Now, no doubt there were some people who felt that having foreigners run their countries was the same thing as being flogged for not working for somebody else; but that's a mistake a person who has been flogged for not working for somebody else is unlikely to make.
That explains the lack of all those popular uprisings that didn't eventually lead to the collapse of the British colonial system.
Um, you know Americans collapsed the British colonial system here with a popular uprising, don't you? You know our uprising was orchestrated by a bunch of rich white landowners ticked off about taxes and British soldiers being quartered in their houses and the lack of Americans in Parliament, don't you? So by your reasoning, the fact that we had a popular uprising shows that being an underrepresented rich white landowner must be equivalent to being flogged. Can you produce any example of a black slave in 18th-century America who thought rich white landowners were enslaved by the British?
And the reason you are telling me this, as though it had bearing on the point in dispute, is in order to try to draw attention away from the false claim you made that I corrected you on.
What?
You wrote "Darwin was in favour of the British empire enslaving countless millions of people across the globe." That's a false claim. You don't have a reason to believe it. You've been suckered into spouting politically correct drivel.
Yes, he was an abolationist. Because he had double standards.
No, because slavery is evil and he knew it.
That's not an argument against slavery... or anything. I can win any argument by simply labelling my oponents opinion as evil. So easy. Saves me the trouble of constructing a cogent attack on it.
I wasn't offering that as an argument against slavery. Why would I waste all our time arguing against slavery when nobody here is in favor of slavery? I was correcting your foolish misstatement of Darwin's psychology. It's not a double standard to see slavery as evil and oppose it.
Like most other Brits of his generation. They thought it was barbaric and uncivilised. They didn't oppose slavery because they thought highly of those enslaved or saw them as equals.
And in your mind that invalidates his opposition to slavery because his reasons don't satisfy your 21st-century standards for purity, thus making him undeserving of even bare truthfulness from you, thus legitimizing your libel against him. Let me remind you, you didn't say "Darwin was in favour of the British empire not seeing countless millions of people across the globe as their equals." You said "Darwin was in favour of the British empire enslaving countless millions of people across the globe." That was libelous. You said it because, apparently, you don't give a damn whether the things you say about other people are true or not.
What? All I'm saying is that Darwin was for the most part a regular British chap, with regular British chap opinions. That's not libel.
No, "Darwin was in favour of the British empire enslaving countless millions of people across the globe." is libel. Why do you keep trying to change the subject from what you actually wrote to incorrect purported paraphrases of it? Regular British chaps with regular British chap opinions weren't in favor of the British empire enslaving countless millions of people across the globe either. Slavery was a settled issue in Britain by the time Darwin was publishing. If imperialism and slavery are the same thing in your mind, well, stop projecting your own error onto regular British chaps. They're allowed to have supported imperialism and opposed slavery at the same time, your false premises notwithstanding.
(Funny story -- Japan had a civil war at roughly the same time the U.S. did. It was fought between the Imperialists and the Samurai. The Samurai lost. And about the first thing the Imperialists did after they disarmed the Samurai was abolish slavery.)
That's just the reality of the British colonial rule and their attitudes about it. No ... their attitudes they held back then doesn't satisfy my 21st-century standards for purity.
And in the 21st century the woke customarily consider impurity to be grounds to treat someone as fair game for untruthfulness. Seriously, dude, what's up with you? You go back and forth between condemning political correctness in one post and being among the board's most enthusiastic practitioners of it in the next.
I think colonialism, as it was practiced, was evil. Darwin was clearly a supporter of the British empire. He was progressive for his day. But the goalposts have shifted dramatically since he was around.
Sure. And none of that qualifies as a reason to think he wanted the British empire to enslave anyone. The goalposts had shifted past slavery when he was around.
He was one of the people who shifted them!
They thought it was beneath white people to own slaves. He thought that was something brown people are up to. He thought it was the duty of white people to prevent brown people from enslaving eachother.
Yeah. That's not a double standard. That's a single standard. No enslavement by white people, no enslavement by anyone. A double standard would be "It's beneath white people to own slaves, but if that's something brown people are up to, our culture has no right to judge theirs."
While they simultaneously enslaved entire peoples using draconian methods. Your argument against his double standard is weak.
Oh, for the love of god, do you even listen to yourself? Are you in favor of abolishing the police? You aren't? But sometimes the police kill unarmed suspects. Therefore, going by the inference rule you're using, you're in favor of the police killing unarmed suspects.
You haven't even shown that Darwin
believed that the British empire was enslaving entire peoples using draconian methods, let alone that he was
in favor of it doing so.
Let me draw your attention to the fact that "civilise" does not equal "enslave". That's why they're spelled differently.
Well... that's what they did. I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings.
How old are you?
And you have evidence Darwin was in favor of that?
He had his head up his arse.
I see, so your theory is that anybody who has his head up his arse must necessarily disagree with you about absolutely everything, like one of those natives on the island where everyone always tells the truth or always lies?
I think white supremacists sitting on white stallions passing moral judgements on others is full of <expletive deleted>... yes. I think it's double standards.
So that's a "No". You don't have evidence, just an ad hominem argument.
I find your attempt to spin this horrendous chapter of British history into something positive offensive.
Your attempt to spin what I said into your own false narrative, in which you make trumped-up accusations against me, in payback for my horrendous misdeed of pointing out that what you said was idiotic, is pathetic.
I did not attempt to spin this horrendous chapter of British history into something positive. That's a figment of your imagination. You simply made that up about me. You did it because apparently, see above, you don't give a damn whether the things you say about other people are true or not.
Yes, you did.
So when you put words in my mouth and I correct you, you just double down and try to put your words back in my mouth again instead of going back and fact-checking your own claim. Why do you think that's an acceptable way to behave? Is your reading comprehension problem really that severe?
Person A: Torquemada got himself off by raping the altar boys.
Person B: You have no evidence for that.
Person A: You're trying to spin the Spanish Inquisition into something positive!
Stop thinking like Person A. Person A is an imbecile.
Oh, look. You did it again. It's not a false accusation against Darwin. It's an accurate description of his values and beliefs.
"It"? In the singular? What, you think you made only one description of Darwin's values and beliefs? You made two. You described him as a regular British chap, and you also described him as pro-enslavement. That's two contradictory descriptions.
Based on the available evidence.
Well, go ahead, produce some evidence that Darwin was in favor of the British empire enslaving countless millions of people across the globe.
I can turn it around... why are you so desperate to portray him as a person with modern 21st century beliefs?
Why haven't you stopped beating your wife?
