Moggy wrote:It was obviously for the best that the UK was on the winning side in WW2, but that victory has clouded the British mindset ever since. Rather than being a fading colonial power, we suddenly thought that we were still world conquerors who could take anybody on. The two favourite phrases of little Englanders are “Dunkirk spirit!” “The spirit of the Blitz!” and the daft pricks do not even realise that Dunkirk was a defeat and the Blitz was the country getting pounded into ruins. Even our “finest hour” at the Battle of Britain was only achieved with the help of pilots from at least 15 other nations.
Even in the colonial days Britain was great at kicking the gooseberry fool out of smaller and/or less advanced civilisations but always either lost or needed assistance when it came to the more advanced and powerful ones. But that is always lost on the little Englanders, “Britain ruled the waves” and the sun never set on the Empire and it was all so so wonderful.
Despite the disgusting acts carried out in the time of the empire, I won't debate with anyone that we weren't the most advanced nation on the plant during those years. But let's not pretend that we've always been that, or that the only reason that we are no longer is because the World has somehow ganged up on us.
The most advanced power always changes every century or so, once it was India, then the Egyptians, then the Romans, then the Chinese, then the Ottomans, then the French, then the British.
Now it's America, and in a century it could well be the Chinese, civilisations continue to rise and fall, no one should delude themselves that they're the superior race because they've had it good of late.
