Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Nicholas Soames, grandson of legendary British WW2 leader Winston Churchill, has attacked President Trump’s climate policies with a claim that Churchill would have opposed President Trump’s climate policies. Soames also claims that cutting carbon emissions “helps your economy grow faster”.
Dear President Trump: Churchill would have been a climate leader
By Sir Nicholas Soames
Updated 1558 GMT (2358 HKT) January 15, 2018
There could be no starker illustration of the profound differences that exist between Washington and London — despite alignment on many other issues — than comments this week by our two leaders on climate change and the environment.
For President Trump, the Paris Agreement is a bad deal that will close US businesses — perhaps even has closed some already.
Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s man at the Environmental Protection Agency, added the detail — promising to repeal regulations protecting US watercourses from pollution and reduce power plant emissions.The best-performing nation on growth is also, notably, the best at cutting emissions.
And it is… the UK. In that period, the average Briton has grown 45% wealthier, while reducing his/her carbon footprint by 33%. The USA has not done badly, coming mid-table on both measures. But the overall conclusion is obvious: there is no conflict between making your people richer and cutting greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, from the evidence, one could well draw the opposite conclusion — a consistent goal and a systematic plan for cutting carbon emissions helps your economy grow faster.
The key figure in starting all this was another Conservative figure for whom I hope the President would have some regard: Margaret Thatcher. And it has brought no threat to energy security, or to jobs.
The evidence, therefore, is entirely against the world view of Donald Trump and entirely consistent with that of Theresa May.
My grandfather, Sir Winston Churchill, knew a thing or two about courage. President Trump is, I gather, a fan, having a bust of him in the Oval Office. Without Churchill’s determination, the Nazis would have won the war in Europe. But this is equally true of his respect for evidence. You cannot defeat an enemy of markedly superior forces unless you have better information and make better decisions.
Were he our Prime Minister today, it is pretty clear he would have said the same things on climate change as Theresa May has this week. Because, simply, she is right, and she is acting in the interests of her people.
Back in the real world, poverty in Britain is getting worse – in part thanks to high energy prices.
Poverty hits more children and pensioners, says charity
4 December 2017
Thousands of people are struggling to make ends meet in the UK every day, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has said.
An additional 700,000 UK children and pensioners have fallen into relative poverty – households with less than 60% the median income – over the past four years.
The charity said it was the first time in 20 years that poverty in these groups had seen sustained rises.
Ministers say their support is helping pensioners and families out of poverty.
…
The charity says ending the benefits freeze is the single biggest change the government could do to help the 14m people – 4m children and 1.9m pensioners – now living in poverty.
New threats to the poorest households include rising housing costs, higher food and energy bills, debts and not being able to contribute to a pension, said the foundation.
The latest figures represent a “real warning sign that our hard-fought progress is in peril,” Mr Robb added.
…
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42218682
The full JRF Report is available here
I once met and spoke with Nicholas Soames. My impression wasn’t good. He is no Winston Churchill.
President Trump won people’s trust because he promised to address their concerns, because he understood people’s concerns. Trump promised to remove the roadblocks to American prosperity, to ease the cost of living burdens and security concerns of ordinary Americans.
Contrast this with Nicholas Soames, and his arrogant claim that life in Britain is better than the USA, that expensive green energy policies enhance prosperity.
For some people, likely the kind of people Soames normally hangs out with, life undoubtably is good. Owners of vast, desolate, windswept hereditary estates have done very well out of Britain’s green energy revolution. But for hundreds of thousands of Soames’ fellow Britons, even people with full time jobs, life is a brutal struggle to feed their children and heat their homes.
Britain’s hideously expensive green energy policies are hurting poor people. In my opinion, to claim that expensive green energy helps alleviate poverty verges on delusional.
British energy bosses rake in millions as they raise bills and abuse their monopoly
National Grid, Scottish Power and SSE have a monopoly on the pipes and cables that bring gas and electricity to homes – earning profits of almost £8 billion.
National Grid is the biggest firm and paid its 13 board members a total of £19.5m in 2016. The firm’s finance chief Andrew Bonfield was paid £5.9m. Chief executive John Pettigrew got £4.6m and a £500,000 bonus when the company moved offices as a relocation allowance. More than a quarter of the current average annual bill of £290 goes to these firms.
MPS and the Citizens Advice Bureau said the profits made by the 10 gas and electricity transmission and distribution network firms are excessive for businesses. They claim if the companies made a 5% profit the average household bill would fall by almost £60 a year.
Tory MP Neil Parish, chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said ‘The amount of money these network companies make is astronomical. They are monopoly businesses and the profits they make end up on customers’ bills. It’s time for Government and Ofgem to rein in the network companies, make them cut bills and get a fair deal for all consumers.’
In Britain, the energy companies monopoly position means they never have to worry about losing customers. There are seven companies who transmit and distribute electricity and four for gas. Each has sole rights for the region they cover meaning there is no competition or incentive to control prices. Profits for the network firms has risen by 15% in the last four years, a rise of £1 billion. They do not charge families directly, but they bill energy suppliers – such as British Gas or EDF – who pass the cost on.
