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Thread: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

  1. #21

    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_...famine_of_1770

    The famine is estimated to have caused the deaths of 10 million people. The famine is usually attributed to the rule of the British East India Company. Nobel prize winning Indian economist Amartya Sendescribes it as a man-made famine, noting that no previous famine had occurred in India that century.[3] The Company had conquered the area just six years previously from the Mughal Empire in the Battle of Buxar. It destroyed large areas of food crops to make way for the growing of indigo plants for dye and opium poppies for the production of psychoactive drugs. It increased the tax on agricultural produce from 10% to 50%, transferring much of Bengal's wealth to the company's shareholders. The stockpiling of rice was also outlawed. These conditions allowed a food shortage caused by drought to become a famine with such a high death toll. It was further aggravated by the nonresponsive administration of the Company, which was concerned only with extracting wealth from the region regardless of the cost in lives.[4][5]

    That doesn't sound like neglect to me. Your arguments are ones I have previously heard from Turkish genocide deniers. What do you say to that?
    Last edited by Enros; September 20, 2016 at 10:16 AM.

  2. #22
    Darkhorse's Avatar Praepositus
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    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    The EIC is not the British Empire.

    Call me what you will, I won't rise to it.

  3. #23

    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    How is the EIC not the British Empire? I planned to edit this in before you replied:

    Imagine I confiscate all of your property and force you to live in an apple orchard. Suddenly a drought or an apple tree disease kills all the apples and you starve. Do you argue I am not guilty of murder? Because that's how the British acted in Ireland, India, Bangladesh and many other places.

  4. #24
    Darkhorse's Avatar Praepositus
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    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    The actions of a business enterprise are rarely in line with that of the governmental administration it operates within, and business has always been notoriously hard to legislate as it is, especially those operating over many seas.

    I don't dispute the wrong doings of Empire, I simply say there is a huge difference between a natural process which you cannot prevent (disease) even if combined with an act of neglect (you forgetting to water my tree) and you storming into my orchard and chopping down my tree with the intention of starving me.

    I think the term would be corporate manslaughter these days.

  5. #25
    Dude with the Food's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    I'd also like to point out that relative to the context, the British Empire was simply a bigger version than the alternatives. If it hadn't owned its colonies than we'd all be speaking French now and asking if the French were as bad as the Nazis. Or Spain/Portugal/Netherlands/whatever. The British Empire has much higher statistics because its empire was the biggest for the longest time.

    On the other hand, the Nazis only had power for just of a decade. Even if we say that WW2 was inevitable, the vast majority of alternative governments in Germany wouldn't involve the holocaust.

    In this line of thinking, I'd say that whatever ISIS are doing wrong today, the world wouldn't necessarily be better without them because events have happened in such a way that other extremist groups would take their place. Remove the British Empire and you get any other European power in their place. Remove the Nazis and genocide for the sake of genocide never happens. In pretty much every other mass killing in human history, their has always been some degree of justification from the executioners whether their reasons are practical, political or personal.
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  6. #26
    RedGuard's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    The Nazis were focused on killing people either. They were focused on enriching Germans. Their plan was to steal Eastern European land and Jewish wealth for Germans. That just required a lot of killing.
    No the Nazis' prime motivator was to wipe the undesirables from the face of the planet, such as jews, homosexuals, gypsies, mentally and physically infirm, the list goes on...this was always the prime directive even if it wasn't always obvious to the public. It also eventually wanted to replace the Human race with the "aryan race" and what exactly do you think that would entail for all non aryans? After the Jews were gone it would have been someone else. The British did not systematically wipe out groups from the face of the planet. Thats why your comparison is asinine.

  7. #27

    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    You're never going to be able to equate the British Empire with either the Daeshii or the Nazis; neglect, ranging from benign to clueless compared to calculated genocide.

    And of the Imperiums in our history, certainly nowhere near the worst; the Romans might be slightly better.
    Eats, shoots, and leaves.

  8. #28

    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    Nobel prize winning Indian economist Amartya Sendescribes it as a man-made famine, noting that no previous famine had occurred in India that century.[3]
    Based on what you've written in this thread, I don't think you actually read that Amartya Sen article. For example, he writes:

    The British did not create the entanglement in India of state power and commerce. It had already existed in politically decadent but hugely prosperous Bengal...

