Tory,
I think you should keep your insults to yourself. To rebut:
In which case, thank Rome, which ruled Britain as far North as Hadrian's Wall, built a number of its major cities and roads, as well as providing the aforementioned "Roman rule of law theme" from which English common law partly springs.
Roman law is quite different from common law. Admittedly, there are parts of the Roman legal system which survive to this day, but only a very few. Common Law owes far more to medieval ideals than Roman.
Also, Rome ruled beyond Hadrians Wall in several periods - during and immediately after the campaigns of Agricola; during the reign of Antoninus Pius (hence the so-called Antonine Wall, further North and much better sited than Hadrian's Wall), and at the end of the reign of Septimius Severus.
Infrastructure helped make trade and industrialization possible. Note that the Britain SPREAD slavery to its colonies in the New World, the US and the Caribbean islands particularly. Where do you think the rum for the Royal Navy came from?
Britain didnt spread slavery to the New World, the Spanish did - in the aftermath of the arrival of "European" diseases in the wake of the Conquest, the initial native workforce died off and the Spanish began to import African slaves into what was - at that time - a market they kept to themselves.
It was only with the realisation of the potential for smuggling various cargoes (including slaves), as well as piracy, that English (and other nations, including the French and Dutch) merchants began to run into the Carribean, and it wasnt until not being until 1655 and the conquest of Jamaica that the British had a suitable economic base in the Carribean (and the Rum Ration didnt become official until the mid-18th Century).
In addition, slavery existed in almost every society contempoary to and preceeding that period (especially the Romans - or do you not know about
latifundia?). What is important is that it was the British Empire that not only ended it within its own borders, but took huge strides in pretty much ending it worldwide, thanks to the Royal Navy. Greatness isnt only in ones deeds, but also in correcting one's mistakes.
Want to argue trade? Rome ruled the "known world" - i.e., the Western world - from Egypt to England, for centuries. It turned the Mediterranean and Agean into "Roman lakes," which its ships plied ceaselessly carrying trade goods to all points to and from the empire. Its laws and customs went with them.
Thanks to the Royal Navy (as well as explorers of all nations), the "known world" as a term died out - we know all of the world, and I hardly think comparing safe trade in one sea with safe trade in all the oceans of the world is a comparison anyone can make with any kind of validity.
"Organized sports?!" Are you serious? If you truly tout drunken soccer louts as an Engine of Civilization, there is no point in discussing this issue.
One wonders about your intelligence here. It may have escaped your notice, but during the past month several billion people, from all nations of the earth, have been watching 32 national teams play a British game in Germany, and they have been watching similar competitions for every four years, to say nothing of regional tournaments, the club tournaments, national leagues, pub leagues, and people having kick arounds across the entire world. There are only a very few people alive who do not know something about football.
Even when we (for a moment) return to the grisly topic of the First World War, it is illuminated by the famous Christmas Truce of 1914, at which men of both sides stopped fighting to play football, as well as pray together, sing and bury the dead - proving for all time that they were considerably better men than their commanders, who opposed the truce.
The same of course applies, albeit on progressively lesser terms, to both codes of Rugby, Cricket, Tennis and Golf, all of which stem from these islands, and all of which bind people from various parts of the world together to talk, and play, sports.
Reality check time. There is NOTHING "classless" about British society; not now and certainly not then. Note that Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese - all the "Romance Languages" - derive from Latin, which is still the language of Western medicine and law for terms of anatomy and practice.
British society is as classless as American society is, except at the very top. As for languages, its true that Latin has split into various branches, but English remains the language that most people seek to learn at least a few words in - thanks to our Empire, and now yours, people seek to learn it.
British influence "on post ww2 [sic] political systems" in marked by its absence or, more accurately, vacuum. It was American troops, American supplies and American dollars that rebuilt Germany and Japan; not British anything. It was American Liberty and Victory ships bringing supplies to the entire Pacific Rim which created "cargo cults."
Perhaps its because we had just spent six years, billions of pounds and large numbers of our young men's lives preventing one of the most truly evil regimes ever to come to power from conquering a large portion of the world (a war which, for two years, the US stayed out of - and the main part of its territory was of course never seriously attacked).
Who opened Japan to the West? Commodore Perry and the US Navy; not Britain.
Actually it was the Portugese, Spanish, English and Dutch who first opened up Japan in the
nanban period. Once their civil wars were over, they then closed themselves up again (apart from the Dutch, who continued limited trade for the next two hundred years).
Israel was created DESPITE Britain; the US recognized Israel before Britain, which tried desperately to keep control of Palestine - and failed. As they did in India, so abjectly that it splintered into two separate nations only 3 years after WW II ended, after Britain unleashed tanks and troops on its citizens for holding peaceful rallies and after imprisoning Mahatma Gandhi.
Because, of course, Israel is a shining example of how to stablize a region.
As for India, of course we did some regretful things (but then, of course, so has your nation), but your account is deeply flawed. The Indians were told in 1944 that, at the end of the war, progress would be made in their demands for independence - which is, of course, what happened (in 1947, which again makes a nonsense of your "three years after WW2 ended" comment). Ghandi was imprisoned because of his stance at the time - with the Japanese advancing through Burma and approaching India Ghandi and part of the Congress Party, a policy of utter nonviolence (as he espoused) would have met with disaster. Some quotes:
"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions.... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them."(Non-Violence in Peace and War)
And about the Holocaust, which he said in 1946:
"The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs."
Of course, the Japanese at the time were delightful fellows who welcomed non-Japanese with open arms.
The rest of the British empire started falling away soon after; twenty years after the loss of India, "The Jewel in the Crown," its colonies in Africa were independent. Even British Honduras is gone; it is now Belize.
As mentioned above, its because we bankrupted ourselves saving the rest of the world. Those countries asked, and were given, their independence.
Lecture us about Britain as the premiere empire when you actually KNOW something about world history.
Thats good advice, perhaps you should follow it?
