had heard in the previous 4 hours (ie none)
He is now in hospital with an infection and COVID. How he got COVID goodness know.
My sister decided not to come around for Christmas. We had a very late dinner and have the most enormous quantity of food
Oh my. That’s tough. These events are hard at the best of times, Christmas adds a an added layer of complexity and emotional tension. Best wishes for the days to come.
Thanks. Same to you of course. Just phoned the hospital and he is sitting up and has eaten breakfast. Just bizarre.
Surprisingly I took it in my stride. Disappointed my sister and husband didn't stay for dinner though after all of that but I guess people react in different ways.
Mr. Divvie, you do understand that the United Kingdom and Ukraine are in rather different positions, yes?
Of course they’re different. By your lights one of them has left a union before a painful dissolution occurs while the other is desperate to join that union.
Perhaps if you used the quote system provided you would have your own words to guide you.
‘I think, sadly, the EU will break up and the later it occurs the greater the pain that will be caused’
Perhaps when the bombs stop falling the Ukrainians will be able to free up their minds and see the light regarding the putative EU Superstate.
Otherwise what's the point of the struggle? You ward off Putin only to deliver yourself into the clutches of the bureaucrats in Brussels.
The cultural Marxists, the Wokies and the Muslamics are taking over! Surely only a matter of time before rumours surface that Meghan has converted to Islam.
I was going to sarcastically ask which experts he consulted about that muslim claim (probably Professor Farage), but I bet I can figure out the slither of reasoning employed - 46.2% said they were Christian in the last census (in England and Wales), a drop of 13.1%. Assume it drops by the same amount for the next 3 censuses, and that takes it down to 6.9% only. The muslim population was 6.5%, up 1.6%, assume that goes up at the same rate and that is 11.3%, the highest of any religion, therefore predominantly the county is muslim.
It's just maths people, you can't argue with that.
So our King would cease to be Defender of the Faith, and instead, become Padishah, Commander of the Faithful, The Shadow of God upon Earth?
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The cultural Marxists, the Wokies and the Muslamics are taking over! Surely only a matter of time before rumours surface that Meghan has converted to Islam.
I was going to sarcastically ask which experts he consulted about that muslim claim (probably Professor Farage), but I bet I can figure out the slither of reasoning employed - 46.2% said they were Christian in the last census (in England and Wales), a drop of 13.1%. Assume it drops by the same amount for the next 3 censuses, and that takes it down to 6.9% only. The muslim population was 6.5%, up 1.6%, assume that goes up at the same rate and that is 11.3%, the highest of any religion, therefore predominantly the county is muslim.
It's just maths people, you can't argue with that.
At best that would be a plurality, not a majority of Muslims.
I think the GBNews audience already "knows" that the Muslims are approaching a majority.
In a few places eg Redbridge and Tower Hamlets and Luton Muslims are already the largest group. Close to it in Bradford too.
If the EU collapses it'll be disastrous as the good scenario in that event would be widespread civil disturbance. Not to mention the chance of a trade or actual war and the breakdown of multi-lateral co-operation.
I never thought the EU would fall over if we left, quite the reverse. My concern is that when something ends the consequences grow more dire the deeper the integration. If you and I have an argument now, a bitter and serious one, perhaps we don't ever respond to one another on PB any more. That is not a serious consequence. If you and I fall in love, get married, live together, have children, get a dog *and then* have a terminal breakdown in our relationship the negative consequences are infinitely more profound.
It's why I have more respect for Verhofstadt than might be assumed given we're on opposite sides of the aisle when it comes to the EU. He at least recognises that there's a danger in power without democracy and the only possibly way the EU can progress (short of a looser association which sadly seems impossible) is to integrate more but in a political manner so the citizens of the EU can actually have some electoral power to match the political responsibility the bloc has drawn to itself that had hitherto been the preserve of the nation-states that comprise the organisation.
The problem is that national identities are not so easily wiped out (look at Scotland, Yorkshire, Cornwall). When political integration has been completed but some are constantly in a minority or feel they're being ridden over roughshod, the penalties for leaving become ever higher. But if there's no alternative, that will happen. The one-size-fits-all model will, I fear lead to a catastrophic breakdown.
But that’s an assertion without much evidence.
First-time visitors to the US are often struck by the strength of state loyalties - particularly as Americans seem to move around so much - but there they are, and back in history there was a time when they were stronger than US identity.
One of the reasons Lee did not see himself as a traitor for resigning from the US Army and joining the Army of Northern Virginia was because he saw himself as a Virginian, describing it as 'my country' ('I cannot and do not, see the good of secession but I will not lift a hand against my wife, my family and my country').
He was a scrub. The Confederacy was founded and dedicated to the preservation of slavery, the openly declared cause if the South. All the talk of honour and states rights was a load of bunk.
And that is judging him by the standards of his time, too.
Slavery was the Cornerstone of the Confederacy.
The Confederate constitution removed the right of states to abolish slavery.
The Union was not fighting, predominantly, to abolish slavery (although it motivated some of their soldiers).
But the Confederacy absolutely, was fighting predominantly to maintain, and expand, their Peculiar Institution.
Betting on him last time seemed crazy, and people worry about ruling him out too soon, as Fishing suggests. But even those who like him one would hope are getting tired of his schtick of complaining about losing all the time.
I think Dura Ace is right that Pence has no viable route to nomination. We know he had fans amonst the evangelicals, but at the moment he's just vaguely anti-Trump, but in a wishy washy way despite what Trump would have been happy to see happen to him, which hardly shows strength.
On Ukraine/UK and the EU, I remain baffled why people cannot figure out that people might rationally support different paths for countries in different situations. I'd be in favour of both being in, now, but there's nothing illogical in seeing it as good for one and not the other.
On progress of the war, commentators do seem to be being cagey during the winter, presumably seeing what the Russians are able to come up with next after a burst of optimism following the recapture of Kherson. We can but hope forward momentum for Ukraine can continue to be maintained - quite aside from any moral considerations, it will be considerably cheaper for all concerned if they can press on and retake as much as possible.
Talk of the revolutionary war is a good coincidence, I was gifted the Cornwell book Redcoat yesterday.
His chances are small, but he does surely have the slim chance of what one might call the John Major or Biden route to the top?
If he wins the Iowa caucuses yes, they are full of evangelicals.
Then he would have a strong chance in South Carolina top even if Trump win New Hampshire and Nevada and De Santis Florida
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
On Topic: It's been crazy to back Trump for anything for quite some time now imo.
I hope people generally had a nice Xmas Day. All the best to kjh and Jonathan, who clearly didn't.
Thank you, but my day really was ok, but different. Outcome much much better than expected and pleased and surprised we coped ok. Dinner went off as planned which was a miracle, albeit many, many, hours later, which is a lesson that I shouldn't panic when cooking, because when it went completely pearshaped it turned out ok anyway, although just 4 of us instead of 7.
Mr. Divvie, you do understand that the United Kingdom and Ukraine are in rather different positions, yes?
Of course they’re different. By your lights one of them has left a union before a painful dissolution occurs while the other is desperate to join that union.
Perhaps if you used the quote system provided you would have your own words to guide you.
‘I think, sadly, the EU will break up and the later it occurs the greater the pain that will be caused’
Perhaps when the bombs stop falling the Ukrainians will be able to free up their minds and see the light regarding the putative EU Superstate.
Otherwise what's the point of the struggle? You ward off Putin only to deliver yourself into the clutches of the bureaucrats in Brussels.
See also: Why would you want to give up the power & influence afforded by playing your full part in a collaborative and consultative UK only to join the oppressive EUSSR?
The cultural Marxists, the Wokies and the Muslamics are taking over! Surely only a matter of time before rumours surface that Meghan has converted to Islam.
