Letter To The ICBR: Re: Compensation Culture.
I'm sending this not expecting a reply. Your targeting of Britain for crimes it has commited in he past is fairly justified. However this idea of "lets get paid" simply reeks of greed and is an all too familiar agenda in our compensation culture across the world. Your theory has far too many flaws which are reflected in slave reperations and other claims today.
1 You hold the people of Britain today responsible for the past. This is unnacceptable. The people of Britain today would have pay for the so called reperations through taxation with a resulting loss in funding for schools, hospitals etc. This drains from the economy of the country and so takes away from those that need financial assistance. You would be punishing the
average British worker for something they have not commited. You could argue that in the long run British people benefited from Imperial exploitation but this is surely ridiculous. The north of Britain stil has the economic scars of the Norman purge in which much property was destroyed. Do they deserve
compensation? How far does this claim go back? It can't. If you open up the possibility of the claims it allows others to claim and then who decides who has the right to compensation?
2 It is a disgrace to the memory of those who actually suffered. Feel ashamed for making claims on the back of others suffering. You don't deserve this money. They did.
3 I was amused at those you listed in your list of victims. Catholics? I'm a Catholic and I would certainly not see any logic in myself demanding compensation to the purging of Catholis and ESPECIALLY someone claiming for me.
4 I am a student of History. I would certainly not pin the problems of the world on Britain It is true we caused problems just like any other nation. However this idea that BRitain actually invented the plague is absolutely laughable. Also you are blaiming the British for creating prisons? That is ridiculous I'm sure whoever wrote this was having a joke with colleagues. So
Britain should not have invented these prisons and allowed criminals to run amok. Perhaps you should remove this. It is true we invented guns and created concentration camps. But isn't American law the law which allows the carrying of firearms which results in gun crime and gang culture? You cannot
blame the inventor for the uses others put the invention to. Does this mean you are holding the inventor of fire for the deaths due to arsonists? Or the inventor of paracetomal for suicides? It is an absolue joke of an argument.
5 The industrial revolution brought the world to greater rates of
production. Yes, it created social and pollution related problems but without that change we would not live in the globilised economic society we live in today. Again Industrialization is a key part to a countires development and Britain, for all its crimes, brought this to many countries.
6 This idea your sending your sons and daughters to die in the middle east for our mistakes. You are completely deluded. The problems in the middle east today are caused by both America and Europe (including Britain) on the basis of oil requisition. Don't even try to argue otherwise. Nobody really believes that America is there to sort out the mess of the middle east. It's
now in a worst state then it was. That region has always been politically unstable. Surely this is the fault of the Turkish Empire who even today as Turkey commit genocide ansd cause problems. Where's your accusations about them. Ottoman Influence fragmented the region and caused religious friction.
I am amused that Britain is being blamed for the first Iraq war and is made to pay for it. Maybe America could just return the fuel gained from cowing Sadam into submission?
7 Your facts are historically wrong and would be laughed at by most intelletuals. The original crusades consisted mostly of French, German, Norman and other continental European peoples. This idea Britain caused the atrocities in the Crusades is completely idiotic. Britain was not involved until the crusades later and even then did not crusade sufficciently to award the idea the idea Britain caused religious tension. Please ammend. And it should the French repay the Germans the war reperations they acquired? I seem to imagine you haven't thought of this or just ignored it.
8 It will never happen. Britain cannot afford that sum. We live in a welfare state (unlike america-wasn't some black child on the news because he'd died of a simple rotting tooth but couldn't afford the cost?) in which Britain has integrated thos it made suffer. In the 50s any citizn who was a member of the empire past or present was granted British citizenship and was
allowed to live in Britain. Many of the descendents of these victims benefit ith thir families living under British welfare which you compensation claims would destroy. These people are protected by British law and surpasses any effort the US makes for immigrants.
9 Britain helps the world by interrvening in Bosnia and other U.N. assigned roles. We accept asylum seekers by the millions. Are these people we protect unimportant enough to lose even more with the collapse of the British economy.
I hope you ammend your 'facts' soon. I would also like a reply if possible with any counter arguments you have or any revised plans.
yours sincerely,
Sean Tuohy University of Liverpool History student, Catholic, descendent of
family deprted from Ireland and one who does not wish to claim for it.
YES, I WOULD LIKE TO SIGN THE PETITION AND GET PAID!
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