The British Empire was a force for good, not evil.
Never was the British Empire evil …
Everything I am, everything I have, and everything that my children and grandchildren will ever be is because of Great Britain.
I am an American.
Great Britain has done more positive good, spread more hope and wealth and prosperity, and been a part of more marches towards
freedom than any country or group of countries in the history of mankind.
They did not do it perfectly, usually. They did not do it altruistically, often. They did not do it without negative
repercussions, occasionally. But they did do it.
Were I to create a list of who and whom owes what to the past and present inhabitants of the Isles of Great Britain,
it would exceed by many fold the list which would be in omission. We could go back hundreds of years in our search,
and go forward for hundreds more, yet still the result would bear the same. No people in the history of mankind have
done for the positive good of more of mankind than the people who have inhabited the Isles of Great Britain.
Every black inhabitant in the Western Hemisphere owes his and her freedom in the present age to the moral steadfastness
of the Royal Navy stopping, by force, the Atlantic slave trade. This forced the issue to determine the fate of slavery
as a whole, and it was a fate determined overwhelmingly upon moral grounds. British moral grounds, first.
Every black African in Africa has never to worry about being enslaved by slavers and sold overseas or to Arab lands because
institutionalized slavery is effectively dead and gone. Without Great Britain stopping the slave trade in the Atlantic,
slavery still exists.
Every Indian who enjoys the modicum of freedoms they possess they can directly thank the teachings and laws of Great Britain
and the people who forced it upon your ancestors. Same with Pakistan, South Africa, Egypt, (good lord, this list will go on
for a while…)
Every American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, (good heavens, this list will go on for a while, too) who exists in
freedom, potential prosperity and actual peace ruled in a land of laws may directly thank the peoples of Great Britain for
exporting it to them, and all the economic and spiritual infrastructure given them by the British.
Every European who does not speak German can thank directly a still living British Veteran of World War II who fought to
save all the world.
Every European who does speak German can thank directly a still living British Veteran of World War II who fought to save
all the world from your forefathers.
Every Asian who does not speak Japanese can thank directly a still living British Veteran of World War II who fought to
save all the world.
Every Asian who does speak Japanese can thank directly a still living British Veteran of,World War II who fought to save
all the world from your forefathers.
After the French surrendered in the Summer of 1940, the entire focus of all the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe was exclusively
pointed at Great Britain. Eventually the Germans found other places to invade, as they always did, but for a long while
there only 1 place on earth stood up against the Nazis. All those people had one thing in common:
They were British.
Far from being an Island of Angels, the British have had more than their share of what would today be considered politically
incorrect beliefs and practices. The people who enjoy pointing out these historical facts (and suppositions) would be wise
to inquire what it is which the British brought them which is allowing them to so voice these facts. Education? Infrastructure?
Rule of law? Democracy? Freedom? Tolerance? Economy? Life? Because almost no country in existence is untouched for the better
because of the British, and almost every country has been moved forward for the better because of the British.
Some countries owe virtually every aspect of their entire existence to that which the British gave them. Mine is one.
My country had to definitively deal with our own slavery sins due directly to the cessation of the African slave trade
exclusively because of the British, and look where that wholly altruistic effort has led us? Who was our 44th President?
Does anyone reading this, in English, really need any lessons in what the British have given them?
Why are they respected? Because for us, the Americans, we owe our very existence to the British. All the food, clothes,
medicine, housing, machinery, vaccinations, seeds, fertilizer and money we give away — give away — we do so because of our
national values and beliefs. And no place on earth is more responsible for instilling within us those values and beliefs
than Great Britain.
The Russians breathing today can thank a still living World War II British Veteran directly who not only kept the Germans
from putting every division they had against the Soviet Union, but also fought all the way into Germany to help destroy your
most hated adversary ever. They even forgave who you were allied to for the first 2 years of the war, when you or your direct
ancestors were invading and occupying free and independent nations out of sheer avarice.
The British were Imperialists, colonialists and several other “ists” which have recently been renounced as evil. Yet everywhere
they went, that bunch of scrappy little pale yet proper businessmen made life better in one way or another. Often it was done at
the end of a gun. Usually it involved some resistance. Invariably they ended up walking away. But now you, we all, are better
for it.
This list of who owes what to the British could stretch out for millions, millions of words. The list of what the British as a
whole regret doing would be infinitesimally smaller. Most significantly, taking into context the shared values of the day and
the values of the people who were subject to British Rule at the time of their intersection, the list of British failures both
morally and philanthropically would be dwarfed by their successes.
And influential?
Only Rome deserves to be uttered in the same breath as the British Empire in terms of influence. And the British win that
argument, too.
As to the person who chose to ask this question in this particular manner….
I’m sorry that when your nation was met with the British Empire, your ancestors succumbed to a wildly advanced civilization
and that it damages your pride. The truth is that no matter where you are from, life is exponentially better for you now
because of their subjugation to the British than you would be had your ancestors never met them. Sorry, but it’s true.
We all have parents, and for the next 20 generations or so, our cultural parents will be the Brits. Whether you’re Chinese,
Pakistani, Indian, American, Egyptian, or a host of other, more obvious countries, you, personally, owe living Brits respect
and thanks.
Thanks for not surrendering to the Axis.
Thanks for exporting the rule of law.
Thanks for economic infrastructure.
Thanks for religious tolerance in most places.
Thanks for elevating the status of women.
Thanks for the cessation of slavery.
Thanks for the breaking of inherited social stigmas.
Thanks for the freedom of the seas and the economic impact of that freedom.
*Thanks for creating and sustaining the Industrial Revolution which modernised the entire world for the rest of history.
Where would we be without the Industrial Revolution?
Thanks for all the good done by all of her children, like my country, the United States of America, and all our Mother taught
us as to the value of human beings.
God save the Queen.
