Originally posted by Durr:
What makes you think that the South would have accepted the British law forbidding slavery any more than they accepted the US attempts to do away with same. 1. Slavery was not the only or even the trigger issue of the war - some northern states still had it while Lincoln declared slaves free in the rebel states. Growth of the northern influence due to industrialisation was a good reason.
2. Many more slaves came to the South from the moment brits outlawed trans-atlantic slave trade to the moment Civil War broke out. Without independence, southern states would not have had economy based on slave labor to the same degree.
I also reject the notion that we are the only one of the former British colonies that have racial problems by the way. Australia has had plenty of racism problems as well I am talking about the degree here.
Also, what makes you think that more native americans would have survived? I have plenty of reasons to believe so. England was much more restrained and experienced in dealing with native people then americans. Their government always took much closer part in dealing with natives then US govt ever did. They controlled 600 mil. people and did not seem to exterminate much.
I am not claiming that brits would have saved all the natives. I am sure that many died in Canada. Were there any famous indian massacres/starvations in Canada? I am out of my depth here.
The really big notion that I dispute is that WW1 could have been avoided if the US had been part of the Commonwealth at that time... The arms race and crazy alliances that helped spawn that war would have hardly been changed at all even if the US had been firmly in the Allied camp from the beginning. So extra hundred million people and a huge chunk of industry invulnerably located would not have made any difference on the attacker's part? Why make alliances then if number of countries and people and economy doesn't matter?
Hitler seemed to feel no hesitation about attacking the USSR, which at the outset of the war was far more powerful than the US military at least in terms of numbers. It was a preventive stroke - an act of desperation. He would have been worse off if that whole mass hit him in a couple of weeks.
Hitler was rather irrational to say the least, and I dont think that declaring his desire to build the 3rd Reich into an empire would have been any different if the British empire would have been stronger. You probably have not read him. He was utterly rational and he fully intended to keep out of the way of Britain even if it ment abandoning profitable areas.
His real idea of building the 3rd Reich is very different from the common knowlege one.
He did not intend to mix germans with other people and did not intend to grab land on the west.
He clearly explained reasons why land had to be grabbed on the East in 1924 - like that Russia was weak and in complete disarray. Those reasons were completely overturned by 1941 when russia was strond and well-organised. Historians prefer to ignore it and just quote his 1924 words out of context. Besides, his plan was for the centuries, not next 20 years.
I think on the whole, things have turned out quite well really the way things actually happened though. Slavery is gone in the civilized world, the fascist countries defeated... Amen, brother!
miko
[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: miko2d ]
