What Country (Besides the One You Live In) Do You Respect the Most?

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As a country, I love Norway. I hope I can live there when I retire someday. It's a beautiful country with friendly people.

 

The Finnish minimum wage is actually 5.5 euros, so it's even less. Not to mention that Finland is a more expensive country. Also atleast according to Wikipedia the British minimum wage is also 4.5 pounds.

Indeed and you did not change much when you left either leaving all your colonial possessions to take care of themselves, setting the stage for civil wars, genocides and poverty that continue still today. I really hope you are proud of the greatness that the British Empire brought to Africa.

 

Wikipedia's inaccurate. It's £4.45 for people below the age of 22, whereupon it becomes £5.35.

I respect Japan most. They have a powerful economy, have a high standard of living, and have a very unique culture.

 

Not sure but Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and many other countries of middle Asia ending with -istan would be easiest places for me to live. Because we have similar culture (especially language).

I have great respect for Vietnamese people. I don't think any other nation could defeat USA. They are brave people. I don't think we could resist like them if our country was invaded by USA. Even though we've a much greater army, we also have lots of cowards (like me ) and traitors.

 

@ Morg - Africa asked for independence from British rule. We gave them that. It's not our fault that they can't support a semi-decent economy. They should have thought about that before they asked for independence .

 

and the nail is hit on the head, if the king wanted to hold onto the new world, he would have, it simply wasnt worth the trouble.

 

England or the UK, whatever you want to call it. No other country has left such a legacy on the world today than the British Empire. Indeed the land mass they controlled was less than the Mongolian empire but the British Empire at one point in time controlled 2/3rds of the SEA.

Even though the Commonwealth has long since lost its political standing one just needs to attend a Commonwealth Games event and count the countries that attend. Each one was once occupied/owned/controlled by the British Empire.

The one needs to simply look at the size of Britian, such a small country with limited land mass and resources did so much.

Another country I think deserves respect would have to be Japan, certainly they were right bastards during World War II but look how far they have come in 60 years from being a backwards Empire/Monarcy to a major player in world economics.

 

The state Africa is in now has developed SINCE Britain gave it it's independence. Infact the major British colony in Africa, South Africa is the most developed both economically and in living standards / health care, they are also holding the next FIFA World Cup. So your point is completely biast and anglophobic.

 

You said:

I won't spend a lot of time arguing the Revolution here (since it's not on topic) but let me say that that is not even close to being correct:

It was a severe military defeat that convinced George III to give up the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_George_III

 

Well, I'm not Shoshino - who you're replying to - but I'll throw a few gambits in anyway (wouldn't want to let people down!)

The problem here Channy is that in 1650 (some plenty of time before the American Revolution) there was a civil war in England that essentially removed the absolute monarchy we had and replaced it with a kind of 'constitutional' monarchy. Essentially, the King was basically a puppet and important matters were decided by a system of government. So, regardless of what King George wanted, he wasn't likely to get it (also bearing in mind that it was well known at the time that king George was a sandwich short a picnic if you get what I mean).

I'd take a guess that what happens is as follows: News gets back to England that a revolt has started in Newfoundland. The government got together and decided that the 6000 troops or so we had stationed there should be able to deal with it. Matter solved as far as they were concerned. Then, a bit later, news reaches them that Lord Cornwallis has been forced into a surrender. The options there were to either pull troops from our (closer to home) European holdings to try and retake America. Or, to just leave that as a bad job and concentrate on the increasingly aggressive French empire. They opted for the latter. A big part in this decision was probably the fact that 6000+ good men, under a fine commander, were soundly outnumbered and comprehensively beaten. This meant that retaking Newfoundland would be a hard and protracted war probably needing well in excess of 20,000 men to win. I would bet that they decided just wasn't worth the amount of time and resources to do, not considering that we had a much bigger and more powerful threat a lot closer to home. The French.

 

Anglophobic eh? What I'm trying to say is that colonialism was not good for the countries and is a partial reason to the condition the countries are in now. Britain is certainly not more guilty than other colonial masters. All colonial masters held the adminstration firmly in their own hands not letting the natives take care of it which in the end led to incompetent African governments incapable of governing efficently. So basically it's the same logic that certain neocons are adapting to Iraq, first invade them and make a mess of them and then cut your losses and leave. Afterwards you can conveniently blame the locals for future failiures and tragedies that your actions helped to set up.

The reason why I critizised the British is because I don't see any French, Dutch, Spaniards, Portugese or Belgians here bragging about their colonial mastery. I find such absolutely distasteful and appaling. If there were you would find me lashing out against them equally.