There are two types of network firms, those dealing with transmission and distribution. There is only one transmission operator for gas, National Grid, which moves gas in high-pressure pipes from coastal terminals to local distribution centres. There are four distribution firms take it from there into people’s homes; SGN, Wales and West Utilities, Northern Gas Networks and Cadent Gas.
For the electricity distribution companies, the profit margin varies from 25% to 39%, which is an average of 32%. The typical profit margin at a supermarket is 5%.
These amounts are tiny compared to the cost od subsidising renewables, which will soon reach £13bn a year.
Don’t believe lying MPs like Neil Parish, who are trying to balme energy companies on price increases, that they themselves have brought about
The Office for Budget Responsibility says the cost of the subsidies would more than treble over the next five years, from £4.6 billion in 2015/16 to £13.5 billion in 2021/22. The costs of ‘decarbonisation’ account for around 20% of typical electricity bills. Consumers will have paid well over £100 billion by 2030.
An investigation into the energy market by the Competition and Markets Authority concluded in 2016 that the big six suppliers are overcharging British customers by £1.4 billion every year.
During the 2017 election campaign, Theresa May pledged to cap bills for 17 million families on the worst-value energy tariffs, but the plan was dropped from the Queen’s speech – to the delight of the big energy companies.
Government created and regulated monopolies.
If the profits are too large, it’s because the government regulators have permitted it.
The same government regulators that so many people want to put in charge of energy production as well.
“The typical profit margin at a supermarket is 5%.”
Actually, the typical profit margin at a supermarket is ~0%, they gain money thanks to the delay between the cash in from customers and the cash out to providers, several month later.
For the next armed conflict in Europe someone needs to test the conscientious objector exemption from service against going to war based on climate pseudoscience.
British Consumers Foot The Bill For Failed Climate Policy
“Government has got into the business of ‘picking winners’. Unfortunately, losers are good at picking governments.”
Subsidies to renewable electricity cost £5 billion a year at present and will rise to more than £8 billion a year by 2020 — all drawn from the bills of domestic and business consumers. One third of this hits households directly through their electricity bills — 20% of their bills — while the other two thirds, paid in the first instance by businesses, will be passed on to households in the general cost of living.
The Tory Government has obfuscated these facts, and, since 2014, has published no price impacts. When costs could not be hidden, the Tory government has claimed that climate policy made them unavoidable.
Now, in an authoritative and excoriating report commissioned by the Tory government, Dieter Helm, professor of energy policy at Oxford University, has torn away the fig leaf covering the Tory government’s nakedness. Policy interventions, he tells us, are so numerous and badly designed that they have resulted in costs well in excess of what is needed to meet emissions targets. These subsidies will cost £100 billion by 2030.
Much of this wasteful policy cannot be cancelled, due to contractual and other legal commitments. The Tory government has given the rent-seekers firm entitlements that the courts must defend. Did the civil servants explain these liabilities to the responsible ministers, and if so why was the consumer interest neglected, and why were such bad deals struck, again and again and again? Professor Helm does not hesitate to tell us “Government has got into the business of ‘picking winners.’ Unfortunately, losers are good at picking governments, and inevitably — as in most such picking-winners strategies — the results end up being vulnerable to lobbying, to the general detriment of household and industrial customers.”
Professor Helm’s diagnoses and remedies are sweeping and brilliant. The present policies are counterproductive and erode public support. They must be replaced by firm capacity auctions, so renewables pay for their own intermittency. The “legacy” burden of the failed policies should be bundled into a “bad bank” with the costs charged to domestic consumers directly (rather than hidden in the cost of living), and stated separately on the bill as a lingering souvenir of 20 years of negligence and folly in energy policy.
“When politicians control buying and selling, the first thing bought and sold will be politicians.”
P.J. O’Roarke
Please don’t forget this is not just a Tory idea, the original Climate Change Act was prepared by Ed Miliband and passed by Labour.
There should be continuous exposure of the hiding of new taxes in domestic energy bills. Perhaps this would stir up some interest in climate change and people would see it for what it really is – a way to control peoples lives through taxes and legislation.
While contracts may not be legally cancelled, there are other ways of recouping the cost of subsidies. Windfall taxes on income/profits if the recipient is connected to the grid was proposed in Spain (I don’t know if it was implemented). If there’s a will there’s a way. These could then be returned to energy customers.
SteveT
Soames IS DELUDED, BUT WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER HAD A REAL JOB IN HIS LIFE?
Britain’s 17 Years Of Lost Pay Growth
23
Nov 2017
Real average earnings in Britain will not return to their 2008 level until 2025, and households face the longest sustained fall in living standards for at least 60 years, if the projections in Wednesday’s Budget prove correct. Economic growth was sharply downgraded by the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Resolution Foundation think-tank said the consequences would be grim for households.
“While the result for the public finances is grim . . . the outlook for family finances . . . is worse,” said Torsten Bell, director of the foundation. “Our incomes are expected to be £540 lower by the start of 2022 than previously thought and pay is not set to return to pre-crisis levels until the middle of the next decade.”