I was going to sarcastically ask which experts he consulted about that muslim claim (probably Professor Farage), but I bet I can figure out the slither of reasoning employed - 46.2% said they were Christian in the last census (in England and Wales), a drop of 13.1%. Assume it drops by the same amount for the next 3 censuses, and that takes it down to 6.9% only. The muslim population was 6.5%, up 1.6%, assume that goes up at the same rate and that is 11.3%, the highest of any religion, therefore predominantly the county is muslim.
It's just maths people, you can't argue with that.
At best that would be a plurality, not a majority of Muslims.
I think the GBNews audience already "knows" that the Muslims are approaching a majority.
If the EU collapses it'll be disastrous as the good scenario in that event would be widespread civil disturbance. Not to mention the chance of a trade or actual war and the breakdown of multi-lateral co-operation.
I never thought the EU would fall over if we left, quite the reverse. My concern is that when something ends the consequences grow more dire the deeper the integration. If you and I have an argument now, a bitter and serious one, perhaps we don't ever respond to one another on PB any more. That is not a serious consequence. If you and I fall in love, get married, live together, have children, get a dog *and then* have a terminal breakdown in our relationship the negative consequences are infinitely more profound.
It's why I have more respect for Verhofstadt than might be assumed given we're on opposite sides of the aisle when it comes to the EU. He at least recognises that there's a danger in power without democracy and the only possibly way the EU can progress (short of a looser association which sadly seems impossible) is to integrate more but in a political manner so the citizens of the EU can actually have some electoral power to match the political responsibility the bloc has drawn to itself that had hitherto been the preserve of the nation-states that comprise the organisation.
The problem is that national identities are not so easily wiped out (look at Scotland, Yorkshire, Cornwall). When political integration has been completed but some are constantly in a minority or feel they're being ridden over roughshod, the penalties for leaving become ever higher. But if there's no alternative, that will happen. The one-size-fits-all model will, I fear lead to a catastrophic breakdown.
But that’s an assertion without much evidence.
First-time visitors to the US are often struck by the strength of state loyalties - particularly as Americans seem to move around so much - but there they are, and back in history there was a time when they were stronger than US identity.
One of the reasons Lee did not see himself as a traitor for resigning from the US Army and joining the Army of Northern Virginia was because he saw himself as a Virginian, describing it as 'my country' ('I cannot and do not, see the good of secession but I will not lift a hand against my wife, my family and my country').
He was a scrub. The Confederacy was founded and dedicated to the preservation of slavery, the openly declared cause if the South. All the talk of honour and states rights was a load of bunk.
And that is judging him by the standards of his time, too.
Slavery was the Cornerstone of the Confederacy.
The Confederate constitution removed the right of states to abolish slavery.
The Union was not fighting, predominantly, to abolish slavery (although it motivated some of their soldiers).
But the Confederacy absolutely, was fighting predominantly to maintain, and expand, their Peculiar Institution.
The Union was, in quite a large measure, fighting against an *expansion* of slavery. The Dredd Scott decision was about making slaves remain slaves in non slave states. Combined with the Federal slave catching laws, this would mean that a Free State was that in name only.
Many expected that the Southerners would move into various border areas and take over*, economically at first and politically later, using the low cost labour if slavery to drive out free farmers.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Mr. Divvie, you do understand that the United Kingdom and Ukraine are in rather different positions, yes?
Of course they’re different. By your lights one of them has left a union before a painful dissolution occurs while the other is desperate to join that union.
Perhaps if you used the quote system provided you would have your own words to guide you.
‘I think, sadly, the EU will break up and the later it occurs the greater the pain that will be caused’
Perhaps when the bombs stop falling the Ukrainians will be able to free up their minds and see the light regarding the putative EU Superstate.
Otherwise what's the point of the struggle? You ward off Putin only to deliver yourself into the clutches of the bureaucrats in Brussels.
See also: Why would you want to give up the power & influence afforded by playing your full part in a collaborative and consultative UK only to join the oppressive EUSSR?
What are you on? Were we so oppressed by the EU that we had great difficulty in leaving? Have we seen the sunlit uplands or have we been hit economically since leaving the EU?
Mr. Divvie, you do understand that the United Kingdom and Ukraine are in rather different positions, yes?
Of course they’re different. By your lights one of them has left a union before a painful dissolution occurs while the other is desperate to join that union.
Perhaps if you used the quote system provided you would have your own words to guide you.
‘I think, sadly, the EU will break up and the later it occurs the greater the pain that will be caused’
Perhaps when the bombs stop falling the Ukrainians will be able to free up their minds and see the light regarding the putative EU Superstate.
Otherwise what's the point of the struggle? You ward off Putin only to deliver yourself into the clutches of the bureaucrats in Brussels.
See also: Why would you want to give up the power & influence afforded by playing your full part in a collaborative and consultative UK only to join the oppressive EUSSR?
What are you on? Were we so oppressed by the EU that we had great difficulty in leaving? Have we seen the sunlit uplands or have we been hit economically since leaving the EU?
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
Had we never lost the American colonies of course we would never even have joined the EEC, let alone had Brexit
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Pence has no chance. Even among the evangelicals he was always considered a second rater.
Trump chose him because he had no power base and would be, he thought, an employee.
This is a man who when the big moment came needed to be persuaded to the right thing… by Dan Fucking Quayle.
When Dan Quayle is the greybeard wise elder you listen to…..
No, if Pence wins the evangelical dominated Iowa caucuses on his strong pro life message then he is instantly a contender.
Trump also now seems to hate DeSantis more than his old VP Pence so Trumpites might switch to him too if Trump is eliminated or DeSantis supporters to Pence to stop Trump.
Remember last time a President was defeated after only one term of his party in the White House, Carter in 1980 by Reagan, his Vice President Mondale ended up Democrats nominee to take on President Reagan in 1984.
President Biden v Pence therefore possible in 2024
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
Had we never lost the American colonies of course we would never even have joined the EEC, let alone had Brexit
I expect that the US colonies would, like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have gradually moved towards dominion status.
The USA (in whatever form it was now constituted) would now be independent, but I suspect, nowhere near as powerful as it is today.
I went to school in the US from ages 12-14 and the only things I can (mis)remember about George Washington from my American History class are:
1. Was ginger. 2. Tormented by bad teeth. 3. Intended to join the Royal Navy as a teenage midshipman and was sat on his sea chest ready to go when he was talked out of it at the last moment by his mother.
The whole of US history could be seen as the pursuit of superior dentistry.
To be fair, in 250 years that is their finest achievement.
I went to school in the US from ages 12-14 and the only things I can (mis)remember about George Washington from my American History class are:
1. Was ginger. 2. Tormented by bad teeth. 3. Intended to join the Royal Navy as a teenage midshipman and was sat on his sea chest ready to go when he was talked out of it at the last moment by his mother.
The whole of US history could be seen as the pursuit of superior dentistry.
Mission accomplished. I was sucked into watching The Great Escape yet again yesterday, and even then the superior dentistry of the US stars over the homegrown lads was evident. That Steve McQueen was able to spend most of the film dressed as a Californian hipster mod was also striking,
There's a prog on the C4 App where guy Martin recreates the motorcycle jump on location, accompanied by one of the cast, which is quite fun. I hunted out that field on one of my trips and it is a stunning spot, if nowhere near Switzerland
@Jonathan and @kjh - all the best to you both and your fathers.
Your tales remind me of what happened with our eldest dog (yes, I know it's not the same and it might be wildly inappropriate to mention but hear me out).
Two years ago, he collapsed and we took him to the emergency vet. We then got the call saying that he was riddled with tumours, one of which had burst, and that it was 99.9999+% likely he had terminal cancer. The best thing to do was put him down.
We were inclined to again and, being 12 (then) and a Lab, we thought he had had a good innings. We drove to the vet ready to give consent. When we got there he had perked up and wagging his tail. We thought we would bring him home for one last time but the vet made it clear his survival should be viewed as a matter of days, if that.
