and dispite it all the Brits will always love Richard more
History What are some of your most contraversial takes on history?
- Thread starter Winston Bush
- Start date
TBF, though, the coup was more Lodge Jr.'s doing. JFK was sort of reluctant/ambivalent about it and let Lodge Jr. make the final decision about whether or not to launch it.
Anyway, here's an unpopular opinion: The fact that many people from the developing world have sought to and are still seeking to move from the developing world to the developed world in the years and decades after the end of colonialism suggests that maybe colonialism wasn't all bad. I mean, hundreds of millions of Third Worlders likely prefer to live under white rule than to live under the rule of their own countrymen (or, alternatively, under the rule of foreigners who are very similar to their own countrymen). In fact, libertarian economics professor Bryan Caplan has literally suggested having open borders while also denying voting rights and presumably social safety net access to immigrants and their descendants for generations, thus essentially creating a hereditary caste system in the West, similar to what occurred during colonialism, but in a somewhat milder form and in Western countries themselves rather than in colonized people's own countries.
How was Tito worse than Pavelic?
Also, another unpopular take on World War II: France falling in 1940 was one of the best things ever for young adult French gentile men. After all, this ensured that they would not have to bleed themselves dry fighting in WWII like their fathers and uncles previously did in WWI. But of course for their sparing, sacrifices were required: Specifically a lot of Jews (including 1/4 of all French Jews), Soviets, and Germans. Still, it's pretty damn impressive that France was able to inflict 10 times the level of casualties on Germany in WWII that it itself suffered in this war as a result of it (France) losing quickly and thus having the Soviet Union do almost all of its bleeding and fighting for it. Now that's what I call an EPIC 666-dimensional chess move! VIVE LA FRANCE!
bintananth
behind a desk
Every US president except for Martin Van Buren is tracebly one of King John's great-up-whatever grandsons. Queen Elizabeth II is one of his great-up-whatever grandaughters.
EDIT: King John is hated because he came up with tax laws which were actually enforceable instead of the "maybe, if I feel like it" that came before. He's the villian in pretty much every Robin Hood story.
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Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
Pavelic "only" killed people. Tito did that, and turned Communism into something good in heads of many people, and instituted a system which is continuing to destroy Croatia even today.
How is Croatia being destroyed today?
That's not how I and the founders saw individualism. Because individualism is inherently bound in responsibility. Responsibility to deal with the consequences of your decisions and the protection of your family/relations/whatever you connect with.
What you're calling individualism is actually hedonism and is actually no respecter of self. They are not remotely the same thing.
Simonbob
Well-known member
While I agree with you, they're certainly connected.
People looking to avoid responsibility is normal. The wealth we have now just makes it easy.
How does that have anything to do with the context in which the other poster referenced the Magna Carta?
And historically - no. The nobles were objecting to the excessive taxation John was imposing, using means that did a dodge around the limits of his authority to tax, in order to raise money not to ransom Richard, but to fund his military operations in France.
And yes, King Richard spent most of his reign away from home leading one of the Crusades. But that was a "Holy" war, while John's one was just... about wanting to keep territories that his family owned, unrelated to his role as King of England.
And to loop back - the exact historical details about why the nobles of England felt the need to impose limits on what the king could do - with the threat of John being deposed if he refused to accept the terms - aren't all that relevant to how those ideas are seen centuries later.
We can take this further: France, by capitulating so quickly, saved Europe from Communism.
Stalin's plan had been for Germany and France to fight each other to mutual exhaustion, leaving the way open for the Soviet Union to roll on in and conquer all. The infamous French surrender completely messed up his plans.
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 1941, the German military was able to quickly capture or destroy the forces that Stalin had been massing on the border, since they were there for an attack, not for defense.
So yes - WWII turned into a meatgrinder between National Socialism and International Socialism, with the Western democracies being spared anywhere as much in terms of war dead.
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
Hedonism however stems from individualism. Major problem with democracy and any similar system is that humans are naturally short-sighted, unless (and oftentimes even when) given a proper incentive. So if you teach people that individual is the only thing that matters, or even that individual matters far more than anything else, that will automatically lead to hedonism.