Chancellor Philip Hammond said in his Budget speech that he understood “the frustration of families where real incomes are under pressure”. But he announced little in the way of new measures to support household disposable incomes.
The think-tank calculates that average household disposable income will fall in real terms by 3.1% over the period from the end of 2015 to spring 2022. This is not as deep as the 5.1% fall in the aftermath of the financial crisis, but is the longest squeeze since data began to be collected in 1956.
The OBR’s forecasts say that by the start of 2022, average annual earnings will be £1,000 lower in real terms than they had predicted they would be in March.
The hit to annual pay would have been even larger had the OBR not revised up its forecasts for hours of work.
The left would absolutely HATE Churchill if he were alive and the same man today. They’d hate his guts lol
They hated his guts while he was still alive.
And so did much of the Tory party , which is why he spent the Thirties out of office and unsuccessfully trying to convince the county’s leaders of the evils of fascism and of Hitler in particular.
It could not happen in the US of course . You would not , to take an outrageous example , have a Republican president disowned by the very Republicans who selected him and voted him into office.
Soames has long been a member of the establishment and a pr@t to boot. Food and fuel poverty increases are the direct result of the insane Climate Change Act and the resultant renewables.
A common theme from one of the elite, not knowing that all of the money in the economy is in peoples pockets. If you get rid of cheap coal, gas and oil and replace them with something that costs a whole lot more, that extra money can only come from the pockets of people. He will not notice but the vast majority of the public would and does.
Wini must be turning in his grave.
The British people relied on Churchill when they had to, but as soon as Hitler was defeated, they went back to their socialist tendencies. He was warning of a new threat, the Cold War, with his warning about an Iron Curtain descending over Europe. He was right again on that score. He was very technologically savvy, reaching out to advisors in key scientific areas, but he relied on engineering, not scientific theory. If you couldn’t use it to build something useful, he was not interested. Climate Science does not provide any particularly useful solutions to our daily lives, and it really is not offering anything other than stopping progress in other areas. When they come up with something positive that provides cheap energy without new problems, the world, Trump included, will be listening.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchhill
Great quote from a man who knew how to use – and didn’t mince – words.
Churchill cannot possibly have any moral authority. He smoked cigars, which are prodigal emitters of both CO2 *and* carcinogens. And he apparently enjoyed the habit. /sarc
At least Cognac contains BIO-ethanol…….
Why should Trump care what Mr. Churchill would have thought regarding climate change???
Mr. Soames, shame on you for using your grandfather’s good name to get your name in the papers…now go away and make your own mark on the world, if you’re able.
More to the point, why should Trump care when some idiot grandchild of Winston Churchill who is insulting his very memory by suggesting he would have supported this Eco-Fascism SAYS Mr. Churchill would have thought?!
“now go away and make your own mark on the world, if you’re able.”
He isn’t, not even close.
This is like making claims of environmental disaster 100 years down the line. They can’t prove, we can’t disprove it, so they take it as fact.
Anything that can’t be disproven, must be true.
Funny thing, they say just the opposite for every other religion.
Prime Minister David Cameron awarded his hairdresser the MBE, an honour for those who contribute to the nation’s well-being without thought of monetary reward. It was for services to hairdressing. It’s a shame to see such tokens of recognition devalued — more fitting recipients would be the engineers running the UK Grid for the way they are keeping the lights burning and the wheels turning, especially for their careful husbanding of the old coal-fired generators. I feel like saluting every evening as we negotiate another few hours of peak demand.
In their desperate attempt to lose the ‘nasty party’ nickname, our government has fallen hook line and sinker for the biggest scam the world has ever seen. When you consider Mr Soames is the product of the finest education that money could buy then the cause of our plight is obvious: we are ruled by an inept and ignorant political class, left and right, and a civil service which would not know a differential equation if it bit them.
JF
Winston Churchill in the 1930’s saw a clear and rising danger in Nazism’s hateful ideology and military buildup, which threatened to annihilate democracy in Europe within a decade if it was not opposed by a superior military force. This danger became clear to most Britons by 1940 (the bombing of London), so they massively supported Churchill’s war effort to save their own country and western Europe.
But it’s highly unlikely that Churchill would have reacted much if someone had told him that the weather might get a little warmer by 2050 if the world didn’t stop burning coal. The British Isles are not known for warm sunny beaches, and Britain has a long history of colonizing islands in warmer climates, so Churchill probably would have welcomed a little warming.
Margaret Thatcher, when she became Prime Minister, initially embraced global warming theory when she thought she could use it to defeat the coal-miner’s union, which voted heavily for the Labour party. But in the 1980’s, when oil was discovered under the North Sea, Thatcher realized the positive economic impact the oil could have on Britain, so “global warming” was forgotten.
Mr. Soames, stop trying to put words into your grandfather’s mouth. His words were great enough to stand on their own, but Mr. Soames didn’t inherit much of his grandfather’s intellect.
I’m guessing Churchill would recognize the danger that Climatism poses to science, to truth, to democracy, and to humanity in general, and would oppose it with every fiber of his being. Oh, and his nincompoop grandson would be disavowed and disinherited.