EDIT: And if I were you I would not represent South Africa as a shining example of the greatness of British colonialism. Apartheid was abolished only twelve years ago and it's legacy continues to haunt the country. Poverty in the country is still largely defined by skin color. Not to mention that AIDS is a growing problem with over 20% of the country's population being HIV infected. The country is in a horrible shape, in better hape that some other African countries sure but still nothing to be proud of.

[ December 03, 2006, 18:07: Message edited by: Morgoroth ]

 

Well, that was a guess, but not really what happened. But if you would bear with me, this is off topic, and out of respect for the other memebers, we should take this topic a separate thread, Bamy.

I have spent years studying the history of the Revolution. I'm not saying that to hold myself up as some kind of authority, but because I would really relish a thread on the Revolution in the Alley (it could even get my bLood pumping a bit). Please feel free to craft one, and I will meet you there, mate.

 

@ Morg - It wasn't a case of 'invade, make a mess of then leave' by any stretch of the imagination. What would anybody, in the Age of Discovery (as the early part of it was known) gain from such wreckless sacking? pretty much nothing, really. Far better to give them some semblance of culture so that they might become a fully fledged part of the empire with it's own defences, structure and more importantly, a taxable population. That's what we aimed for. Just look at India, which was one of our biggest colonies. It had a large population which were well under control and we were recruiting and training the population in order to form an effective fighting force (The British East/West India Companies became quite the shock troops under our leadership and successfully defended British rule in India quite a few times).

Now, from around the start of the 20th century and onwards, a few of our colonies asked for their independence, which they were given. Out from under our protective wing (and without our tax subsidies and other financial help I should add) some countries deteriorated. How can Britain be blamed for that? What else could we have done? If a colony asked for independence and the empire said "No, you'll only ruin yourselves" we would be being called tyrannical now.

@ Chandos - I'm a bit of a plank on some things, but I take quite an interest in British history and would like to think I know a bit in that particular field . When it comes to the American Revolution, I know a little bit, but you have to realize that whilst that was monumental in American history, it was just a snippet in British history (honestly without trying to sound condescending). Whilst plenty know that I like to enter a debate that takes my eye with the gusto of a hound dog, I don't think I'd have much left to offer there . So wouldn't be able to justify making a thread on it pal. But you go ahead and I'll offer what I can!

[ December 03, 2006, 18:21: Message edited by: Barmy Army ]

 

Nobody is doing that at all.

 

Barmy - That's a little low, because in July, 1776 George III launched the British invasion of the colonies, which began in response to the Declaration of Independence, crafted earlier that month:

The British war fleet arrived in New York Harbor, like a "great forest of masts" and unloaded close to 30,000 soldiers and some 9000 marines and sailors on Staten Island, where they set-up their HQ. The Howe brothers, commanding, marched on Long Island and then ocuppied New York City and chased Washington all the way to the Delaware River. Everyone knows what happended next: on Christmas morning, Washington regrouped and counter attacked at Trenton, NJ. The rest is history. But the notion that there were only 6000 soldiers is very low. I think that there were at least that amount surrounded in Boston Harbor, the previous year, after the battles at Lexington and Concord.

[ December 04, 2006, 03:21: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Besides NZ (my adoptive homeland), I rate the Netherlands as my favourite country. I would so love to live there, for obvious reasons...

Other than that, I really respect Cuba. That's another great country.

 

barmy, chandos.. there is one major thing i learnt in history - it changes depending on who wrote it. i have no doubt that any history taught in the US about the revolution greatly overexaggerates the victory, while history taught in the UK underexaggerates the loss

 

Well that was just a number off the top of my head (don't as me why!). One thing I do know though is that the biggest battle, in terms of units engaged, was the battle of Long Island. 20,000 British troops pushed 10,000 Americans out of New York. This was, by far, the biggest army we took to field in the American Revolution. The next largest was at the Battle of White Plains. After that though, the armies numbered 4 figures. We had 1,800 men at Concord and Lexington for example. When you compare this to the size of the armies we were facing in The Peninsula War, for example 150,000+. There's quite a difference.

 

Possibly maybe because Germans fought on both sides?

 

Australia...

Why?? The country has never, EVER been majorly involved in any international conflict...

I know, they participated in World War II (ANZACs) and all...but what I mean is, they are not responsible for stuff like genocide, ethnic cleansing, warfare like India and Pakistan, half the Slavic countries, USA, Iraq etc...

So as a country and a culture, I really like the Aussies!