Two years later, he is still with us, still walking, yes older but still (seemingly) enjoying his life.
Sometimes, living creatures have a remarkable tendency to overcome what seem like insurmountable odds.
May you enjoy the rest of the time over the holiday and indeed for the rest of their time on Earth.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
Had we never lost the American colonies of course we would never even have joined the EEC, let alone had Brexit
Crap even by your standards. They would simply have become independent later.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Yes, inferences that are seldom drawn.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
Some important reforms in the Electoral Count Reform Act passed in the USA - doesn't prevent playing silly buggers, particularly down the line, but does seem to make it harder to try certain dodges which were floated last time., including individuals in Congress grandstanding. https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/status/1606371014568443904
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Yes, inferences that are seldom drawn.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
You'd assume it was 95% american patriots against 5% foreign mercenaries.
I went to school in the US from ages 12-14 and the only things I can (mis)remember about George Washington from my American History class are:
1. Was ginger. 2. Tormented by bad teeth. 3. Intended to join the Royal Navy as a teenage midshipman and was sat on his sea chest ready to go when he was talked out of it at the last moment by his mother.
The whole of US history could be seen as the pursuit of superior dentistry.
Mission accomplished. I was sucked into watching The Great Escape yet again yesterday, and even then the superior dentistry of the US stars over the homegrown lads was evident. That Steve McQueen was able to spend most of the film dressed as a Californian hipster mod was also striking,
See also the photographs of England's victorious World Cup football team - about 11 teeth between them.
I think wartime privations had a lot to do with it though.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
Had we never lost the American colonies of course we would never even have joined the EEC, let alone had Brexit
I expect that the US colonies would, like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have gradually moved towards dominion status.
The USA (in whatever form it was now constituted) would now be independent, but I suspect, nowhere near as powerful as it is today.
We probably wouldn't have bought Louisiana (actually the whole of the middle of the country) or started a war of aggression against Mexico so I'm guessing the country would have been a lot smaller when it gained its independence. Perhaps too weak to help us and the Soviets beat the Nazis, too.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Yes, inferences that are seldom drawn.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
You'd assume it was 95% american patriots against 5% foreign mercenaries.
Wasn't the whole reason for it that we were being too nice to the indians for their taste?
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
Had we never lost the American colonies of course we would never even have joined the EEC, let alone had Brexit
I expect that the US colonies would, like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have gradually moved towards dominion status.
The USA (in whatever form it was now constituted) would now be independent, but I suspect, nowhere near as powerful as it is today.
American politics would have retained its European dimension, particularly Anglo-French rivalry where the French position would continue to have been very weak.
I think it's likely British North America would have eventually incorporated the near/mid-West but that Latin America would have continued with Nuevo Mexico and Las Californias.
That said, it's possible that an Anglo-Spanish war, at some point in the 19th Century, might also have wrested both from them.
Pence has no chance. Even among the evangelicals he was always considered a second rater.
Trump chose him because he had no power base and would be, he thought, an employee.
This is a man who when the big moment came needed to be persuaded to the right thing… by Dan Fucking Quayle.
When Dan Quayle is the greybeard wise elder you listen to…..
No, if Pence wins the evangelical dominated Iowa caucuses on his strong pro life message then he is instantly a contender.
Trump also now seems to hate DeSantis more than his old VP Pence so Trumpites might switch to him too if Trump is eliminated or DeSantis supporters to Pence to stop Trump.
Remember last time a President was defeated after only one term of his party in the White House, Carter in 1980 by Reagan, his Vice President Mondale ended up Democrats nominee to take on President Reagan in 1984.
President Biden v Pence therefore possible in 2024
It's always good to have someone on the other side of the Betfair Exchange.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
Had we never lost the American colonies of course we would never even have joined the EEC, let alone had Brexit
I expect that the US colonies would, like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have gradually moved towards dominion status.
The USA (in whatever form it was now constituted) would now be independent, but I suspect, nowhere near as powerful as it is today.
We probably wouldn't have bought Louisiana (actually the whole of the middle of the country) or started a war of aggression against Mexico so I'm guessing the country would have been a lot smaller when it gained its independence. Perhaps too weak to help us and the Soviets beat the Nazis, too.
We'd have marched into Louisiana.
We were at war with Napoleon and he had nothing to stop us there. Napoleon sold it to get some loot, and keep the Americans neutral, whilst they got a bargain with no cost of war.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
Had we never lost the American colonies of course we would never even have joined the EEC, let alone had Brexit
Crap even by your standards. They would simply have become independent later.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Yes, inferences that are seldom drawn.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
That's true of all popular national history. But the Revolutionary War has been subject to much the same revisionist scrutiny as every other national myth.
Strikes me as a bit pessimistic to be honest, and even within the piece itself it acknowledges few agreed with it at the time (2015), but still weird to see a relatively measured 'American is doomed' piece. I wonder if people have gotten more pessimistic since.
The United States, of course, is a long way from a coup. What we are witnessing instead is a rise in what Georgetown University Professor Mark Tushnet labeled “constitutional hardball” in a 2004 article.
Constitutional hardball describes legal and political moves “that are without much question within the bounds of existing constitutional doctrine and practice but that are nonetheless in some tension with existing pre-constitutional understanding.” In other words, moves that do not violate the letter of the law, but do trample on our conventional understanding of how it is supposed to work.
I went to school in the US from ages 12-14 and the only things I can (mis)remember about George Washington from my American History class are:
1. Was ginger. 2. Tormented by bad teeth. 3. Intended to join the Royal Navy as a teenage midshipman and was sat on his sea chest ready to go when he was talked out of it at the last moment by his mother.
The whole of US history could be seen as the pursuit of superior dentistry.
Mission accomplished. I was sucked into watching The Great Escape yet again yesterday, and even then the superior dentistry of the US stars over the homegrown lads was evident. That Steve McQueen was able to spend most of the film dressed as a Californian hipster mod was also striking,
There's a prog on the C4 App where guy Martin recreates the motorcycle jump on location, accompanied by one of the cast, which is quite fun. I hunted out that field on one of my trips and it is a stunning spot, if nowhere near Switzerland
Yeh, I watched at least some of it. Istr there was some stushy about ownership of the land on which the jump took place involving a local farmer.
Some Leicestrian (if that's a word) partisanship:
'How Guy Martin attempted Steve McQueen’s Great Escape jump on a Leicestershire Triumph
..Steve McQueen refused to ride a German BMW, because he loved the British bikes so much, and the original is now valued at £1.5 million, and “runs a treat”, according to Guy'
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Yes, inferences that are seldom drawn.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
That's true of all popular national history. But the Revolutionary War has been subject to much the same revisionist scrutiny as every other national myth.
Not so much in the public consciousness I'd say, though it may be getting there, with a lot more talk about slave owners amongst the founding fathers etc. It's pretty easy to find a lot of people unsentimental about European nationalist myths, but more sincerely expressing solidarity with the american founding myths.
It's understandable shorthand at play, since the presentation of the myth kind of backdates the impression of a fully formed revolutionary ethos and system onto a much messier build up, war and aftermath. People obviously know it was messier than that, americans teach plenty about the early days of the nation (much more than we do about our own), but pop culturally the myth is strong.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Yes, inferences that are seldom drawn.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
That's true of all popular national history. But the Revolutionary War has been subject to much the same revisionist scrutiny as every other national myth.
I don't think that's true in the slightest.
Revisionist takes are desperately thin on the ground.
Watching the New Zealand Pakistan match. Pakistan currently well on top with the NZ attack looking totally toothless.
What is notable, compared with England, is that the Pakistanis are still scoring at under 3.5 an over (not even capitalising before the new ball) and NZ really not mixing it up at all, whether with the field settings or the bowlers. Watching the same opposition against a different team gives additional insight into what an incredibly dynamic and innovative captain Stokes is. We are seriously lucky to have him.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
Had we never lost the American colonies of course we would never even have joined the EEC, let alone had Brexit
I expect that the US colonies would, like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have gradually moved towards dominion status.