Reality check. What percentage of people feel confident that they could assess what their grandparents views might be on modern issues of today? What percent of those is it reasonable to assume might be correct? What percentage of people trust that their grandchildren would be able to assume their likely take on political issues of the future?
People change over time. I don’t know that knowing my Dad’s views at 40 that he or I could have predicted his views at 70.
100, 90, 80.
Your mileage may vary.
Sir Nicholas Soames must have been dropped on his head as a child. He clearly didn’t know his grandfather. When Hitler was invading countries for Oil, Churchill wasn’t building wind and solar farms, he was bombing Berlin. The Freedoms we have today is due to Hitler not having oil, and the rest of the world did. It is that simple. You can’t win a war without oil. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor because we were blocking their access to Indonesian Oil. The risk Liberals are putting the world at by avoiding oil is astronomical. By drilling oil we can bankrupt Terrorist Nations like Iran. Just look how lower oil prices destroyed the Socialists in Venezuela. Drill baby drill is the path to freedom and security, without oil, we are certain to be conquered. Britain owes its freedom to the US War Machine and the coal and oil that powered it. Fact.
One can do something about “climate change” by exploring the Moon.
Trump is doing this and so would Mr Churchill.
Exploring the moon could lead to having Earth power satellites which could provide the world with unlimited electrical power- without any CO2 emission.
The reason the Moon should be explored is to determine if there is minable lunar water.
If there is minable water, then one would use solar power split the water to make rocket fuel.
The lunar poles are much better place to harvest solar power as compared to Earth surface..
There places in lunar polar region where one can get 80% sunlight per year. and with lunar polar region grid one can sunlight 100% of the time.
With earth solar one only gets solar power about 25% of time- assuming one doesn’t have clouds very much and that is major problem with harvesting solar energy on Earth.
So the price of electrical energy on the Moon would start at high price but over time, the price could lower by a lot.
The high cost of electrical power on the Moon would make the cost of make rocket fuel quite expensive compared to price rocket fuel on Earth, but if rocket fuel on the Moon started at $2000
per kg the is cheap price of rocket fuel on the Moon.
Rocket fuel is most oxygen. And Oxygen is cheap on Earth. Liquid oxygen on earth is about 10 cent per kg, which makes the combination of Kerosene or Hydrogen with Oxygen work up to be about $1 per kg [or less]. Or lunar rocket fuel could be 2000 times more expensive as Earth rocket fuel and be cheap.
The lunar surface is about about 40% by mass oxygen, but it’s oxidized with the lunar rock and cost a lot energy to separate this oxygen from the rock. But water required less energy to split to get oxygen. and plus of course you get Hydrogen. Per 9 kg of water, you get 8 kg of oxygen and 1 kg of hydrogen. And because you get more oxygen, the oxygen is more valuable than the Hydrogen. So kg of liquid oxygen on the Moon could worth say $1000 per kg and Liquid Hydrogen could worth $4000 per kg, and 9 kg of water gets $8000 of oxygen and $4000 of hydrogen.
And rocket mixture is usually about 1 part hydrogen per 6 parts oxygen.
So 7 kg of rocket fuel would be: 6 times 1000 plus 4000 divided by 7:
10,000 ./ 7 is price of rocket fuel of $1428.57 per kg.
With earth with liquid hydrogen it’s 60 cent plus about $6 divided 7 = .94 cents per kg.
Currently, if you buy rocket fuel on the Moon at 10,000 per kg, it would be cheap. At that price it
would make to cost of going to the Moon be about or less than 1/2 the cost.
The main cost is leaving Earth, but if lunar rocket fuel on the Moon was 1500 or 2000 per kg
it makes it cheaper as compared to cheap price of 10,000 kg.
The main factor is that if there rocket fuel on the Moon, you can make a reusable lunar lander- so to get to the Moon you don’;t need to bring a lunar lander from Earth each time, in order to land on and leave the Moon. This reduces cost by 1/4 [at least]- but still have cost of getting anything else from Earth. But the costs of shipping anything off the Moon become a lot cheaper with lunar rocket fuel and reusable lunar lander- it’s like 1/20th or 1/100th of cost depend on price of lunar rocket fuel.
But another factor is the more earth launches, would lower the cost of launching anything from Earth. Or over time, the more Earth launch has already lowered launch cost from Earth- we at around 100 launch per year and ever increasing and over decades of time. Due mostly to the satellite market.which globally is about 200 billion dollar industry- because every country wants/needs satellites. This rough rule would also apply to the Moon- more launches and over decades, lowers it’s launch cost. But Earth’s gravity well and rocket equation. has more of limit as compared to the Moon- the Moon can become very cheap to leave- like $1 per kg of payload or
less. As compared to Earth of about $100 per kg of payload [it’s currently at about $2000 per kg of payload- heading towards $1000 per kg [$100 per kg would require ten or more times more total launches per year and time [and technological and management improvement].
So in decades of time and mining lunar water, one could get solar power satellite from the Moon for Earth orbit- giving solar power from space to earth surface..
gbaikie wrote “One can do something about “climate change” by exploring the Moon.”
You actually spent time writing that gibberish?
