Great piece by Sarah Baxter, here is the Times’ own summary:
Sarah Baxter, New York correspondent for The Sunday Times, has decided to vote for George W Bush despite being a life-long supporter of Labour in Britain and a registered Democrat.
Or visit their site if you care to register in order to read it in its entirety.
Good article, thanks for the link Jonathan.
but the democrats are so PRETTY!
http://slate.msn.com/id/2108216/slideshow/2108085/entry/2108087/speed/100
Sorry Andy, meant to comment on Jonathan’s post. Although your post is pretty
good news too = )
jimmy carter says the revolutionary war was unnecessary! is there any war that democrats think was necessary??
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6281085/
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you the question about—this is going to cause some trouble with people—but as an historian now and studying the Revolutionary War as it was fought out in the South in those last years of the War, insurgency against a powerful British force, do you see any parallels between the fighting that we did on our side and the fighting that is going on in Iraq today?
CARTER: Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War, more than any other war up until recently, has been the most bloody war we‘ve fought. I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war.
Had the British Parliament been a little more
sensitive to the colonial‘s really legitimate
complaints and requests the war could have been
avoided completely, and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a nonviolent way.
(What is WITH the timesonline, WaPo and others? They all appear to insist that one accept every cookie proffered [not just their own], without regard to privacy, or access is forbidden. Have they no respect for their would-be readers?)
Engineer,
And if that wasn’t enough, they CHARGE you on a per-article basis to read it!
Well, Carter has a point given that radical colonists largely overstated the problems and propogandized their fellow colonists. King George and company were accomadating and seem to have played into the radical’s hands.
I think you have to say that it WAS necessary to get to the point we are now (ie, historically speaking, point C follows point B which follows point A, etc……the egg does come after the chicken for all practical purposes).
It’d be a surprise to me if the revolutionary war or Iraq were among our “bloodiest” conflicts in absolute or percapita terms.
“Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War, more than any other war up until recently, has been the most bloody war we‘ve fought.”
Well, if by “recently” you mean “about 140 years ago”.
“Had the British Parliament been a little more
sensitive to the colonial‘s really legitimate
complaints and requests the war could have been
avoided completely.”
That’s pretty impressive… a Democrat suggesting that the other side should have done something different in order to avert war.
“and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a nonviolent way. ”
I still prefer what we ended up with over those other places, although they’re head and shoulders ahead of most other places in the world.
And there is violence and violence. Certainly, India did not battle the Brits, but do we really find India’s independence so bloodless?
Carter may be right that the Revolutionary War didn’t “need” to be fought. Indeed, many wars do not need to be fought – the question is, what are you willing to lose in exchange for not fighting that war.
Consider HistoryOnline’s essay: King Philip’s War: America’s Most Devastating Conflict. While the Indian losses were devastating, the British Colony suffered an estimated 10% loss. See also: Jill LePore’s Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity and King
Philip’s War : The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict
In terms of sheer, tragic quantity, is Carter, the Southerner, forgetting the loss in the Civil War? Isn’t that estimated at 620,000 or so? Although this sets the Civil War dead lower (around 558,000), it shows the Revolutionary War ending with 4,435 casualties. These charts give population, number enrolled, deaths in combat and number wounded.
This topic is not cheerful nor one on which we should dwell, but we need both facts and perspective (which seem lacking in that transcript).
I’m not a historian and will cheerfully yield to more experience. However, I suspect that Matthews referring deferentially to Carter as a historian is not doing that beleaguered discipline a lot of good.
i can only point out that india became independent in 1947, and that canada and australia still have the queen’s head on their currency.
also, who knows if any of those three countries would have become independent if the US didn’t fight their unnecessary revolutionary war.
how many countries would be democracies today?
Sanjay,
Thank you very much for noticing. Had the British kept us, think how much more unbearable they would have become and how much more badly they would have ruled their empire leading to who knows what. As it was, we taught them a lesson they applied quite well in the administration of their second empire.
Though India achieved its idenpendence at a good time, it is not so clear that all Britain’s colonies were as well equipped for the independence America demanded for them as was the Jewel.