The USA (in whatever form it was now constituted) would now be independent, but I suspect, nowhere near as powerful as it is today.
We probably wouldn't have bought Louisiana (actually the whole of the middle of the country) or started a war of aggression against Mexico so I'm guessing the country would have been a lot smaller when it gained its independence. Perhaps too weak to help us and the Soviets beat the Nazis, too.
We would not have been fair towards the American Indians, but we would have been more fair than the US government.
The Manifest Destiny would have been less brutal, but in turn, the result would be a smaller population overall, with fewer European immigrants.
I don’t know if the combined power of Southern and US planters would have resulted in slavery lasting longer, or the combination of British and Northern opinion would have resulted in it being eradicated sooner.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Yes, inferences that are seldom drawn.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
That's true of all popular national history. But the Revolutionary War has been subject to much the same revisionist scrutiny as every other national myth.
I don't think that's true in the slightest.
Revisionist takes are desperately thin on the ground.
Revisionism can be taken too far.
It's reasonable to point out that some of the Founding Fathers were slave owners, and were entirely hypocritical about their pronouncements about the Rights of Man.
It's not true, as some people have alleged, that the rebelled to preserve slavery.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
Had we never lost the American colonies of course we would never even have joined the EEC, let alone had Brexit
I expect that the US colonies would, like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have gradually moved towards dominion status.
The USA (in whatever form it was now constituted) would now be independent, but I suspect, nowhere near as powerful as it is today.
We probably wouldn't have bought Louisiana (actually the whole of the middle of the country) or started a war of aggression against Mexico so I'm guessing the country would have been a lot smaller when it gained its independence. Perhaps too weak to help us and the Soviets beat the Nazis, too.
We would not have been fair towards the American Indians, but we would have been more fair than the US government.
The Manifest Destiny would have been less brutal, but in turn, the result would be a smaller population overall, with fewer European immigrants.
I don’t know if the combined power of Southern and US planters would have resulted in slavery lasting longer, or the combination of British and Northern opinion would have resulted in it being eradicated sooner.
That should read "Southern and West Indian planters."
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
Had we never lost the American colonies of course we would never even have joined the EEC, let alone had Brexit
I expect that the US colonies would, like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have gradually moved towards dominion status.
The USA (in whatever form it was now constituted) would now be independent, but I suspect, nowhere near as powerful as it is today.
We probably wouldn't have bought Louisiana (actually the whole of the middle of the country) or started a war of aggression against Mexico so I'm guessing the country would have been a lot smaller when it gained its independence. Perhaps too weak to help us and the Soviets beat the Nazis, too.
We would not have been fair towards the American Indians, but we would have been more fair than the US government.
The Manifest Destiny would have been less brutal, but in turn, the result would be a smaller population overall, with fewer European immigrants.
I don’t know if the combined power of Southern and US planters would have resulted in slavery lasting longer, or the combination of British and Northern opinion would have resulted in it being eradicated sooner.
The British metropolitan government and business generally wanted to trade with the Indians while the British colonists in America generally wanted their land for agriculture. The former thereby infuriated the latter, with the results you can see in the Declaration of Independence.
That document facilitates genocide with treason, and for some reason is held up as a great text of liberty and the rights of man by those who read the first few paragraphs of the text and are ignorant of its historical context.
(Can you tell btw that I have decades of practice in winding up American friends on this very point?)
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Yes, inferences that are seldom drawn.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
That's true of all popular national history. But the Revolutionary War has been subject to much the same revisionist scrutiny as every other national myth.
I don't think that's true in the slightest.
Revisionist takes are desperately thin on the ground.
What is the current "1619 Project", if not a revisionist take on the whole of US history ? There are plenty of examples, going back decades.
If they have not previously captured the popular imagination, that's perhaps only because of a deep ingrained belief in the founding ideals.
The real problem with the Revolutionary War is that it's hard to rebut the arguments made by the rebels. Contemporary England certainly didn't do so.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Yes, inferences that are seldom drawn.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
That's true of all popular national history. But the Revolutionary War has been subject to much the same revisionist scrutiny as every other national myth.
I don't think that's true in the slightest.
Revisionist takes are desperately thin on the ground.
What is the current "1619 Project", if not a revisionist take on the whole of US history ? There are plenty of examples, going back decades.
If they have not previously captured the popular imagination, that's perhaps only because of a deep ingrained belief in the founding ideals.
The real problem with the Revolutionary War is that it's hard to rebut the arguments made by the rebels. Contemporary England certainly didn't do so.
IMHO, the rebels’ arguments were frivolous and selfish, but they won, so it’s all moot.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
The best thing that the US rebels did was to get France, and most of Europe, fighting on their side.
Had we never lost the American colonies of course we would never even have joined the EEC, let alone had Brexit
I expect that the US colonies would, like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have gradually moved towards dominion status.
Perhaps, but Dominion status was developed specifically to avoid the loss of the remaining white settler colonies in the way that the 13 American colonies had gone. How the relationship between the settler colonies and the mother country would have developed had there been no American War of Independence, noone can say.
However I think it is highly unlikely that the 13 colonies would have moved towards looser arrangements with the mother country at anything like the same speed. It was difficult enough to get them to cooperate even during the war of treason, let alone if there had been no threat to unify against.
Also I'm pretty sure that slavery wouldn't have been abolished in the British Empire if there had been such a gigantic number of slaveowners to compensate. It was expensive enough to buy out the ones in the Carribbean - adding those in the Southern United States to the bill would have been impossible.
Another doctor speaking up. At this point there seems no doubt that this info is being purposely ignored by politicians and MSM alike. As well as those who are the public face of medicine - such as 'Drs' Hilary Jones, Fauci et al. They are complicit.
Afternoon all, and I hope everyone had a good Christmas.
Just heading out to watch the football with son no. 1 (a nice crisp hour-and-a-half walk in the chilly Stockport sun); reflecting on how much I love the pottering aftermath that is Boxing Day. Playing, a bit of low-effort tidying, leftovers, football, catching up on the telly.
Whatever you’re all doing; enjoy and have a lovely day.
If the EU collapses it'll be disastrous as the good scenario in that event would be widespread civil disturbance. Not to mention the chance of a trade or actual war and the breakdown of multi-lateral co-operation.
I never thought the EU would fall over if we left, quite the reverse. My concern is that when something ends the consequences grow more dire the deeper the integration. If you and I have an argument now, a bitter and serious one, perhaps we don't ever respond to one another on PB any more. That is not a serious consequence. If you and I fall in love, get married, live together, have children, get a dog *and then* have a terminal breakdown in our relationship the negative consequences are infinitely more profound.
It's why I have more respect for Verhofstadt than might be assumed given we're on opposite sides of the aisle when it comes to the EU. He at least recognises that there's a danger in power without democracy and the only possibly way the EU can progress (short of a looser association which sadly seems impossible) is to integrate more but in a political manner so the citizens of the EU can actually have some electoral power to match the political responsibility the bloc has drawn to itself that had hitherto been the preserve of the nation-states that comprise the organisation.
The problem is that national identities are not so easily wiped out (look at Scotland, Yorkshire, Cornwall). When political integration has been completed but some are constantly in a minority or feel they're being ridden over roughshod, the penalties for leaving become ever higher. But if there's no alternative, that will happen. The one-size-fits-all model will, I fear lead to a catastrophic breakdown.
But that’s an assertion without much evidence.
First-time visitors to the US are often struck by the strength of state loyalties - particularly as Americans seem to move around so much - but there they are, and back in history there was a time when they were stronger than US identity.
It is perfectly possible to feel two affinities or indeed more. I think it very likely that the EU will outlive the UK. There is no reason for for the EU to break up. Indeed in the not too distant future I think that the entire continent will be in the EU or at least part of its Single Market, including us.