I see an imminent Peak Lunar Water coming any century now!! LOL.
joelobryan asks “You actually spent time writing that gibberish?”
Good heavens, no. It is instantaneous; or to be more precise, no writing. Merely a thought, and his new iPad thought-recognition App turned it into what you see. It took more time to transmit it than to think it.
As it happens the analysis seems pretty good.
The peaks of eternal light are related to lunar water mining:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_of_eternal_light
And there is thought to be billions of tons of water at lunar poles.
This is shortage of water for general human use- the US draws about 600 billion tons
of water per year. But in terms use for rocket fuel it is a vast amount water and a gross value of
that water worth trillions of dollars- even were and when price of lunar water lowers to less than $1 per kg.
But significant aspect of the Moon is that if one make lunar rocket fuel, the Moon becomes the gateway to solar system [and star systems]. And for that use, the Moon has lots of water, but solar system has many times more water [fresh water] than the saltwater of all of earth’s oceans. Or in in our solar system there is plenty of water and water in space could become cheaper than water
on Earth.
Solar Power Satellites are definitely in humanity’s future.
Much like fusion power.
The sun is fusion power. The moon could be gateway to Mercury [or closer to the. fusion reactor- the Sun].
Another thing is fusion.energy becomes easier when you have cubic km of vacuum to play with..
“Britain’s economy has grown by 45%……” – I just wonder how much it would have grown on the back of cheap, and reliable energy untouched by green taxes and carbon restrictions?
First of all, sounds like BS to me. Second of all, I’d like to know what this idiot is defining as “growth.” Probably counts all the subsidies as “growth” of “green jobs” LMAO. Take a look at European countries that went hook, line and sinker for “green” jobs/CO2 emission reduction, destroying about four REAL jobs for each make-work “green” job created.
Churchill was not afraid to speak out against the cosy status quo. He was banned by the BBC during the 1930s because his anti Nazi views were unpopular with the consensus and frowned upon by the establishment elites and the government. Soames IS the establishment.
Britain created the modern world via parliamentary democracy and the industrial revolution.
Britain created a world wide, ethnically diverse system of law and order via the creation of the British Commonwealth and the various Dominions which was substantially mirrored in the independent USA.
Britain’s technological expertise spread around the world to create most of the systems and techniques that are relied upon by all nations to this day.
Britain subordinated its own commercial interests to the suppression of the slave trade and despite the burden of Empire led the world towards the vision of diversity and individual freedom that is such a sensitive issue today.
The British Empire was accidentally acquired as a result of the need to protect morally legitimate trading activities and was never a military objective.
Britain stood alone against Nazi tyranny and genocidal violence whilst the USA stood aside and Russia sought to benefit on the back of Nazism.
Britain created the modern world and saved it from itself.
Britain now leads the retreat from globalism towards mutual cooperation between independent nations around the world. That is where the future lies and as so often in the last 1000 years Britain provides the guiding light.
Stephen,
Don’t get so full of yourself or of Great Britain and Brexit from the tyranny of a despotic government. The USA did it first in 1776.
Yeah, the UK may have its Brexit today from EU tyranny and usurpation of unchecked immigration demands, but the American colonies led the world in this example of Independence from tyranny over 200 years ago.
First off, our political systems were inherited from the British ones.
Secondly, our current Federal government makes King George seem like a pussy cat in comparison.
Stephen Wilde says, “Britain created the modern world via parliamentary democracy and the industrial revolution.”
Yes sir. The reason the Colonies even declared independence in the first place was because they expected to have the rights of English citizens. Those rights are enumerated in the Petition of Rights of 1628, and also the Bill of Rights of 1689. Ah the glorious revolution. (:
Both were developed at times when Parliament was curtailing the abuses of the Monarchy.
MarkW,
The Progressives and the Democratic Party chafe at the US’s Bill of Rights. King George and the current British government do not have to worry with such “nuisances.”
The US Bill of Rights severely limits what the the Democratic Socialists in the US would like to impose. The US Left has always seen the Liberties embodied in the Bill of Rights as something granted By the Government. The rationale being, that something the government giveth, the government can thus taketh.
While the Right (Conservatives) have always correctly understood the Bill of Rights as Liberties reserved To the People, By the People, and onto which the Government may not tread. And those rights not reserved to the People are given to the several State unless the Constitution specifically enumerates them to Congress.
Since then, many Supreme Court decisions have eroded what were always States Rights, most recently the regulation of marriage between consenting adults. If Donald Trump can do anything, it is my deepest hope that dishonest Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg will die a natural but quick death (just like Justice Scalia) in the next few years so that they may be replaced by honest jurists. With the likely retirement of Kennedy this summer, that would ensure a return to constitutional law for the next 20 years. The Progs are desperate to stop that possibility, which is what is animating their current push to re-take the Senate into Democratic Party majority.
You have obviously forgotten all about the Magna Carta, 1215.
Furthermore Stephen,
I think anyone knowledgeable of Great Britain’s treatment of India or China during colonial times would NOT find much credence in your “Britain created the modern world and saved it from itself.” Ever read much on the practices of the East India Company?
