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Fine. Tangential. What yo say is absolutely true, but doesn't speak to the point - which point was illustrating to Tsu that we were discussing a more conventional colonial expansion rather than the type of expansion exemplified by Manifest Destiny or conquest via warfare.

Mikey wrote:Fine. Tangential. What yo say is absolutely true, but doesn't speak to the point - which point was illustrating to Tsu that we were discussing a more conventional colonial expansion rather than the type of expansion exemplified by Manifest Destiny or conquest via warfare.

I would define "conventional colonial expansion" as technologically advanced white blokes marching onto a piece of land occupied by technologically backward non-white blokes and announcing that said land now belonged to the Queen/Emperor/President/whoever. This includes the western expansion of the United States. In the sense that it involved grabbing bits of land contiguous to the country's original territory, and administering it as an integral part of the state, it was far more typical of empires than those of France or the UK.

And I would define "conventional" as "defined by or adhering to prior convention." The crux of the matter is this: I was trying to illustrate Solka's intent of colony-building by simple colonization as opposed to other methods. I further believe that you completely understand this, so... are you just trying to point up that the U.S. is guilty of what had been the U.K.'s stock-in-trade? I'm fully willing to admit that, but I think that it's misplaced in this discussion.

Mikey wrote:And I would define "conventional" as "defined by or adhering to prior convention."

By that definition, as I just stated, the US is the "conventional" Empire, and the British and French overseas Empires the unconventional ones, as most Empires (the Romans, Mongols, Aztecs, Incas, Ottomans, etc) colonised through direct annexation rather than the historically rather odd arms-length method adopted by the European powers towards their non-European possessions.

The crux of the matter is this: I was trying to illustrate Solka's intent of colony-building by simple colonization as opposed to other methods. I further believe that you completely understand this, so... are you just trying to point up that the U.S. is guilty of what had been the U.K.'s stock-in-trade? I'm fully willing to admit that, but I think that it's misplaced in this discussion.

On the contrary, I think it's the very heart of the discussion. This started with Solka's statement that the US doesn't have a history of colonisation. Tsu and I have been arguing that the whole of the US has been acquired by colonisation, most of it by the US. Ergo Solka's initial statement is bullshit.

No, I believe that Tsu's question was based more on the fact that Solka's semantics seemed to minimize the treatment of the Native Americans at the hands of Europeans and later the U.S. I don't disagree that Manifest Destiny was functionally similar to other methods of colonial imperialism.

Actually, it's both.

I started off arguing against the statement that the US has no history of aggressive colonial expansion, and then took offense to the trivialization of the Native American's treatment under US rule.

Well the former in and of itself constituted part of the latter.

Indeed, but I think what was at issue with the second part of Tsu's statement was the way Solka seemed to have trivialized the event, not the way it's been marginalized in popular culture.

BTW...

Gah! I think I'm going to have an aneurysm. What were we talking about, again? The TR-116, or something?

A really cool gun so... pretty close actually.

Mikey wrote:Indeed, but I think what was at issue with the second part of Tsu's statement was the way Solka seemed to have trivialized the event, not the way it's been marginalized in popular culture.

It wasn't my intention to trivialize the events that led to the native american's current condition, but simply underline the disregard international countries hold for these events. It's inconsequent because it didn't affected them (them = Africa, Europe, Asia), and because it happened a long time ago, and they got interested in the facts way after they were concluded.

As opposed to, let's say, the British/French rule of the Middle-East, Africa and Asia. Most of the populations there have a history of being dominated by these powers, while they hadn't been by the USA (because the USA was busy at the time with its own conquests)

Sorry for sparking the argument.

Yeah.....the TR-116 is a great weapon. Why don't the put those "bullet beamers" on photon torpedo launchers to make them just as awesome???????

Lighthawk wrote:Test shot in action

err...that could be bad to be on the receiving end of