It's certainly possible to feel multiple affinities- see Town Halls on the continent flying five or so different flags. But something, I don't know what, makes it harder for people of the United Kingdom (especially Great Britain) to do the same.
There's an anxiety that adding wider (Europe) or narrower (Scotland, Yorkshire) identities will weaken the existing British one.
It's a shame. Partly because multiple flags make the world more colourful, but also because I suspect it means the country is less well-run than it could be.
How can you “add” Scottish identity to British identity when Scottish identity predates it by half a millennium, arguably much longer?
I’m sure the vast majority of Scots have nothing against multiple identities in principle, but we see the Scottish one as primary. Followed probably by local/regional/city identities, then likely European. With an overarching sense of being essentially part of humankind. When “British” (shorthand for English according to the PM) identity is considered, it is usually in a negative light.
This is borne out in many decades of social research studies.
Former President of the Australian Medical Association Dr Kerryn Phelps has revealed she suffered a serious vaccine injury and said the true rate is far higher than acknowledged due to threats from medical regulators.
I went to school in the US from ages 12-14 and the only things I can (mis)remember about George Washington from my American History class are:
1. Was ginger. 2. Tormented by bad teeth. 3. Intended to join the Royal Navy as a teenage midshipman and was sat on his sea chest ready to go when he was talked out of it at the last moment by his mother.
The whole of US history could be seen as the pursuit of superior dentistry.
Mission accomplished. I was sucked into watching The Great Escape yet again yesterday, and even then the superior dentistry of the US stars over the homegrown lads was evident. That Steve McQueen was able to spend most of the film dressed as a Californian hipster mod was also striking,
There's a prog on the C4 App where guy Martin recreates the motorcycle jump on location, accompanied by one of the cast, which is quite fun. I hunted out that field on one of my trips and it is a stunning spot, if nowhere near Switzerland
Yeh, I watched at least some of it. Istr there was some stushy about ownership of the land on which the jump took place involving a local farmer.
Some Leicestrian (if that's a word) partisanship:
'How Guy Martin attempted Steve McQueen’s Great Escape jump on a Leicestershire Triumph
..Steve McQueen refused to ride a German BMW, because he loved the British bikes so much, and the original is now valued at £1.5 million, and “runs a treat”, according to Guy'
Pretty sure it was because the BMWs of the period had no or minimal rear suspension and weighed a ton.
And the guy who actually did the jump (Bud Ekins) owned a Triumph dealership in the Valley.
I've jumped similar distances on my CRF250 (out of a bunker on a golf course, lol) back when I had a left wrist that worked and ten fingers - the good old days. That was mildly terrifying so I cannot imagine what a scrotum shriveller it must have been to do it on a TR6 loosely spannered together by blokes wearing flat caps and smoking Woodbines in Coventry.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Yes, inferences that are seldom drawn.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
Certainly were fairly unquestioned when I was at school in America. As a counterpoint this book is quite interesting on the history of Loyalist Americans fighting for the King.
Afternoon all, and I hope everyone had a good Christmas.
Just heading out to watch the football with son no. 1 (a nice crisp hour-and-a-half walk in the chilly Stockport sun); reflecting on how much I love the pottering aftermath that is Boxing Day. Playing, a bit of low-effort tidying, leftovers, football, catching up on the telly.
Whatever you’re all doing; enjoy and have a lovely day.
Completely agree. One of my favourite days of the year. Christmas is great fun but exhausting. Strict rule in our house is no cooking on boxing day, just take your pick from the remainders of the feast all around you.
The cultural Marxists, the Wokies and the Muslamics are taking over! Surely only a matter of time before rumours surface that Meghan has converted to Islam.
Muhammad (sallallahu alayhi wa salaam) makes the distinction between good and bad kings in the Holy Quran. So royalists are sorted for the post 2050 environment. After all, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, is also the King of Saudi Arabia.
HYUFD going full Salafist in 2050 is something I aim to hang around for.
I would rather go full Salafist than republican and atheist
If the EU collapses it'll be disastrous as the good scenario in that event would be widespread civil disturbance. Not to mention the chance of a trade or actual war and the breakdown of multi-lateral co-operation.
I never thought the EU would fall over if we left, quite the reverse. My concern is that when something ends the consequences grow more dire the deeper the integration. If you and I have an argument now, a bitter and serious one, perhaps we don't ever respond to one another on PB any more. That is not a serious consequence. If you and I fall in love, get married, live together, have children, get a dog *and then* have a terminal breakdown in our relationship the negative consequences are infinitely more profound.
It's why I have more respect for Verhofstadt than might be assumed given we're on opposite sides of the aisle when it comes to the EU. He at least recognises that there's a danger in power without democracy and the only possibly way the EU can progress (short of a looser association which sadly seems impossible) is to integrate more but in a political manner so the citizens of the EU can actually have some electoral power to match the political responsibility the bloc has drawn to itself that had hitherto been the preserve of the nation-states that comprise the organisation.
The problem is that national identities are not so easily wiped out (look at Scotland, Yorkshire, Cornwall). When political integration has been completed but some are constantly in a minority or feel they're being ridden over roughshod, the penalties for leaving become ever higher. But if there's no alternative, that will happen. The one-size-fits-all model will, I fear lead to a catastrophic breakdown.
But that’s an assertion without much evidence.
First-time visitors to the US are often struck by the strength of state loyalties - particularly as Americans seem to move around so much - but there they are, and back in history there was a time when they were stronger than US identity.
It is perfectly possible to feel two affinities or indeed more. I think it very likely that the EU will outlive the UK. There is no reason for for the EU to break up. Indeed in the not too distant future I think that the entire continent will be in the EU or at least part of its Single Market, including us.
It's certainly possible to feel multiple affinities- see Town Halls on the continent flying five or so different flags. But something, I don't know what, makes it harder for people of the United Kingdom (especially Great Britain) to do the same.
There's an anxiety that adding wider (Europe) or narrower (Scotland, Yorkshire) identities will weaken the existing British one.
It's a shame. Partly because multiple flags make the world more colourful, but also because I suspect it means the country is less well-run than it could be.
How can you “add” Scottish identity to British identity when Scottish identity predates it by half a millennium, arguably much longer?
I’m sure the vast majority of Scots have nothing against multiple identities in principle, but we see the Scottish one as primary. Followed probably by local/regional/city identities, then likely European. With an overarching sense of being essentially part of humankind. When “British” (shorthand for English according to the PM) identity is considered, it is usually in a negative light.
This is borne out in many decades of social research studies.
Odd how it's always for sale, though, whether the bribe is the English crown or the Darien payoff or the Mighty Kroner.
Afternoon all, and I hope everyone had a good Christmas.
Just heading out to watch the football with son no. 1 (a nice crisp hour-and-a-half walk in the chilly Stockport sun); reflecting on how much I love the pottering aftermath that is Boxing Day. Playing, a bit of low-effort tidying, leftovers, football, catching up on the telly.
Whatever you’re all doing; enjoy and have a lovely day.
Completely agree. One of my favourite days of the year. Christmas is great fun but exhausting. Strict rule in our house is no cooking on boxing day, just take your pick from the remainders of the feast all around you.
Yes good day to watch the racing at kempton followed by some football...fantastic
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
I see the Free Speech Union is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from Anti-Vax loonies. They would have been best buds with Andrew Wakefield back in the day.
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
Amol Rajan's arsecrawling made it even worse. The BBC's obsequiousness to royalty seems an easily transferrable skill.
I see the Free Speech Union is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from Anti-Vax loonies. They would have been best buds with Andrew Wakefield back in the day.
Not entirely sure what the anti-Vax crowd actually want. For COVID never to have existed at all it seems.
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
Amol Rajan's arsecrawling made it even worse. The BBC's obsequiousness to royalty seems an easily transferrable skill.
