www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall the british are coming! the british are coming!

Friends,

Can't we ever leave out the Bushes from conversations that have nothing to do with politics?

I happen to like and respect that family, ie: their marriages, their personalities, their values, etc...good old North East WASP stock they are...and from my experiences having worked in Connecticut, I contend that such people are the most proper, decent, gracious and kind people one will ever meet....and anyway, how can I dislike George Senior when he loves Greece so much, and visits there practically annually?

Then again, if the Clintons (or more precisely: Senator Clinton) come back in, one might say that we have been dominated by TWO Presidential dynasties these past years: the Bushes AND the Clintons!

Alice

Dear Zenovia:

And you don't see things through your own eyes?

Ryan

Dear SPDundas,

(Very good Russian, by the way :))

Certainly, the American system of government is very good as it is based on the British model from which it evolved!

The American Patriots did not originally fight to remove themselves from the Crown - only to change their status UNDER the Crown. To do that, they needed military aid from France and Germany and the price for that aid was separation from the Crown.

Canada's culture is American - but American Loyalist. On June 19th 1793, the first Loyalists (who were afraid of a republican government) representing a total of ten different cultural groups landed in Adolphustown in what is now Ontario.

They established our institutions and defended the Dominion of Canada etc.

And our system of government got rid of slavery years before yours did and without the bloody cost of a civil war . . .

God bless America!

Alex

Thanks, Alex!

Wow. I guess we all didn't know so much about American history or at least it was "re-written" according to propraganda agendas. Oh well!

I used www.freetranslation.com [freetranslation.com] to type anything I wanted to say in English and it would translate it into a given language I wanted it to be translated into. Easy. So, there, I cheated! I'm busted! LOL

G-d bless America and Canada!

SPDundas
Deaf Byzantine

PS, I grew up in Oregon and it was ALWAYS a great treat going to Canada. I love it up there. It's like Europe on American soil.

Relax Alex.
It was just a joke. I was teaching a French priest the English language and he made the mistake once, although, I think there might have been intentional sarcasm when he said, "God shave the Queen.
It reminded me of this and I had to chuckle.
Stephanos I

Well, Alex, y'all got rid of slavery first because your economy wasn't sustained by it, you didn't have expansive cotton and tobacco fields, etc. That is misleading to somehow hint that Canadians have higher morals than Americans...we all know that's not true!

And, P.S., the British had to employ German/Hessian mercenaries to battle us as well...and they lost anyway!

Alexis

Alex....

Germany? The Hessians aided the British.

Try (then-Catholic) Spain. The Spanish Navy knocked the snot out of the British Navy, expelling the Redcoats from the Mississippi Valley and harrassing the British throughout the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.
The society ladies of Havana gave their wealth so General Washington would be able to feed and clothe his Army in the last winter of the war.

Of course, Spain wanted Florida back, having lost it to Britain in 1763 and did get it back, until 1821. You gotta hand it to Spain - they knew real estate. When the USA became an independent nation, most of the present day US was under the dominion of the King of Spain. Florida, Texas, California - all were Spanish territory.

Slavery was an institution established by Loyal Subjects to the Crown of England, as the Colonies were then dominions of Great Britain, while...
the Spanish were setting up missions through the present day American Southwest from Texas to California.

Yes, Britain eliminated slavery before the United States, but it was under the auspices of the Crown that it started in the first place.

So, I'm a republican (small "r") and a reluctant Republican (capital "R").

About the Bush family - at least Jeb Bush and his family is Catholic.

Since the song is apparently under copyright, here's the link to the lyrics.
God Shave the Queen [amiright.com]

Dear Mr. Clean,

Yes, the Hessians were an important part of the Loyalist immigration to Ontario - at one time, they made up a full 70% of the Ontario population and are a founding father-community of our province.

As for slavery, yes it started under the Crown. But it was abolished, not, as Alexis suggests due to economic reasons, but do spiritual reasons.

The Anglican servant of God William Wilberforce represented a group of Evangelical MP's in parliament called "the saints" that, at one point, had more than 40 individuals.

They fought against slavery valiantly on Christian principles, not economic ones, and William Wilberforce died just before the British Empire abolished slavery completely on August 1st 1837.

In Upper Canada, our first Lieutenant Governor, John Simcoe, curtailed slavery with the first laws of our first legislature in 1793. He was actually a student of William Wilberforce in England, a pious Anglican Evangelical and hated slavery on Christian grounds.

Ex-slaves from the U.S. saw Canada as a destination of freedom via the Underground Railroad, as did Harriet Tubman etc.

The point is that in Canada and the British Empire, it was a Christian Evangelical movement in parliament that defeated slavery.

In the U.S., it was a "Johnny come lately" policy that was enacted late in the Civil War (that was NOT fought over the issue of slavery) that formally abolished it.

That is an historical fact.

Alex

Dear Charles,

In fact, Constitutional Monarchy is much more democratic than even U.S. republican government.

Songs like that, although in bad taste and offensive, would be viewed with much greater disdain in the U.S. than in Britain or Canada.

At least we in a constitutional monarchy do not pledge allegiance to the fluttering cloth of an inanimate flag but to a living person. And the fact that our sovereigns are seen as "parents" of the country with the subjects as a family means much more than having a republic with untrammeled individualism.

This is why the religion of the U.S. is, characteristically, Protestantism with its emphasis on individualism.

I am not saying that the Crown of Britain, which is also the Crown of Canada, is for everyone. Ireland can and should have her own High King etc.

The point is that when Presidents outside the U.S. are symbolic heads of state - why do you need to vote for them as one does for another politician? It doesn't make sense. Kings and Queens can eminently fulfill the role of symbolic head of state and insofar as they represent the history of the nation, they represent ALL the people and so are truly democratic representatives of the people in a way elected politicians can never be, nomatter how many votes they get.

Alex

But, Alex, I can certainly promise you that had Canada used slavery as expansively and as much to their economic profit as America did (which y'all couldn't, because of the climate), it would NOT have been abolished so soon!

Alexis

I ask, what was humane about buying, owning, and selling other people against their will? What was humane about the raping of black women by their white owners? What was humane about splitting up families? What was humane about the beatings to which the slaves were subjected? What was humane about denying slaves any education? What was humane about making the slaves work incredibly long hours under such harsh conditions? The idea that slavery in the American South could be characterized as ?predominantly humane? seems to be thoroughly preposterous to me.

Ryan