Seems to me the Brits of colonial times were quite enamored with Chinese silks, porcelain “china”, and gun powder tech. And also quite taken with teas and spices from India. So enamored in fact, those Brits were quite happy to cultivate opium from Pakistan-Afghanistan to ship to China to intoxicate and create the despair of opium addiction on an entire population many times greater than Great Britain itself. Nice legacy.
I might also add, that there was considerable consternation by Thomas Jefferson when the entire paragraph on how Great Britain was forcing African slavery and slave trade into the Western Hemisphere and into the American colonies was stricken from his early drafts of the Declaration of Independence. That removed paragraph quite an indictment on Great Britain and its culpability into slavery and slave trading.
Good try Joel but your problems are the US treatment of the indigenous Red Indians whom Britain tried to protect and the continuation of slavery long after the UK sought to abolish it.
And the US did not invent parliamentary democracy nor the industrial revolution.
How do you think a few hundred Brits could have administered India for 300 years without the consent of the majority?
The vast majority of the civil servants in India were locals who were pleased that Britain and the rule of law had put an end to centuries of vicious tribal warfare.
Eventually, the Empire outlived its usefulness and was given up voluntarily. No other Empire ever did that.
Oh, and how about the US failed attempt to invade Canada which got Washington razed to the ground?
http://www.history.com/news/how-u-s-forces-failed-to-conquer-canada-200-years-ago
Looks like Jefferson was pretty conflicted over slavery:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery
Although he proposed abolishing it before the UK did his version of abolition was highly conditional and informed by a racist attitude towards slaves whereas Britain’s approach was unconditional and non racist.
Stephen, Could you please elaborate on this statement: “the US treatment of the indigenous Red Indians whom Britain tried to protect.”
Are you talking about Canada?
Great Britain cannot escape its history of the African slave trade until the 19th Century. Even the story of John Newton’s Amazing Grace is a very British tale of asking for redemption from the horrors it visited upon foreign shores via slavery to bring wealth back to London and the Crown.
The key point is that Great Britain didn’t begin to reform its ways until it had decisively lost the American colonies to independence; that is after 1814. And then it took over 100 years for Britinia’s rule “o’er the waves” to collapse as colonialism came to an end by the rise of US power due to its dominant natural resource position.
“indigenous Red Indians whom Britain tried to protect”
The first ever recorded acts of Biological Warfare were the British Army supplying Smallpox blankets to American Indians during the American colonial period. The effect was certainly devastating to the immunity-naive American Indian populations.
joel, I have yet to hear you refute any of the original claims. Just go on and on about how the British Empire failed to live up to modern sensibilities. Got news for you. Nobody else in that period did either.
In fact the British while not perfect, were much better than just about everyone else at that time.
Stephen, the US attempt to invade Canada was during the war of 1812. At the time, Canada was still part of the British Empire which made it a legitimate target.
MarkW,
Your comment hardly required rebuttal. It was hyperbole and fact-free.
But anyway, if you insist. You wrote,
“our political systems were inherited from the British ones.”
That’s funny, considering that European monarchies were still the rule without exception in the late 18th Century. Because when the USA created its constitution, there was nothing else like it in the world.
Britain was a monarchy in the late 18th Century. The King did what he pleased with the Parliament taking care of the mundane issuance of laws to regulate crimes and commerce.
The US Constitution remains largely unchanged since then. The major changes have been the abolition of slavery, and suffrage, and an income tax. But not to the system of governance itself.
“Secondly, our current Federal government makes King George seem like a pussy cat in comparison.”
Hyperbole. Simple hyperbole. Go back and read the Declaration of Independence. TJ clearly laid out the “repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”
The current US government, while far from what our Founders envisioned, is still significantly not anything like the injustices the colonies faced from British Army rule in the 1770’s.
Many ideas in the formation of the United States were French; others derived from Greek and Roman sources. Rather a lot of Saxon common law.
The French Revolution (and its impetus) came after the earlier US revolution.
Its ideals and its thoughts were from both local sources (A strong bureaucracy with a very strong central government vs the American ideal of of the original British ideal of a de-centralized government controlled by local republican (NOT democratic) government.)
The Indian Tribes, of which there were perhaps 2000, were allying themselves with either the French, the British, the Spanish or the Colonies. It is incredibly complex. Some who fought with the British in the French-Indian War helped the colonies later gain independence from Britain.
Each tribe made choices, and each tribe has a unique and honorable history and most were and are very important contributors to the US. Don’t talk about them like they are no longer here.
And for God’s sake, every one was dying of cholera, yellow fever, malaria, small pox and other diseases. Europeans and New Englanders died by the thousands in these outbreaks at the same time. There was no immunity. Do I have to list deadly pandemics of New England?
Zeke writes “Do I have to list deadly pandemics of New England?”
Yes! You will have no peace until you do!
Zeke,
The emigrants to the American colonies in the 18th Century were European populations and came with a certain amount of herd immunity to smallpox and measles. (Google: “herd immunity” , if that term is unfamiliar to you). The American Indians had zero immunity to those viruses.