They are making a damn fine job of perfecting the art of “the illusion of truth”.
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
Who listens to the Today programme on Boxing Day anyway?
It is for a fry up and dog walk, followed by the footy.
I reckon Trump is good value at 30% for the nomination.
Other candidates will find it very hard to criticize his record, or his election-winning prospects, without incurring the wrath of his large base of support. Just imagine how this will play out in a debate.
How does another candidate say something like, "I love you Donald, you were a great President, those cheating Dems stole your reelection from you..." and find a reason why people shouldn't nominate him again?
And if they stay from that script they become an outcast.
I really don't think the GOP can escape Trump until he's lost again.
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
Who listens to the Today programme on Boxing Day anyway?
It is for a fry up and dog walk, followed by the footy.
One of the best things I did for general wellbeing was to switch off the today programme and news. It’s not healthy to start the day annoyed, disappointed, aggravated or enraged. I recommend listening to some music, an audiobook or a podcast instead. It’s a top tip.
I reckon Trump is good value at 30% for the nomination.
Other candidates will find it very hard to criticize his record, or his election-winning prospects, without incurring the wrath of his large base of support. Just imagine how this will play out in a debate.
How does another candidate say something like, "I love you Donald, you were a great President, those cheating Dems stole your reelection from you..." and find a reason why people shouldn't nominate him again?
And if they stay from that script they become an outcast.
I really don't think the GOP can escape Trump until he's lost again.
I think that's right but I also think too many may be rushing into conclusions about the midterms and its implications.
For a start, it was seen as a disappointment for the GOP mainly because there was a ramp up of expectations (and I fell for that as well). In the summer, the expectation was they would do ok but not fantastically well. That's how it turned out (they had been outsiders to win the Senate) though probably on the lower side of that initial range.
Second, there's been a tendency to say the elections showed that Trump's candidates lost and moderates did well. But that's not entirely the case. John O'Dea in the Colorado Senate race was supposed to be the archetypical moderate GOP candidate who could take the state. He got hammered. Lee Zeldin, OTOH, in NY nearly took the governorship and pulled several House candidates with him. Lake only lost by 17K votes (far closer than Masters).
Trump still should be favourite for the nomination.
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
Who listens to the Today programme on Boxing Day anyway?
It is for a fry up and dog walk, followed by the footy.
One of the best things I did for general wellbeing was to switch off the today programme and news. It’s not healthy to start the day annoyed, disappointed, aggravated or enraged. I recommend listening to some music, an audiobook or a podcast instead. It’s a top tip.
I agree. Better to start the day with a mug of tea in bed and an argument on PB.
Good socialist Kings Speech today I thought. Much better than I expected.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
No, Monarchy = Toryism.
State control of most of the economy =Socialism
Also, destroying valued and popular institutions with centuries of history for no good reason and with no real thought about what to put in their place thereby making everything much worse=Socialism.
So no wonder most republicans are socialists.
I think that's something of an exaggeration. There can be few more ardently republican nations on earth than the USA but they hate socialists far more than monarchs.
It would be more accurate the other way around.
They hate both, at least in their own country.
The US was built on a revolution against King George III and his government and there are probably even more socialists in the US now in terms of Bernie Sanders and AOC supporters than Americans who would restore the monarchy
The Americans haven't recently killed any monarchs, to my knowledge.
But it's not that long ago they were industriously killing socialists, including in their own country.
Only 8% of Americans want a monarchy, indeed fractionally more Democrats, 12% want a monarchy than the 8% of Republicans who do.
Had they been spies and not communists (or communists and not spies) they wouldn’t have been executed.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks it amusing when Americans call other people traitors, given that their whole country was founded on treason?
It is like when Putin berates the West for escalating the war which he started and has escalated dozens of times, or when lawyers call other people parasites.
Treason doth never prosper - why, what’s the reason? If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.
It is amusing though to watch Americans twist and turn over eviscerating Lee and lionising George Washington, because Lee may have freed his slaves, and been a much better general, and won most of his battles, but he was a traitor, unlike Washington apparently…
Let's not lionise Lee. The man was wedded to the system of slavery.
You don't need to lionise him to point out that every criticism made of Lee could be made of Washington.
And it's a simple statement of fact to say he was a much better battlefield general.
Just as you don't need to lionise Nazi Germany to think Rommel was actually a better general than most Allied commanders including Montgomery.
Washington was distinguished by making no disastrous mistakes - in particular by limiting himself to two presidential terms. The excessive respect in which his memory is held has, in balance, served the US quite well.
As far as his military capabilities are concerned, he won. That's about it.
He was on the winning side.
Which is not quite the same thing.
As with traitors, ultimately successful generals, even bad ones, tend to get a free pass on the rubbish. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example.
An interesting exception is Douglas Haig.
The interesting thing about Washington is that even his contemporaries didn't really know what to make if him, though generally held him in great respect.
I think there's an element of being an imposing blank slate, on which it was possible to project the desired virtues.
Washington was a good politician but a pretty average general.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
His strategy of keeping the Continental Army intact by tactical withdrawal and retaking undefended areas, recruitment of foreign allies and support was an astute one. After Saratoga the British couldn't win, but the war was not won until Yorktown.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
That's the conventional take - as it relates to actual events as they played out - but I'm far from convinced it's true.
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Thanks. History is full or ironies. For France and Spain, this was a golden opportunity to reverse the outcome of the Seven Years War.
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Yes, inferences that are seldom drawn.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
Certainly were fairly unquestioned when I was at school in America. As a counterpoint this book is quite interesting on the history of Loyalist Americans fighting for the King.
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
Who listens to the Today programme on Boxing Day anyway?
It is for a fry up and dog walk, followed by the footy.
One of the best things I did for general wellbeing was to switch off the today programme and news. It’s not healthy to start the day annoyed, disappointed, aggravated or enraged. I recommend listening to some music, an audiobook or a podcast instead. It’s a top tip.
I listen to the BBC World Service Global News Podcast in the morning. It’s just news and reminds me that our domestic problems are but one tear in the world’s many sorrows. I’ve never been able to listen to Today.
Apologies and very late to the Boxing Day horse racing party.
As I've already missed two of the Kempton Grade 1 races and CONSTITUTION HILL is 1/7 to win the Christmas Hurdle, I'll concentrate on the King George where all nine stand.
With the rain, the money has come for L'HOMME PRESSE and he looked very good giving the weight away at Newcastle. This is BRAVEMANSGAME's Gold Cup and he has a hug chance of maintaining the Nicholls record in the race and it wouldn't be the biggest surprise if past winner FRODON got in the first three.
The money has come for AHOY SENOR but you're relying on going right handed sorting out his jumping and I'm not convinced. The one I like at a price is ELDORADO ALLEN - I got on at 33s just a fiver each way for an interest.
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
Who listens to the Today programme on Boxing Day anyway?
It is for a fry up and dog walk, followed by the footy.
One of the best things I did for general wellbeing was to switch off the today programme and news. It’s not healthy to start the day annoyed, disappointed, aggravated or enraged. I recommend listening to some music, an audiobook or a podcast instead. It’s a top tip.
Yes couldn't agree more Jonathan, can't stand the Today programme, it's basically "this is what you should be worried/angry about and it's very important". Imho 95% of news can be safely ignored, a lot of it is totally pointless.
Why waste time/energy being annoyed about things you have no control over? Better to sort out your own life the best you can.
I'm much more into music than politics these days, so much more uplifting and enjoyable.
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
Who listens to the Today programme on Boxing Day anyway?
It is for a fry up and dog walk, followed by the footy.
One of the best things I did for general wellbeing was to switch off the today programme and news. It’s not healthy to start the day annoyed, disappointed, aggravated or enraged. I recommend listening to some music, an audiobook or a podcast instead. It’s a top tip.
I agree. Better to start the day with a mug of tea in bed and an argument on PB.
