(April 6, 2010 at 9:19 pm)padraic Wrote: I enjoy the entirely pointless speculation of alternative history.

One of my favourites is: What if England had won the US war of Independence? They actually came close. What if they had arrested the major signaturies to the Declaration of Independence?

A few issues spring to mind: American expansionism;The Spanish American War,Texas, California, the Louisiana purchase, Alaska, Hawaii.

As part of The British Commonwealth, the US would have entered WW1 in 1914 and WW2 in 1939.

My perception is the loss America as an unmitigated disaster for Britain at the very least.

They did come close and whenever they did get close they did something astonishingly stupid like threaten to free the slaves in the south or unleash the Indians in the north to scare the moderates back to the rebel camp.

I doubt it would have ended had they crushed Washington in 1776. More likely, it would have broken out as small scale guerilla actions which the British would have had difficulty suppressing and then, when the French Revolution broke out and later Napoleon, the whole thing would have exploded again. The British would have been forced to maintain an army in North America to protect the Crown and the Tories and those troops would have been sitting ducks. Moreover, given the penchant for taxing the Colonials that Parliament had, they would have enacted more levies to pay for that army which would have simply stoked up the fires again. There are some ideas whose time has simply come.

It's a great question though.

(April 6, 2010 at 9:19 pm)padraic Wrote: I enjoy the entirely pointless speculation of alternative history.

One of my favourites is: What if England had won the US war of Independence? They actually came close. What if they had arrested the major signaturies to the Declaration of Independence?

We would be more like Canadians.

Quote:We would be more like Canadians.

Hockey rinks and bacon everywhere, eh?

(April 9, 2010 at 7:27 am)Pippy Wrote: I'm there for unrelenting hatred of the british. If I woke up a brit, there would be problems. Féadfaidh Maggie Thatcher, do chroí fuar dhó in ifreann.

What so bad about being a brit? Lovely green island with plenty of good and bad weather. The PMs might be stupid beyond belief but apart from that I see nothing wrong.
I would hate to be a yank though. To be brought up with that annoying accent, surrounded by religion and some discrimination for my atheism would be a very heavy problem.
I think if I went over to the US, I would become very home sick.

Quote:Setting up a situation such that we have present day America, thrashing with things like Bush? Talk about dead British affecting us personally today.

You chose to leave the Empire so whatever happens over there is now your problem. Oh and enjoy your time in power while you still can. Power never lasts.

Unlike Ace, I'd actually prefer to be an American over an Englishman. England sucks; we're living in an increasingly fascist nation and nobody seems to notice. For all America's flaws, it has a great system of democracy, born out of the rejection of the "Divine Right of Kings" in favour of the equality of every person.

Here's to England, the 51st state of America. *crosses fingers*

(April 10, 2010 at 1:45 pm)Tiberius Wrote: Unlike Ace, I'd actually prefer to be an American over an Englishman. England sucks; we're living in an increasingly fascist nation and nobody seems to notice. For all America's flaws, it has a great system of democracy, born out of the rejection of the "Divine Right of Kings" in favour of the equality of every person.

Here's to England, the 51st state of America. *crosses fingers*

Well I'd rather be an Englishman over an American.
Also I hate the monarchy as much as the next person, but the monarchy today has no power. Which is why I'm not bothered.
What I am bothered about is the brain dead PMs we have and the amount of muslims we have living here. Kinda annoying. And the daft flight training prices really piss me off!
Oh and adrian, don't visit Harlow. Trust me on that.

No power?!? Perhaps you should get more angry; the Queen can do pretty much anything. She has a right to rule; she can dissolve parliament (and not just on request), and declare wars. She even gets to overrule the voice of the people and choose a PM if she so wishes. It's fascism all dressed up to look pretty and distracting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may...da.jubilee

Kick the queen off her throne, and give us the republic we deserve.

(April 10, 2010 at 2:06 pm)Tiberius Wrote: No power?!? Perhaps you should get more angry; the Queen can do pretty much anything. She has a right to rule; she can dissolve parliament (and not just on request), and declare wars. She even gets to overrule the voice of the people and choose a PM if she so wishes. It's fascism all dressed up to look pretty and distracting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may...da.jubilee

Kick the queen off her throne, and give us the republic we deserve.

Adrian, if I could get away with taking the "royal" family's heads off I would! I hate them as much as you do. If I remember, there was a point in history when Britain had no monarchy. Mid 16 hundreds if I remember correctly. We hanged the king and the rest of the royal family had to leave or face certain death. Turns out the country went shit since parliment couldn't run the country very well (kinda like now) so they brought the royal family back and it kinda balanced itself out. I've seen the royal statues of the kings head that had been destroyed by anti-royalists during the English civil war.

Would be nice to have no monarchy. But as much as I do dislike them, we kinda need them. If the government went stupid(er) the queen could just step in and stop it. There is a balance between perliment and the monarchy. Both in charge of leading the country and it's people. One can over throw the other if need be.
I actually got banned from a monarchy forum for writing an anti-monarch thing in my sig.

We don't need to take off anyone's heads, we just need to convert the deluded masses into the correct way of thinking, which is that the monarchy is outdated and ineffective. We need more vocal people in the anti-monarchy movement.

(April 10, 2010 at 2:34 pm)Tiberius Wrote: We don't need to take off anyone's heads, we just need to convert the deluded masses into the correct way of thinking, which is that the monarchy is outdated and ineffective. We need more vocal people in the anti-monarchy movement.

We'll need more than very vocal people. Not very easy to remove the monarchy. Tis very hard old chap.
Can't quite do what the french did with theirs. :|
(They executed the entire royal family) Tis one way to be rid of them, just not wise or pratical in such an age as this.

How does one go about removing the monarchy?