London 1623 Smallpox, dysentery and typhus outbreak, preceded the Plague
London smallpox outbreak 1667
London smallpox outbreak 1674
London smallpox outbreak 1681 “three of the worst outbreaks”
London smallpox epidemic 1721
Boston smallpox 1666
Boston smallpox 1677
Boston smallpox 1702
Boston smallpox 1721
Massachusetts smallpox 1633
Massachusetts smallpox 1648
These decimated British populations, with estimates that the disease killed at minimum one in four; survivors of the skin eruptions had scars, pockmarks, spotty skin; some suffered blindness and infertility. Keep in mind about half of the Plymouth Colony of 1620 died in the first winter. This is just one disease and I began with the first settlers in the New World and stopped at 1721. I feel that a lot of people play fast and loose with the word immunity, and this is why.
joel, your attempt to refute merely indicates lack of thought and knowledge.
I make a claim about Britain, you attempt to refute me by referring to Europe.
Fails due to non-responsiveness.
Britain hadn’t been a pure monarchy for generations. The idea that individuals had rights that government could not trample on we inherited from the British.
In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote of the Crown’s trampling on their rights as British CItizens. He wasn’t inventing something new, he was calling on the Crown to live up to standards the British had set.
“The idea that individuals had rights that government could not trample on we inherited from the British.”
Who inherited the idea from the Vikings, the true source of all that’s good and wonderful (or terrible).
joelobryan. As per my previous comments on concentration camps. There is a complete alternative view AND FACTS regarding slavery. Herewith a link: Google “slavery terrorism and islam peter hammond”. You should perhaps consider a broader research of what happened in history. Always good for a balanced perspective to verify information with three independent sources (my personal rule anyway).
“Always good for a balanced perspective to verify information”
Balance is needed when information is not available, only claims. Where facts exist “balance” serves no particular purpose.
I believe Britain was first to utilize concentration camps.
So? You can believe anything you want. If you expect others to listen though you need to provide proof.
Correct ICISIL. Boer War 1899 – 1902. Britain invaded South Africa. Could not win the war. Burned the Boer farms, killed all the animals, captured and thrown woman and children in concentration camps. Sadly 27,000 lost their lives lives in these camps. Britain is part and parcel of the NWO. WW11 was staged as most of all the other conflicts on our planet. The real Nazi’s were Eisenhower, Churchill and Stalin. Finding the truth should be all good men’s mission. Climate change lies and propaganda – just another NWO agenda.
staalbal,
you wrote:
“Eisenhower, Churchill and Stalin”
your history is lacking severely. Eisenhower was a US Army 5 star General in WW2. FD Roosevelt was the US President until his April 1945 death.
Since you do not know historical names, it is unlikely you know much else about that period.
Go away Troll.
Did the British invent concentration camps?
No, but neo-Nazis and their dupes like to pretend we did.
It is not clear who invented the concentration camp – it was probably the Romans; however, a more well-known example is the ‘reconcentrados’ of Imperial Spain, used to put down an uprising of the Cubans in 1895-1898.
The British Army sent two observers to Cuba to evaluate the Spanish tactic. One of these was Winston Churchill. Kitchener was definitely aware of the tactic and its use in Spain. There is a description of the Spanish camps here, made by US Senator Redfield Proctor. It appears in Clara Barton’s THE RED CROSS, entitled ‘Concentration Camps of Cuba 1895-1898.’
see http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagld003.php
As you can see, the Spanish reconcentrados (that means ‘reconcentrating place’) display the sinister morphology of the concentration camp – the barbed wire, the watch towers, the location near rail junctions, interned civilians, guards, ditches…
You can see the effect of the Spanish camps here
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/reconcentrado.htm
Since 1895 is definitely before 1899, the dishonor for inventing concentration camps belongs to the Spanish. The Spanish camps killed far more people than the British camps; the Havana camp alone killed 50,000 people; nearly twice as many victims as the 28,000 Boer deaths. It is estimated the Spanish camps killed up to 300,000 people in total.
Here is Castro addressing Pope John Paul on the subject: ‘Under extremely difficult conditions, Cuba was able to constitute a nation. It had to fight alone for its independence with insurmountable heroism and, exactly 100 years ago, it suffered a real holocaust in the concentration camps were a large part of its population perished, mostly old men, women and children; a crime whose monstrosity is not diminished by the fact that it has been forgotten by humanity’s conscience. As a son of Poland and a witness of Oswiecim, you can understand this better than anyone.’
Maybe Castro was upset because neo-Nazis and their dupes have dismissed the death of 200,000 Cuban civilians as a non-event in order to saddle the British with the discredit for inventing concentration camps.
joelobryan. No need to call me a troll. I do not agree with you, that’s all. There is another version of history. Try this for an alternative view: Google “world war 2 the truth”. Do not have to be nasty. You are correct about Roosevelt. If you study the alternative view you will discover how POW’s (Germans) were treated by the “5 star General of the US army”.
“I believe Britain was first to utilize concentration camps.”
You believe wrong.
http://www.pbs.org/crucible/tl4.html
In any case, the only thing that was original about concentration camps was the use of the term “concentration”, the methodology has been in use since time immemorial.
