Originally Posted by Egon

George III was a terrible man

Originally Posted by robin1234

Reminds me of the story (true I think.)
The film The Madness of King George was based on Alan Bennett's The Madness of George III. Why the title change for the film? Because Americans would think that the film was a sequel, and they'd somehow missed The Madness of George I and The Madness of George II.

Originally Posted by gradboy

I suppose one thing that slightly gets on my tits is the extent to which people overlook the fact that the US is, by most standards, an empire. I'm not talking about overseas colonies, but the American west.

Between Kansas and Nevada, up to Oregon, what do you have? A vast, sparsely populated land, ruled from afar, where the native population has been killed, moved, or subjugated, and a new population moved in. It's really no different than the British in Australia, or the Russians in Siberia.

Originally Posted by dbark

It wasn't Nasty Nick, was it?

Originally Posted by kimilseung

And China and lots of other countries, it is interesting how contiguous expanded countries are often not called empires.

Originally Posted by gradboy

You're right about China - though its current attitude towards Tibet might be called imperialism.

Originally Posted by cluedweasel

Darn. Lost track of this thread. Old age catching up with me. It was Tom McDermott, the Irish guy who ended up having a kid with Nasty Nick's replacement Claire. His sister lived next door but one to us back in the UK.

Originally Posted by Egon

The bit in bold is the key here and reminds me of my main grumble with the US (as in you reminded me, not that I'm directing this moan at you) - the way so much gets brushed under the carpet so the sanitized story remains intact, and the way it's regurgitated so frequently; the colonists fled religious persecution, George III was a terrible man, The War of 1812 was both a British invasion and a US victory, etc. At every turn the 'Americans' are the victims, which in a story that includes genocide and slavery is quite a stretch of the imagination.

The most annoying bit is how often an entire world view is then extrapolated from this one mythologized event; if America = free then Britain must then have been tyranny. No mention American slavery. No mention (or knowledge) of the English Bill of Rights. Everything is so binary and it's everywhere to be seen - document greeting new permanent residents, questions to gain your citizenship. It's why anytime the British government talks about new tests for new British citizens I dread to think what they'll add, what 'facts' become the official history.

Originally Posted by Sally Redux

2) My husband was making me laugh saying there are some people who have an extremely long wash and hawk in the sinks at work - I think it is a cultural thing.

4) Same here except they are just 'Mexicans'. If they all left one day, the scenes of Americans wandering around helplessly unable to perform any menial tasks would be priceless.

Originally Posted by Egon

The bit in bold is the key here and reminds me of my main grumble with the US (as in you reminded me, not that I'm directing this moan at you) - the way so much gets brushed under the carpet so the sanitized story remains intact, and the way it's regurgitated so frequently; the colonists fled religious persecution, George III was a terrible man, The War of 1812 was both a British invasion and a US victory, etc. At every turn the 'Americans' are the victims, which in a story that includes genocide and slavery is quite a stretch of the imagination.

The most annoying bit is how often an entire world view is then extrapolated from this one mythologized event; if America = free then Britain must then have been tyranny. No mention American slavery. No mention (or knowledge) of the English Bill of Rights. Everything is so binary and it's everywhere to be seen - document greeting new permanent residents, questions to gain your citizenship. It's why anytime the British government talks about new tests for new British citizens I dread to think what they'll add, what 'facts' become the official history.

Originally Posted by tuxedocat

I grew up thinking the amendments were New American Ideas. I was in my 30s before I knew that under King George people were given a jury trial and were innocent until proven guilty. We were taught that the monarchs have absolute power and the king could say off with their head and that was it. They were New Ideas in response to British policies.

To their credit some make sense that they would be a response, like not allowing soldiers to live in the homes of citizens, the British did do that. The founding fathers coming up with new justice theory that in reality took centuries to develop is a bit of a stretch though.

Law students study British law but children do not learn that American law is based on British law.

Originally Posted by Egon

On a final note, I think the comparison with certain quarter of the UK is fair - I'd hate to be a German in England when a Germany-England World Cup game is on with all the inevitable WWII rhetoric. (That said, being English when a Germany-England game isn't much fun either when getting knocked out on penalties is your best hope.)

Originally Posted by gradboy

I suppose one thing that slightly gets on my tits is the extent to which people overlook the fact that the US is, by most standards, an empire. I'm not talking about overseas colonies, but the American west.

Between Kansas and Nevada, up to Oregon, what do you have? A vast, sparsely populated land, ruled from afar, where the native population has been killed, moved, or subjugated, and a new population moved in. It's really no different than the British in Australia, or the Russians in Siberia.

Originally Posted by kimilseung

Tibet is an interesting one, should a hand full of million people live on lands half the size of Han Chinese China, with 1.2 billion. I intrinsically think it wrong for the Han to move in to Tibetan lands, but 1.2 billion do need living space.