Thank the British if you live in freedom

[VIDEO] John Ruberry posted this video from Prager U. with regards to the British Empire expanding around the world this idea of freedom throughout it's almost worldwide empire. Remember the United States of America was once part of the British Empire until the American Revolution - probably caused by "benign neglect".

Of course Ruberry brings to mind his Irish ancestors and British rule over Ireland that may cause questions to be asked over Britain's ideas of liberating these many lands. Better yet, their role in keeping peace between warring tribes. Allowing people to maintain their cultures and customs although having a strong sense of right & wrong still might put their foot down on practices they may see as barbaric - such as what's noted in the video the live burning of widows.

I just know that there are going to be those who because the British conquered so much land on the globe for so many years that many will attack this video. Yeah when the British landed in the Americas they came into contact with the American Indian or native American and unfortunately there were some skirmishes and even disease that began to lower their numbers. Same for the Aborigines of Australia or even the Maoris of New Zealand. Yeah we may even discuss the role of the British in the Atlantic slave trade although they ultimately resolved to end Slavery in their territories and end the slave trade.

The bad news today is the emphasis has become demonizing certain groups of people. Unfortunately we know so much about the oppression caused by Europeans on different ethnicities or race. The various nations of Europe have over the centuries been at war with each other and sometimes there were some oppression or genocide. These days we know about the Europeans and their brutal colonialism in the Americas, Africa, or Asia.

It was pointed out that for the most part former colonies of Britain often hadn't fallen into the trap of dictatorial governance. Unfortunately I'm not sure that's true, look at Nigeria, Zimbabwe, perhaps to a lesser extent South Africa - where the white minority chose to subjugate the non-white majority which probably is  a worse form of segregation that what we may know of the American south. British colonialism isn't perfect and more so than the end of British colonial rule.

Then again we see some parallels with for example Iraq and Afghanistan after removing their respective regimes during the course of the War on Terror we installed more liberal democracies in those nations. The results from what I've seen has been less than ideal in both countries and both are still dealing with radical Islamic fundamentalist movements in those nations, especially Afghanistan since after 9/11/2001 we removed the ruling Taliban regime from power.

In both of those examples it was certainly foolhardy to even think we should nation-build. With this in mind we could always look at the British example when we may make the ultimate decision to go toe-to-toe with a regime who proves uncooperative as far as their threat to the world.