    India needed less inwardness and more global interaction than it had in the eighteenth century, and these the British did provide...

    As it happens, in the early period of British dominance in the eighteenth century, the extent of racial prejudice, when present, was relatively low, despite the ongoing economic plunder of India. At the cultural level, there was considerable British interest in India's ancient civilization. William Jones, an East India Company officer, was a great pioneer of studies of India's past, including its ancient history, and Warren Hastings, so reviled by Burke, was a patron of Indian scholarship (he tried to acquaint himself with local culture, learned some Bengali, Urdu, and Persian, and encouraged Sanskrit studies)...

    In assessing Britain's relation with India in this year of anniversaries, we must make a clear distinction between the positive contributions of the British in bringing India more closely into the global world (including many domestic institutional changes) and the plentiful presence of inequity and negligence in British imperial rule.
    He also talks about how the East India Company's mismanagement wasn't even to their own economic benefit:

    The disaster had at least two strong effects. First, the economic decline of Bengal eventually damaged the company's business as well, hurting the British investors; and so the powers in London had reason to change the running of their part of India into more of a regular state-like operation.
    Anyway, the article doesn't present evidence, and I don't know much about this guy other than his daughter looks nice, but it definitely seems more like a rational and balanced assessment than the tripe being pedaled in this thread.

    I also find this sort of BS claim insulting to the victims of the Nazis:

    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    The British Empire is racist and genocidal to a degree the Nazis could only dream about.
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  9. #29

    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Darkhorse View Post
    I don't dispute the wrong doings of Empire, I simply say there is a huge difference between a natural process which you cannot prevent (disease) even if combined with an act of neglect (you forgetting to water my tree) and you storming into my orchard and chopping down my tree with the intention of starving me.
    The British famines in India are an example of the latter, not the former.
    Quote Originally Posted by RedGuard View Post
    No the Nazis' prime motivator was to wipe the undesirables from the face of the planet, such as jews, homosexuals, gypsies, mentally and physically infirm, the list goes on...
    A bit like how the British wiped out undesirables like the Aborigines, New Zealanders, Canadian and American Indians, and South Africans. They treated the Irish the way ISIS treats Shias. So the Nazi and ISIS comparison is very accurate.
    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz View Post
    Based on what you've written in this thread, I don't think you actually read that Amartya Sen article. For example, he writes:
    If you'd read on you'l see he dismisses most of the supposed benefits the Empire brought to the India. He claims it would have developed trading and cultural links with the rest of the world itself if left to its own devices.
    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz View Post
    He also talks about how the East India Company's mismanagement wasn't even to their own economic benefit:
    I am familiar with this because I have made the argument myself in a debate with Ferrets54. Many empires have made the mistake of stealing lots of wealth for short term gain at the expense of destroying long-term economic growth. That's what the EIC did. It makes them no less evil.
    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz View Post
    I also find this sort of BS claim insulting to the victims of the Nazis:
    If an event had a higher death toll than the Holocaust, then it is worse than the Holocaust. Also, I am sure victims of the Nazis would appreciate me standing up for the victims of mass murder in other parts of the world.

    I think they would be more insulted by people denying mass murder.

  10. #30
    Dude with the Food's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    If you'd read on you'l see he dismisses most of the supposed benefits the Empire brought to the India. He claims it would have developed trading and cultural links with the rest of the world itself if left to its own devices.
    It would never have created its own devices. India would have been French. The Portuguese and Dutch might have had pieces and there may have been bits left for the Italians or Germans but most of India would have fallen under the French Empire if the British hadn't got there in force first. None of them would have been significantly better or worse than the British in their methods for subduing large populations.

    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    If an event had a higher death toll than the Holocaust, then it is worse than the Holocaust.
    I won't try and argue that the deaths directly caused by the British Empire don't massively outnumber those of the Holocaust or that they are somehow less bad. However, the main difference is the people who were responsible for them.

