Letter To The ICBR: Re: So-Called Evil Empire
Dear Sir or Madam,
On your website, it lists four categories on why Britain is an "evil" empire (genocide, the Industrial Revolution, global misrule, bad inventions). I urge you to do more historical research and edit your facts.
"The English rounded up natives, seized their property, and forced them to relinquish their heritage and take on British language and culture as their own."
Didn't the United States of America practically do this in 1830 with the Indian Removal Act...which led to the infamous Trail of Tears?
"Beginning in the 18th century, Britain began making our lives worse through the introduction of machines in the workplace."
Don't the American car companies Ford and GM use machines in their factory?
"The health, safety, and wages of workers took a back seat to owners' greed for ever-higher output and profits."
The American company, Nike, has been criticized for contracting with factories that allegedly use sweatshop labour in countries such as China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mexico.
"The terrorist threat has its roots in British mismanagement of the Middle East, particularly Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia."
Though partially true, many Arabs in the Middle East welcomed the advancing British during and after World War 1, liberating them from the oppressive Ottoman Empire. The area was relatively peaceful until AFTER the British Army pulled out.
"The deaths caused by all the major wars of the 19th and early 20th century could have been prevented, or at least lessened, if the British hadn't waited until their backs were up against the wall before getting into the action."
The only reason why Britain entered World War 1 was because it guaranteed the independence of Belgium. If the Germans didn't march through Belgium, Britian would have stayed out of the war (Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was the nephew King Edward VII and Queen Victoria's grandson).
"Machine guns, slums, prisons, child labor, bad hygiene, the Black Plague, concentration camps, you name it. If it hurts people, the British probably came up with it."
The first machine gun (Gatling Gun) was invented by an American (Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling) and first used in the American Civil War. Although slums first appeared in England, it only appeared because of the Industrial Revolution. If another country had the Industrial Revolution first, they would have contained slums as well. Child labour may have been used in British factories, but the Factory Acts of 1802, 1833, 1844, 1847, 1850, 1867, 1874, 1878, and 1891 have gradually improved working conditions and safety regulations. Let me remind you that child labour was outlawed in England by the 20th Century, but even as late as 1910, there was still child labour in the United States. Although London was infested by sewage during the Industrial Revolution, they quickly fixed the problem by installing one of the first sewage systems in the Western world (the River Fleet). The Black Plague was not originated from England, but from south-western Asia. Concentration camps although widely known to be invented by the British in the Second Boer War (1899-1901), the first concentration camps were used in the summer of 1838, when President Martin Van Buren ordered the US Army to enforce the Treaty of New Echota (an Indian Removal treaty) by rounding up the Cherokee into prison camps before relocating them. They masked these camps by calling them "emigration depots". Although these camps were not intended to be extermination camps, and there was no official policy to kill people, some Indians were raped and/or murdered by US soldiers. Let me remind you, the Americans detonated the first atomic bomb, developed the first "modern" ICBM and the first hydrogen bomb.
You may dismiss these facts, simply because you think I'm a Britain who's very patriotic. But I'm not. I'm a Chinese Canadian. The cessation of Hong Kong from China to Britain may be viewed by the Americans as an act of barbarity, I believe that it was the best move made. Hong Kong allowed my family and countless others to escape Communist China and go to the free world.
Please write back. I would like to hear your opinion.
Sincerely,
Henson
YES, I WOULD LIKE TO SIGN THE PETITION AND GET PAID!
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