The Toady prog adds grist to those 2 millstones though (mug of coffee in my case).
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
Who listens to the Today programme on Boxing Day anyway?
It is for a fry up and dog walk, followed by the footy.
I’ve had an extraordinarily quiet Christmas. Been working throughout. Haven’t done that in over a decade I think. I’ve actually quite enjoyed it, not least because apart from one or two bits and bobs, I’m not really back at work now until the 12th. Tenerife, here I come! 😄
I reckon Trump is good value at 30% for the nomination.
Other candidates will find it very hard to criticize his record, or his election-winning prospects, without incurring the wrath of his large base of support. Just imagine how this will play out in a debate.
How does another candidate say something like, "I love you Donald, you were a great President, those cheating Dems stole your reelection from you..." and find a reason why people shouldn't nominate him again?
And if they stay from that script they become an outcast.
I really don't think the GOP can escape Trump until he's lost again.
I think that's right but I also think too many may be rushing into conclusions about the midterms and its implications.
For a start, it was seen as a disappointment for the GOP mainly because there was a ramp up of expectations (and I fell for that as well). In the summer, the expectation was they would do ok but not fantastically well. That's how it turned out (they had been outsiders to win the Senate) though probably on the lower side of that initial range.
Second, there's been a tendency to say the elections showed that Trump's candidates lost and moderates did well. But that's not entirely the case. John O'Dea in the Colorado Senate race was supposed to be the archetypical moderate GOP candidate who could take the state. He got hammered. Lee Zeldin, OTOH, in NY nearly took the governorship and pulled several House candidates with him. Lake only lost by 17K votes (far closer than Masters).
Trump still should be favourite for the nomination.
In terms of vote share, the Republicans did pretty well. They won 51% to 48% in the House, on a high turnout. Not too long ago, 3% would probably give a party a lead of 50 seats or so, in the House. However, defensive gerrymandering now delivers a lead in single figures.
At Senate and Governor level, they did what they have often done since 2010. Pick God-awful candidates, who alienate a small but significant section of their supporters.
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
Who listens to the Today programme on Boxing Day anyway?
It is for a fry up and dog walk, followed by the footy.
One of the best things I did for general wellbeing was to switch off the today programme and news. It’s not healthy to start the day annoyed, disappointed, aggravated or enraged. I recommend listening to some music, an audiobook or a podcast instead. It’s a top tip.
I listen to the BBC World Service Global News Podcast in the morning. It’s just news and reminds me that our domestic problems are but one tear in the world’s many sorrows. I’ve never been able to listen to Today.
The World Service news is great. The world service in general in fact. No wonder it keeps getting its budget cut....
In my exciting Boxing Day plans - zoom call with a friend shortly for a little catch-up, then leftover lamb & sides for dinner, and series 4 of Babylon Berlin on the telly (of which I used every bit of willpower not to binge before the Xmas holidays).
Hope everyone has a lovely day and a thoroughly relaxing evening!
I’d like to concur with previous posters: R4 Today totally unlistenable. Botham belongs to that rare category of intolerable ultra-pricks. What were the BBC thinking?
Who listens to the Today programme on Boxing Day anyway?
It is for a fry up and dog walk, followed by the footy.
One of the best things I did for general wellbeing was to switch off the today programme and news. It’s not healthy to start the day annoyed, disappointed, aggravated or enraged. I recommend listening to some music, an audiobook or a podcast instead. It’s a top tip.
Yes couldn't agree more Jonathan, can't stand the Today programme, it's basically "this is what you should be worried/angry about and it's very important". Imho 95% of news can be safely ignored, a lot of it is totally pointless.
Why waste time/energy being annoyed about things you have no control over? Better to sort out your own life the best you can.
I'm much more into music than politics these days, so much more uplifting and enjoyable.
I still prefer politics but I also find the Today program wearisome. The solution to almost every problem is (a) spend more public money; (b) regulate something more closely or (c) both. There is never any attempt to insert some perspective: if we are spending more on X what do we spend less on? There is a reluctance to recognise the complexities that governments inevitably have to deal with and overcome and there is an insufferable habit of talking over the answers as if they are not worth listening to and simply get in the road of the next fabulous point by the presenter.
It's grim and getting worse. The very odd occasion when some expert is on and simply asked to provide clear information in a comprehensible form comes as blessed relief.
Comments
12:45 Kempton - Champ
1:20 Kempton - McFabulous
1:55 Kempton - CONSTITUTION HILL NAP
2:30 Kempton - Envoi Allen
Happy Boxing Day - UK Christmas Sporting extravaganza!
Washington was, by the standards of his time, a physical giant.
And possessed a taciturn dignity, which isn’t quite how I’d describe Starmer.
I think the GBNews audience already "knows" that the Muslims are approaching a majority.
His main skill was in beating retreat and keeping his force in being.
Most of its problems result from trying to shoehorn everyone into a one size fits all model, layered on by dogma and uncompromising language and attitudes.
The Confederate constitution removed the right of states to abolish slavery.
Surprisingly I took it in my stride. Disappointed my sister and husband didn't stay for dinner though after all of that but I guess people react in different ways.
Otherwise what's the point of the struggle? You ward off Putin only to deliver yourself into the clutches of the bureaucrats in Brussels.
To bring it up to date, Ukraine has won their Saratoga, but not yet their Yorktown.
Though only a small minority of areas
But the Confederacy absolutely, was fighting predominantly to maintain, and expand, their Peculiar Institution.
Then he would have a strong chance in South Carolina top even if Trump win New Hampshire and Nevada and De Santis Florida
I hope people generally had a nice Xmas Day. All the best to kjh and Jonathan, who clearly didn't.
My dad has some really nice neighbours.
Many expected that the Southerners would move into various border areas and take over*, economically at first and politically later, using the low cost labour if slavery to drive out free farmers.
*Bleeding Kansas was just the start
@Sean_F has more or less convinced me to try my hand at military history when I retire, and I will start with the papers of Howe and Clinton.
Were we so oppressed by the EU that we had great difficulty in leaving?
Have we seen the sunlit uplands or have we been hit economically since leaving the EU?
Pence has no chance. Even among the evangelicals he was always considered a second rater.
Trump chose him because he had no power base and would be, he thought, an employee.
This is a man who when the big moment came needed to be persuaded to the right thing… by Dan Fucking Quayle.
When Dan Quayle is the greybeard wise elder you listen to…..
-y
The upshot was that the King of France lost his head, and Spain lost its American empire.
Trump also now seems to hate DeSantis more than his old VP Pence so Trumpites might switch to him too if Trump is eliminated or DeSantis supporters to Pence to stop Trump.
Remember last time a President was defeated after only one term of his party in the White House, Carter in 1980 by Reagan, his Vice President Mondale ended up Democrats nominee to take on President Reagan in 1984.
President Biden v Pence therefore possible in 2024
The USA (in whatever form it was now constituted) would now be independent, but I suspect, nowhere near as powerful as it is today.
Your tales remind me of what happened with our eldest dog (yes, I know it's not the same and it might be wildly inappropriate to mention but hear me out).
Two years ago, he collapsed and we took him to the emergency vet. We then got the call saying that he was riddled with tumours, one of which had burst, and that it was 99.9999+% likely he had terminal cancer. The best thing to do was put him down.
We were inclined to again and, being 12 (then) and a Lab, we thought he had had a good innings. We drove to the vet ready to give consent. When we got there he had perked up and wagging his tail. We thought we would bring him home for one last time but the vet made it clear his survival should be viewed as a matter of days, if that.
Two years later, he is still with us, still walking, yes older but still (seemingly) enjoying his life.
Sometimes, living creatures have a remarkable tendency to overcome what seem like insurmountable odds.
May you enjoy the rest of the time over the holiday and indeed for the rest of their time on Earth.