    The EIC was only interested in profit. They didn't care that millions are dying as long as they kept making money and weren't worried about the population having enough power to challenge them. They aren't systematically killing to make money, it just happens if they take the most direct route to extreme wealth. If there was a way they could have made the same money and people live, then they may well have done that but there wasn't and they simply didn't care.

    The Nazis did care whether or not Jews/various minorities lived. They had very strong objections to that and their purpose was to wipe them off the face of the Earth.


    You can say that the famines caused by the British Empire are worse than the Holocaust by judging it purely from the death count. I'd argue that the Holocaust is worse if we judge it based on which of those responsible was most evil. It's not simply a case of putting them side by side and using a ruler.
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  11. #31

    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    If you'd read on you'l see he dismisses most of the supposed benefits the Empire brought to the India. He claims it would have developed trading and cultural links with the rest of the world itself if left to its own devices.
    Point is his assessment is balanced, yours isn't, and he made statements in direct opposition to your claims which you seem to have been citing him on. One can disagree with his assessment on certain points without finding it absurd, your general arguement less so.

    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    If an event had a higher death toll than the Holocaust, then it is worse than the Holocaust.
    Yeah, that's a ed up worldview you have in that you don't consider intent or direct causality.

    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    Also, I am sure victims of the Nazis would appreciate me standing up for the victims of mass murder in other parts of the world.
    I'm certain that I have known more survivors than you, don't pretend to speak for them. I'm sure opinions would vary among the millions dead, but I'm pretty sure most survivors consider BS hyperbolic Holocaust comparisons offensive.

    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    I think they would be more insulted by people denying mass murder.
    The implication here is both a strawman and a mischaracterization of your claim.

    Would you rather live under the rule of a government that doesn't care if you starve to death or a government absolutely intent on exterminating you and your entire family and any memory of you and your culture's existence? If you would say the latter then you are completely full of if you say the former then your thesis is.
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  12. #32
    Darkhorse's Avatar Praepositus
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    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    The British famines in India are an example of the latter, not the former.
    Don't be silly. You can't exploit people if they are dead.

    In all seriousness, there was no deliberate intention. The Bengal famine was a natural phenomenon, tragic and common, in this case severely aggravated by:

    Extenuating events (ie, a major food supplier, Burma, being overrun by a foreign belligerent and supply ships being sunk by Axis submarines and aircraft)
    Short-sightedness or more pressing priorities (ie, massing troops in Bengal to defend the province from Japanese invasion and therefore stretching the local supply chain to breaking point)
    Ignorance and poorly considered practices (local attempts to relieve the famine resulted in hoarding of food stocks, suspicion of the authorities, and the withholding or shortfall in the delivery of supplies)
    Complacency (relying too readily on insurance grants and relief works and assuming they will work in any circumstance)
    Neglect.

    Remember there was impassioned protests in the UK to do more and despite the stupidity of Churchill's rhetoric on the matter, a concerted effort to do something did occur - That is not exactly the act of a people or authority apparently guilty of premeditated genocide.

    It is easy for us, so far on, to sit here and talk shop. We know this event was a stain on British rule in India. That is easy in hindsight, to actually be there in a contemporary manner, with a major war to win and several over nations depending on your efforts, all while a shortage of manpower, resources, and currency makes it increasingly difficult to end the war, it is easy to see how such an event could be overlooked and allowed to worsen.

    But make no mistake, there was no intention, this was no act of policy to encourage such an event. If nothing else, then you should realise the simple fact that the British needed India and if you really want to be and pragmatic the Indian contribution to the war was so necessary that victory in South East Asia could not have been had without them. Deliberately causing a famine in one of your most important allies back yard is not the act of common sense, it is quite literally the national equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot - and it is not like the British people at home were gorging themselves on never-ending stocks of food, presumably stolen from India if you are correct. There was no famine in the UK sure, but food wasn't exactly something which could be wasted at the time either.

