How the liberals made Britain ashamed of being Great
- Thread starter Blackleaf
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You would have lost the War of Independence, even with French help, had we actually been desperate to keep you.
In terms of the number of battles won, the War of Independence was an American defeat. You only got your independence because you were a minor colony that we weren't desperate enough to keep.
Yeah America! You only won cuz they let you win! So there!
:roll:
Can we get anymore school yard with this or have we scraped the bottom of that barrel yet?
:roll:
Can we get anymore school yard with this or have we scraped the bottom of that barrel yet?
Yep. I know you don't get taught this in North American schools (because your history lessons are highly romanticised), but the fact of the matter is that the US colonies were minor colonies to the British and the British just let them go in the end. Had we been so desperate to keep hold of those colonies the Americans would have lost the War of Independence.
The British had more valuable colonies than America, such as India, the Jewel in the Crown.
The Americans are of the impression that they gained independence by their own actions. They didn't. They gained their independence because the British eventually decided to let them go, as they did with their other colonies. The American colonies just weren't that important to the British. Had the British really wanted to keep the US colonies they would have done. The Americans could hardly beat the British on the battlefield even with French help and without the British even sending over thousands more troops.
Hilariously, the War of Independence crippled the French economy.
The British spent about £80 million and ended with a national debt of £250 million, which they easily financed at about £9.5 million a year in interest.
The French, on the other hand, spent 1.3 billion livres (about £56 million). Their total national debt was £187 million, which they could not easily finance; over half the French national revenue went to debt service in the 1780s. The debt crisis became a major enabling factor of the French Revolution as the government could not raise taxes without public approval.
And he is hitting the Neg Rep something fierce! I love it!
You know what they say... the truth does indeed hurt.
"I'll have that sword thanks... was it your dad's?"
Indeed it does.
Here's another that will hurt you (and you won't find this in any Yank history book): the War of Independence wasn't because Americans didn't want to pay taxes (as Yanks believe). You didn't mind paying taxes and actually payed less taxes than the British in Britain. What really happened was that you had the audacity to not want to pay for the French and Indian War, a war in which the British defeated your enemies.
So why didn't they let go of Canada at the same time if there was nothing worth while in North America?
Again with the help of the Colonial Militia and Indian Allies.
We win the French and Indian War and you expect the colonies to pay for it?! Puh-leeze.
The American colonists - who were Britons, not Americans - were supported greatly by the British in their stuggle against the French colonists. We bailed you out. You won that - which was merely an offshoot of the Seven Years' War - thanks to British help, and then when the British did the decent thing and asked you to pay for it you then threw the dummy out of the pram, started the War of Independence and then started peddling the myths of a tyrannical Britain taxing you to the hilt. It was very dirty on your part. Shameful.
Here are some American War of Independence myths that Yanks read about in their romantic history books but which really need to be shattered once and for all:
Myth 1: Americans were on board with the Revolution.
The majority of Americans did not see any need to separate from Great Britain. While they might not have considered it “home” anymore, they did take a good deal of their identity from being English citizens. As part of the British empire and commonwealth, Americans took pride in Britain’s power and its traditions, and saw no reason why America was not like all of the other British colonies—founded by Englishmen, fully entitled to the rights of Englishmen, quite similar in culture to England, and basically just Englishmen separated by an ocean from other Englishmen.
This is not to say that relations with England, and then Britain, had not always and almost continually been rocky. (See Why did America rebel against Britain? for details.) But picture it this way: states fight with the federal government, and many western states are continually at odds with the federal government about water rights, public park land, gun rights, illegal immigration, and endangered species. But the vast majority of citizens in those states would never get to the point where they felt they were not American, and wanted to secede. Even if they did secede, they would do so in the name of “real” Americanness, which they would feel they were protecting. When states oppose federal policies, they almost always see themselves as upholding true American values or principles.
So with the American colonies. Fight as they would with Britain, they never thought they were less English for disagreeing with London. In fact, as usual, most Americans felt they were often lone protectors of English rights and customs. They were more English than the people back in England, who were losing their way.
Thus, when war began in Massachusetts in April 1775, rebel leaders in Boston were isolated in their insistence that America break with Britain. What could the benefits possibly be? America, even if it won the fight, would be forever cut off from British wealth, prestige, power, and trade. And that wasn’t just “British” wealth, etc., but their own; they were British (not American) citizens. Revolution was civil war, and even as victors Americans would be family-killers.
Read more: Truth v. Myth: 5 Myths about the American Revolutionary War | The Historic Present
Myth 2: Americans didn’t want to pay taxes
Ask the average American what their colonial forebears thought about paying taxes and she will answer that they didn’t want to—wouldn’t do it, in fact, and went to war over it. But this is not so.
Americans in the Revolutionary period were not against paying taxes to Britain. Again, they were British citizens, thought of themselves as such, and had no problem with paying taxes like any other Britons to support the empire. The problem was that Americans began to suspect that they were being asked to pay for the French and Indian War (1756-63) all on their own.
In truth, Americans paid far less tax than people living in England. Taxes in England in the mid-18th century were very high. America was taxed less for a few reasons: for many beginning decades in the 1600s the colonies were not able to produce enough to be taxed very much; England was afraid to tamper with the fledgling colonial economies; it was easier and faster to collect taxes in England, where the money could be in London with days rather than weeks or months; and finally most Americans had very little actual cash, relying on bills of credit issued from London.
America also cost England very little until the French and Indian War. While England fought France and Holland in Europe, defending the home island was the main objective, and the people living on it paid the government’s expenses to do so.
But when the war with France came in full force to America in 1756, Britain had to expend a great deal of money and effort to fight and win the war there. Yes, Americans were vital to that war effort, and many volunteered to fight the hated French, but in fact most colonial governments actually charged the British army for their help. British soldiers bought food and supplies at incredibly inflated prices, paid for their board, and fought beside American militia members whose colonial governments hired them out to fight, making a pretty penny for those colonies.
Once the war was over and won for Britain, Americans assumed things would return to normal. But Britain, realizing that its citizens in England were exhausted financially, while its citizens in America had actually made money on top of their usual robust economy, turned at last to those colonies to pay for their war.
Read more: Revolutionary War Myth #2: Americans didn’t want to pay taxes | The Historic Present
The Brits were there protecting their interests...give your head a shake.
Then you expect the colonies to pay an UNDUE burden. Pffft... puh-leeze.
Well... we settled that now didn't we?
Then you expect the colonies to pay an UNDUE burden. Pffft... puh-leeze.
Well... we settled that now didn't we?
But when the war with France came in full force to America in 1756, Britain had to expend a great deal of money and effort to fight and win the war there. Yes, Americans were vital to that war effort, and many volunteered to fight the hated French, but in fact most colonial governments actually charged the British army for their help. British soldiers bought food and supplies at incredibly inflated prices, paid for their board, and fought beside American militia members whose colonial governments hired them out to fight, making a pretty penny for those colonies.
Once the war was over and won for Britain, Americans assumed things would return to normal. But Britain, realizing that its citizens in England were exhausted financially, while its citizens in America had actually made money on top of their usual robust economy, turned at last to those colonies to pay for their war.
Revolutionary War Myth #2: Americans didn’t want to pay taxes | The Historic Present
That's when the ungrateful Yanks - who charged the British to bail them out from French aggression against their colonies - then threw the dummy out of the pram when the British, quite rightly, wanted them to pay for the war we won for them.