Of all the wars and military histories I can think of none better demonstrate the concept that history is written by the victors than the American Revolutionary War. It's ridiculously one-sided and dominated by the USA viewpoint of patriots and divine providence.
Its myths (and they are myths) have entered the popular lexicon almost unchallenged.
https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/status/1606371014568443904
I think wartime privations had a lot to do with it though.
Even if it's the only positive thing he ever does, it's not a small thing.
I think it's likely British North America would have eventually incorporated the near/mid-West but that Latin America would have continued with Nuevo Mexico and Las Californias.
That said, it's possible that an Anglo-Spanish war, at some point in the 19th Century, might also have wrested both from them.
We were at war with Napoleon and he had nothing to stop us there. Napoleon sold it to get some loot, and keep the Americans neutral, whilst they got a bargain with no cost of war.
But the Revolutionary War has been subject to much the same revisionist scrutiny as every other national myth.
The United States, of course, is a long way from a coup. What we are witnessing instead is a rise in what Georgetown University Professor Mark Tushnet labeled “constitutional hardball” in a 2004 article.
Constitutional hardball describes legal and political moves “that are without much question within the bounds of existing constitutional doctrine and practice but that are nonetheless in some tension with existing pre-constitutional understanding.” In other words, moves that do not violate the letter of the law, but do trample on our conventional understanding of how it is supposed to work.
https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doomed
Some Leicestrian (if that's a word) partisanship:
'How Guy Martin attempted Steve McQueen’s Great Escape jump on a Leicestershire Triumph
..Steve McQueen refused to ride a German BMW, because he loved the British bikes so much, and the original is now valued at £1.5 million, and “runs a treat”, according to Guy'
https://tinyurl.com/4yu2aw7d
Pretty sure it was because the BMWs of the period had no or minimal rear suspension and weighed a ton.
It's understandable shorthand at play, since the presentation of the myth kind of backdates the impression of a fully formed revolutionary ethos and system onto a much messier build up, war and aftermath. People obviously know it was messier than that, americans teach plenty about the early days of the nation (much more than we do about our own), but pop culturally the myth is strong.
Revisionist takes are desperately thin on the ground.
What is notable, compared with England, is that the Pakistanis are still scoring at under 3.5 an over (not even capitalising before the new ball) and NZ really not mixing it up at all, whether with the field settings or the bowlers. Watching the same opposition against a different team gives additional insight into what an incredibly dynamic and innovative captain Stokes is. We are seriously lucky to have him.
The Manifest Destiny would have been less brutal, but in turn, the result would be a smaller population overall, with fewer European immigrants.
I don’t know if the combined power of Southern and US planters would have resulted in slavery lasting longer, or the combination of British and Northern opinion would have resulted in it being eradicated sooner.
It's reasonable to point out that some of the Founding Fathers were slave owners, and were entirely hypocritical about their pronouncements about the Rights of Man.
It's not true, as some people have alleged, that the rebelled to preserve slavery.
That document facilitates genocide with treason, and for some reason is held up as a great text of liberty and the rights of man by those who read the first few paragraphs of the text and are ignorant of its historical context.
(Can you tell btw that I have decades of practice in winding up American friends on this very point?)
There are plenty of examples, going back decades.
If they have not previously captured the popular imagination, that's perhaps only because of a deep ingrained belief in the founding ideals.
The real problem with the Revolutionary War is that it's hard to rebut the arguments made by the rebels. Contemporary England certainly didn't do so.
https://twitter.com/juneslater17/status/1603205932577587201?s=20&t=Wvgk4nZCw_-R52267vzEMA
However I think it is highly unlikely that the 13 colonies would have moved towards looser arrangements with the mother country at anything like the same speed. It was difficult enough to get them to cooperate even during the war of treason, let alone if there had been no threat to unify against.
Also I'm pretty sure that slavery wouldn't have been abolished in the British Empire if there had been such a gigantic number of slaveowners to compensate. It was expensive enough to buy out the ones in the Carribbean - adding those in the Southern United States to the bill would have been impossible.
This is Ahmad Malik talking
https://twitter.com/golfnutian/status/1603634696021508096?s=20&t=Wvgk4nZCw_-R52267vzEMA
Just heading out to watch the football with son no. 1 (a nice crisp hour-and-a-half walk in the chilly Stockport sun); reflecting on how much I love the pottering aftermath that is Boxing Day. Playing, a bit of low-effort tidying, leftovers, football, catching up on the telly.
Whatever you’re all doing; enjoy and have a lovely day.
I’m sure the vast majority of Scots have nothing against multiple identities in principle, but we see the Scottish one as primary. Followed probably by local/regional/city identities, then likely European. With an overarching sense of being essentially part of humankind. When “British” (shorthand for English according to the PM) identity is considered, it is usually in a negative light.
This is borne out in many decades of social research studies.
https://twitter.com/toadmeister/status/1605095694682955776?s=20&t=Wvgk4nZCw_-R52267vzEMA
I've jumped similar distances on my CRF250 (out of a bunker on a golf course, lol) back when I had a left wrist that worked and ten fingers - the good old days. That was mildly terrifying so I cannot imagine what a scrotum shriveller it must have been to do it on a TR6 loosely spannered together by blokes wearing flat caps and smoking Woodbines in Coventry.
https://amzn.eu/d/9pI2Njb
Bought and sold for English gold.
For COVID never to have existed at all it seems.
It is for a fry up and dog walk, followed by the footy.
Other candidates will find it very hard to criticize his record, or his election-winning prospects, without incurring the wrath of his large base of support. Just imagine how this will play out in a debate.
How does another candidate say something like, "I love you Donald, you were a great President, those cheating Dems stole your reelection from you..." and find a reason why people shouldn't nominate him again?
And if they stay from that script they become an outcast.
I really don't think the GOP can escape Trump until he's lost again.
For a start, it was seen as a disappointment for the GOP mainly because there was a ramp up of expectations (and I fell for that as well). In the summer, the expectation was they would do ok but not fantastically well. That's how it turned out (they had been outsiders to win the Senate) though probably on the lower side of that initial range.
Second, there's been a tendency to say the elections showed that Trump's candidates lost and moderates did well. But that's not entirely the case. John O'Dea in the Colorado Senate race was supposed to be the archetypical moderate GOP candidate who could take the state. He got hammered. Lee Zeldin, OTOH, in NY nearly took the governorship and pulled several House candidates with him. Lake only lost by 17K votes (far closer than Masters).
Trump still should be favourite for the nomination.
Apologies and very late to the Boxing Day horse racing party.
As I've already missed two of the Kempton Grade 1 races and CONSTITUTION HILL is 1/7 to win the Christmas Hurdle, I'll concentrate on the King George where all nine stand.
With the rain, the money has come for L'HOMME PRESSE and he looked very good giving the weight away at Newcastle. This is BRAVEMANSGAME's Gold Cup and he has a hug chance of maintaining the Nicholls record in the race and it wouldn't be the biggest surprise if past winner FRODON got in the first three.
The money has come for AHOY SENOR but you're relying on going right handed sorting out his jumping and I'm not convinced. The one I like at a price is ELDORADO ALLEN - I got on at 33s just a fiver each way for an interest.
Why waste time/energy being annoyed about things you have no control over? Better to sort out your own life the best you can.
I'm much more into music than politics these days, so much more uplifting and enjoyable.
At Senate and Governor level, they did what they have often done since 2010. Pick God-awful candidates, who alienate a small but significant section of their supporters.
In my exciting Boxing Day plans - zoom call with a friend shortly for a little catch-up, then leftover lamb & sides for dinner, and series 4 of Babylon Berlin on the telly (of which I used every bit of willpower not to binge before the Xmas holidays).
Hope everyone has a lovely day and a thoroughly relaxing evening!
It's grim and getting worse. The very odd occasion when some expert is on and simply asked to provide clear information in a comprehensible form comes as blessed relief.