As for "the protection of your family/relations/whatever you connect with", that is actually not individualism, it is low-key collectivism. Which is why I said that a balance of individualism and collectivism is needed for a healthy society. For example, in a traditional society you do not need social security net or social care because extended family will take care of any individual that gets into trouble (sickness, old age and so on). This is in fact the system which Communists tried to emulate on a large scale (well, they did more than that...). Problem is, such a system does not work without an extended family, and you cannot emulate it through state institutions either. Reason why is psychology. In a traditional society, sure, if you cannot work, you will receive help. But a relatively high degree of collective dependence means that anyone who can work, but does not, is subject to social stigma and scorn - and these are extremely powerful motivators (in many cases, people will rather die than face social stigma). So what happens when you try to emulate such social safety net through formal institutions is that you leave out large parts of why it works: you have safety net, but because of individualism, people do not face stigma for exploiting it. And this leads to socialism where almost nobody works.
Basically? We have the downsides of Capitalism and Communism both, without having either of their upsides. Politicians and the other members of the ruling class consist of Communists - either old Communists from time of Yugoslavia or, increasingly, their biological and ideological descendents. So it is nearly impossible for fresh ranks and fresh ideas to come up. Bureocracy inherited from Communism means that it is difficult to start anything - it is much easier to simply connect yourself to the state and live at taxpayers' expense, you only need to join the Party - and the Communist mentality means that being a member of a political party is far more important for success in high positions that whether you can do the job. We have some private enterprise, but that too is in large part either aiming to connect to the state funding or else is run as a Communist-style dictatorship - meaning that actual private enterprise is much rarer in Croatia today than statistics would suggest. And even only statistics paint a very bad picture - public sector accounts for full 45% of Croatia's Gross Domestic Product. Combine this with the previous, and less than half - much less than half - of GDP is genuine private sector. Communist mentality also means that public sector itself is run far worse than it could be - when they tried cutting personnel in the healthcare they gutted the people actually doing the work, while leaving worthless rubberstampers around, with the result that now we have a lack of former (e.g. doctors, nurses) and a significant excess of the latter.
You have a lot of this with Progressives in the West - they are, after all, Communists. But Croatia never actually left Communism, so we have been suffering under it from 1945.
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Rhodesia > Occupied Rhodesia
South Africa > Occupied South Africa
British North America > Canada
I am Canadian and I am not ashamed to say that we were more glorious during the days of BNA.
Hell, we torched the White House and turned it into the Charred, slightly blackened House
Bassoe
Well-known member
That might've been his actual plan:
- Lie, claiming you've got a list of communist infiltrators.
- Note down who attacked you.
- Have actual list of communist infiltrators.
No, that presupposes he had a brain, and wasn't a drunk moron who was, even at the time, known for stolen valor. Note that the people that attacked him would be both commie infiltrators and people able to smell a liar when they saw him. He is the reason the HUAC lost it's power. He couldn't have helped the commies more.
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TheRejectionist
TheRejectionist
Brazil authoritarian military governments still are better than the democracies we got since the return of democracy.
The Italian Social Movement and Berlinguer's ICP would have been the better options for Italy.
The Italian Social Movement and Berlinguer's ICP would have been the better options for Italy.
My hottest take is this:
We should have bribed Saddam into letting the US into Iraq to hunt AQ offshoots after 9/11, forced him to allow an independent Kurdistan once our forces were in country, and then used the still intact Iraqi Army and new Kurdish military, in conjunction with our own forces, to deal with Iran and A-stan.
Would have probably saved us and the Middle East a shit load of grief in the long run.
We should have bribed Saddam into letting the US into Iraq to hunt AQ offshoots after 9/11, forced him to allow an independent Kurdistan once our forces were in country, and then used the still intact Iraqi Army and new Kurdish military, in conjunction with our own forces, to deal with Iran and A-stan.
Would have probably saved us and the Middle East a shit load of grief in the long run.
TheRejectionist
TheRejectionist
There was only 1 offshoot guy (basically) which was the founder of ISIL. AQ came later.
It more that I think securing Iraq via bribing Saddam, then forcing him to give the Kurds independence, while using an intact Iraqi Army to handle Iran and A-stan would have produced better outcomes than we see in the ME at the moment.