  13. #33
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    Again, let's not compare apples with oranges, empires with terrorist groups or nazi/fascist governments.
    ----------------------
    Enros
    How is the EIC not the British Empire?
    In fact, you can also ask: "How is the VOC not the Dutch empire"?
    An offtopic question, but I think it deserves a succinct answer.
    By the middle 19th century a serie of wars and annexations were pursued by the EIC's private armies. As a consequence of the rebellion of 1857 (the rebellion failed, because a significant proportion of the Indians felt their interests were better supported by supporting the British Raj, but that's another story)- the rule of the EIC was ended, and India placed directly under the Crown/parliament, and the scramble for Africa began,based on strategic and economic concerns and the "need" to stall expansion into areas by other European powers.
    To sum up, the new Imperialism of the late 19th was a competition with other powers and control of native populations, based on racial ideas of national superioriy; it was about power and identity, and white racial vigour.

    Seeley wrote (The Expansion of England, 1883)
    there is something very characteristic in the indifference which we show towards this mighty phenomenon of the diffusion of our race and the expansion of our state. We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind
    "... in a fit absence of mind"... is an assessement not without its basis- yet given the massive global consequences, the humor derived from his words continues to inspire heated debate. Anyway- for better or worse- the British Imperialism had an huge impact(cultural/linguistic/structural) on the world;"transmission of culture usually happen under the skin of empire and do not have to be politically inoculated", as Armesto has put it, in "Expansion in Global Context".
    We should situate British Imperialism within the wider European imperial age, no more no less.
    Last edited by Ludicus; September 21, 2016 at 07:00 AM.
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  14. #34

    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    The joke is the British acquired an Empire by accident; or it was handed to them; or it just dropped into their lap.

    Most of it was by following the money.
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  15. #35
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Condottiere 40K View Post
    The joke is the British acquired an Empire by accident...
    Well, all the blame cannot be laid at the doorstep of W. Stoner, Jr.
    "In the fourteen hundred and ninety-two
    Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue"
    ----
    ...or it was handed to them
    Caricaturally, I would say that it also happened....in India. Charles II received Bombey (along with Catarina de Bragança...and the five o' clock tea ) and leased it to the EIC for ten pounds a year in gold. Bombay provided the EIC with the first independent base for operations it had lacked.
    Some years before, the King rightly complained,
    " The East Company has neither planted nor serttled a trade in these parts,nor made such fortifications and places of surety as might encourage any hereafter...neither we have received any annual benefit from thence"
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
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    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
    Thomas Piketty

  16. #36

    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    Enros, we can all bring up the bad things that nations have done in their history. For example, up until the 1990's(!) Ireland was using tens of thousands of unmarried mothers as slave labourers, imprisoned for life in convents, abused by priests, raped, beaten and tortured by nuns and forced to work for no pay.

    And all for the crime of having sex outside of marriage.

    Your country has committed crimes against humanity too, proving they had the capacity for evil, proving they would've done much worse to others if they had conquered themselves an empire.

  17. #37

    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    Compared to most if not all historical empires the British empire was one of the best behaved and at times downright benevolent, but from the viewpoint of modern Western Europe, with it's epidemic of bleeding hearts and widespread expectation for self flagellation over the smallest of perceived wrongs, the British Empire is considered the equivalent of Hitler.
    Pity the man with no country or home, revile the one who forsakes his own.

  18. #38

    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    There's a petition in South Africa, rejecting the gift of a statue of Gandhi, since he supported genocide against the Zulus. And may have wanted to participate.

    As well as being a racist.
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  19. #39
    Inhuman One's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    Timespan is very important to consider. You can look at the number of people killed by some group in power, but the amount of time they took for it needs to be taken into consideration.

    Egypt probably comitted far more crimes than the British empire simply due to being around for that much longer. Switched dynasties and rulers yes, but so did Brittain. Same could be said about China, another ancient civilisation that is still around.

    Sure, the British empire did many terrible things. As did we all, those with less power simply did not have the power to do as much of it.
    The Netherlands also has its share of crimes, mainly slave trade. The country simply is not big enough to become a conquerer, so the focus was always on profits. Still had a damn good army however. Kept the Brits out despite four wars with them.

  20. #40

    Default Re: ISIS and the Nazis have nothing on the British Empire

    IIRC, The only nations to unambiguously beat the royal navy in it's prime were the Japanese and the Dutch, and the japanese cheated by using planes.
    Last edited by Greyblades; September 23, 2016 at 10:15 AM.
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