Gun Control: Say What you Mean.

[DeistPaladin]

We already whooped those british asses twice over here and bailed them out of two World Wars....Seems they want another ass-whoopin'!...

I always find this kind of nationalistic bravado distasteful from any group, doubling embarrassing from fellow Americans. If we as a species are going to survive, nationalism will need to go the way of religion.

But if we're discussing this in a context of a pedantic view of history.

The first one I'll let you have.

You know, you'd think we'd have learned from this one. Effectively, it was your Vietnam. Nobody in Britain wanted to fight that war. Elites and business interests pushed for it. When they came to America they were fighting an enemy that was nowhere and everywhere. You had a superior army and navy but were worn down by guerrilla tactics and a better resolve born of fighting for one's home as opposed to enforcing imperial ownership of a colony. You'd think we'd have learned from that and avoided that in Vietnam, Iraq, etc.

But 1812 the Americans acheived NONE of their objectives and us brits stayed in Canada a draw at best for you.

...and burned down our capital. That was embarrassing. The only win on our side was the Battle of New Orleans, the most one-sided casualty record I know of.

Already we'd failed to learn from our own victory. You just can't march into someone else's country unwelcome and have it turn out any other way. Canada didn't want to join our adolescent rebellion. They were like the good child that lived in the basement until the age of 30 and being finally thrown out by the parent.

As an aside, a historical "what if", I wonder if we'd lost the Revolutionary War, if we'd now the the United States of Canada? Eventually, all colonies break off when they reach a critical mass of population and industry, like children growing up and leaving the house. What separated the US from Canada, from my view, correct me if I'm wrong, was when and how. If that independence came at a later time, we might be one nation instead of two. Just think, my wife would have gotten affordable care...

And the US habit of turning up late for wars just when when only the crap and worn out soldiers are left to the germans is something to brag about?

Putting aside jokes about our need to try to set up a Hollywood style cavalry arriving in the nick of time, that's due in no small part to our isolationist streak in our culture. Historically, we've been a bit like China in that we only wanted to have a regional focus and stay out of other continents. We only broke from that policy in WWI, WWII and the Cold War when we felt directly threatened. Hence, our habit of showing up late to every war.

A Japanese animation depicting countries as anthropomorphic characters once had America looking for a country "on a map of the world" and unable to find it. He was looking at a map of North America. Britain face palmed.

Anyhoo I think you'll find that the Russians won the war in europe and fear of the russians ended the war in the pacific.

Russia (and Britain to no small extent) do deserve the credit for VE given how much they had to sacrifice to win victory. I think VJ should fairly go to us since we had to do most of the island hopping. By the time of Russia's entry, it was all over.