“The real Nazi’s were Eisenhower, Churchill and Stalin.”
Ah, another historically illiterate Nazi sympathiser rears its stupid, ugly head, just like the rest of your odious ilk you really haven’t a clue what you’re rabbiting about, have you?
The real Nazis were the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the clue is in the Nationalsozialistische bit, see if you can work it out.
Compare countries that were once colonized by Britain to countries colonized by any of the other colonial powers. Most of the British ones are doing pretty good. Almost universally, those countries colonized by the other European powers are basket cases today.
Countries that were never colonized fall somewhere between those two extremes.
MarkW says, “Almost universally, those countries colonized by the other European powers are basket cases today.”
Look at S and C America, the Spanish Colonies. It is not unusual for a country to have declared independence from Spain, set up a Republic like ours, and then to suffer a military coup immediately afterward. In some cases, there have been 93 different forms of governments since then!
The difference is the corruption that Catholicism and the corrupt practices of the Jesuits that forced Catholicism brought on those societies. The Jesuits have been, always have been, and are today corrupt, and are predators of young children.
Britain allowed it’s colonies self rule, Spanish colonies were ruled from Spain.
Now everything is the fault of Catholicism?
Sheesh.
Stephen Wilde says, “The British Empire was accidentally acquired as a result of the need to protect morally legitimate trading activities and was never a military objective.”
The 300 years of British expansion was a system of shipping and trade. In 1839 it was recommended that Canada should have self-government, and later the British Empire evolved into a voluntary association of free and equal countries called the Commonwealth. It covers 1/5 of the land surface of the earth and has 1/4 of the population. It is a very diverse bunch of countries, but it does share English traditions and law. Requirements for members include having popular/plurality rule, parliament, and rule of law/constituion. Previous colonies remained in and others joined afterwards.
Britain’s entry into the EU required it to give up its trade preferences with these countries, and stay in its insular little EU market, and every one lost!
That is not to say that the East India Co was not on the Dark Side sometimes.
I thought that whole thing was a clever bit of sarcasm but I am beginning to think you believe all that.
“Britain” did none of those things; people do things. Some of those people happen to be British, and after nearly a thousand years of struggle, some people were finally permitted to be neither Lord (Britain still has them), or Vassal (still has those I suppose). I’m thinking particularly of Mr. Watt’s steam engine and the Bessemer process for refining steel.
He’s absolutely correct about his ancestor, Churchiil, Meaning, they’re both crocks of shit.
Wheras you are just full of it ?
Churchill…
The guy or the man who ended up to carpet bomb Germany…
Wow…Hopefully we will not get to the point of another Churchill at this times…
Hopefully…as it still may end up to be the most effective way to consider it as inescapable way to Victory…when all else may fail…
Really sorry for being so direct…
In the way of my understanding, Churchill and Gores, or Bamas, or Hillies, or whatever lost, can not be equated under any circumstances as with the same “spirit” of the guy or man known as Churchill… no any way to be considered as under the same “Equation”…That guy for the best or worst happens to be a model of a great man…as far as I can tell,,, hopefully I am not so wrong with this…
It is a shame that “whores” try to equalize with a proper man, like Churchill…
Sorry again for being so direct and not much politically correct.
cheers.
Being a person of such pure heart, how would you have fought against Germany prior to Normandy?
Remember, precision bombing is an invention of the last 20 or 30 years. It wasn’t an option back in the 40’s.
“The guy or the man who ended up to carpet bomb Germany…
Copying the Germans, who developed carpet bombing starting with Guernica in the Spanish Civil War, perfected it during their attacks on Poland and the Low Countries, finishing with the Blitz on Great Britain during which several hundred Luftwaffe bombers carpet bombed London round the clock for 56 out of 57 consecutive days and nights, and not forgetting the many raids that devastated Coventry, Bristol and several other British cities.
Funny how you hate-filled lot never seem to remember things like that, isn’t it?
Well, Hitler would have. He was then.
+1,000 Of course the “progressives” will insist Hitler was politically “right” but he was as “left” as they come.
The left has convinced themselves that all bad people are of the right. Since they know beyond doubt that they and people who agree with them are perfect.
Believing that Hitler was left wing is one of the more silly beliefs in political science. The fact is Hitler was not really left, or right, he was a fascist, and that is a section all of it’s own.
The desperate desire of the left to deny that fascism is a form of socialism is duly noted.
Indeed, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – the National Socialist German Workers’ Party is pretty unequivocal, notwithstanding the frantic efforts of the modern Socialists to lie in their teeth in their attempts to disassociate themselves from the general inhumanity of Socialism, the repulsive, inhuman pseudo-religion that replaced worship of “God(s)” with worship of “The State” or “The People”, and was responsible for the deaths of up to two hundred million of its own people, merely speedbumps on the highway to the Glorious Socialist Workers’ Paradise during the 20th century.
The Left even try to pretend that Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot – to name but a few –
weren’t really Socialists either…
W.C. was at odds with his party in some point. When asked to remain loyal to the party line he is supposed to have answered: I will change party for my opinion, I will not change my opinion for my party.