# As a US citizen I would vote "anti-colonial" over a colonialist any day **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 9, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155 "2012-09-09T02:03:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/41 "2012-09-10T20:59:08Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Best. Typo. EVAR. Maybe the best of all possible typos. > > No? Yeah, I guess not. Pretty good typo, though. Why do you say such things, when you know I will kill you for it? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/42 "2012-09-11T00:37:09Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > However, they must have been richer than the colonies to begin with or how would they have been able to colonize a richer country? Why? If a mugger robs me at gunpoint, that doesn’t mean he was richer than me. It just means he had a gun and I didn’t. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Furthermore, since decolonization the colonies have not gotten richer and Europe has not gotten poorer. What part of _“the anti-colonialist argument is that European powers grew rich by transporting wealth from their colonies back to their homeland”_ are you having difficulty with? If wealth is something you can move from one place to another, this would explain why the European countries are still rich and the former colonies are still poor. The European powers may have withdrawn - but that doesn’t mean they gave back the stuff they took. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Also the European countries with the biggest colonial holdings are not richer than the ones with smaller colonial holdings. So what? This is about wealth not size. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/43 "2012-09-11T05:30:34Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Furthermore, since decolonization the colonies have not gotten richer . . . Yes, they have. Especially India. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/44 "2012-09-11T06:00:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yes, they have. Especially India. India is the exception, not the rule. That’s hardly meant as a defense of colonialization though. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/45 "2012-09-11T14:45:55Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > India is the exception, not the rule. Mexico, China, USA, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia… ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/46 "2012-09-11T14:57:14Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Mexico, China, **USA** , Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia… Indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/47 "2012-09-11T15:01:28Z")
Indeed what? Our history is that the colonialists essentially wiped out the native population and set up shop permanently. So, yay, good for us. But I’m not sure what that says about anti-colonialism. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/48 "2012-09-11T17:14:01Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > _“the anti-colonialist argument is that European powers grew rich by transporting wealth from their colonies back to their homeland”_ are you having difficulty with? If wealth is something you can move from one place to another, this would explain why the European countries are still rich and the former colonies are still poor. The European powers may have withdrawn - but that doesn’t mean they gave back the stuff they took. The part that I am having trouble with is the notion that 500 years ago europe stole something magical from the rest of the world that leads to economic growth and that they are refusing to give it back. That is a ridiculous argument and I don’t think anyone with the wherewithal to use a computer would believe something so silly. If you really think that the Dutch are rich now because of a nutmeg monopoly a couple hundred years ago, that is stunningly ignorant. Nations can get poor and rich in a hurry, 50 years ago North and South Korea had similar sized economies, now one is a first world nationa and the other can’t feed its people. A little over 50 years ago tens of millions of Chinese people starved to death and now its economy is the envy of much of the world. The US is the wealthiest most powerful country in the world but it was a former colony just like India was, how can the same thing make one country rich and the other poor? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/49 "2012-09-11T17:20:04Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The part that I am having trouble with is the notion that 500 years ago europe stole something magical from the rest of the world that leads to economic growth and that they are refusing to give it back. That is a ridiculous argument and I don’t think anyone with the wherewithal to use a computer would believe something so silly. If you really think that the Dutch are rich now because of a nutmeg monopoly a couple hundred years ago, that is stunningly ignorant. Still not grasping how the concept of evidence works, huh? ---
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/50 "2012-09-11T17:31:10Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Indeed what? Our history is that the colonialists essentially wiped out the native population and set up shop permanently. So, yay, good for us. But I’m not sure what that says about anti-colonialism. The colonialists did not wipe them out. Smallpox, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, diphtheria, typhus, cholera, scarlet fever, chicken pox, yellow fever, and whooping cough wiped them out. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/51 "2012-09-11T17:34:53Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yes, they have. Especially India. Ceteris paribas, poor economies should grow faster than rich countries because of catch up growth, however India grew about 3.5% per year for its first four decades of independence. Economic growth in the west was just about the same during that time. So they got richer but no richer in comparison with the ex colonial powers. About 20 years ago India liberalized its economy and has been growing faster ever since, but that would seem to indicate that its economic performance is governed by its own policies and what happened before independence. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/52 "2012-09-11T17:36:23Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > The colonialists did not wipe them out. > > Smallpox, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, diphtheria, typhus, cholera, scarlet fever, chicken pox, yellow fever, and whooping cough wiped them out. The agents of the colonialists. And then the colonialists finished the job with military force. Or are you forgetting things like the Trail of Tears, the Comanche wars, and the hemisphere’s first government-sponsored death squads? ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/53 "2012-09-11T17:42:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Still not grasping how the concept of evidence works, huh? The way I think it works is I make an assertion and then use evidence to back it up. Apparently the way others think it works is you make an assertion and then when someone asks you for evidence you respond with a snarky remark. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/54 "2012-09-11T17:42:58Z")
Sounds like a dog whistle to me, anti-colonial is just another way to say Obama is an outsider with a perspective hostile to the USA. When you can’t say what you really want to, you use loaded language to suggest it. The funny thing here is the term chosen suggests a total lack of understanding of USA history, we know how keen on colonialism those founding fathers were! ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/55 "2012-09-11T17:53:24Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Sounds like a dog whistle to me, anti-colonial is just another way to say Obama is an outsider with a perspective hostile to the USA. When you can’t say what you really want to, you use loaded language to suggest it. > > The funny thing here is the term chosen suggests a total lack of understanding of USA history, we know how keen on colonialism those founding fathers were! You don’t understand what a dog whistle is, D’Souza is not trying to target people who understand what anti-colonialism is, while pretending something else to people who don’t. He is trying to explain to non-academics what anti-colonialism is and why it is dangerous to have a president who believes in it. Anti-colonialism has nothing to do with the founding fathers, since anti-colonialists would see the US as being a colonial power because it is rich and white dominated. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/56 "2012-09-11T18:46:00Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > You don’t understand what a dog whistle is, D’Souza is not trying to target people who understand what anti-colonialism is, while pretending something else to people who don’t. He is trying to explain to non-academics what anti-colonialism is and why it is dangerous to have a president who believes in it. > Anti-colonialism has nothing to do with the founding fathers, since anti-colonialists would see the US as being a colonial power because it is rich and white dominated. Who exactly is championing colonialism nowadays? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/57 "2012-09-11T18:57:27Z")
Or anticolonialism for that matter, in American politics. D’Souza’s line is so bizarre that it can’t be anything other than a “big lie.” ---
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/58 "2012-09-11T20:07:54Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The agents of the colonialists. And then the colonialists finished the job with military force. Or are you forgetting things like the Trail of Tears, the Comanche wars, and the hemisphere’s first government-sponsored death squads? Humans have always conquered each other through force. From the time man has walked upright he has fought other men for land he thought more fertile, had better hunting, or better access to the sea. Vikings conquered Europe, Genghis Khan marched through Asia, Africans sold captured villagers into slavery, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/59 "2012-09-11T20:27:47Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > Humans have always conquered each other through force. From the time man has walked upright he has fought other men for land he thought more fertile, had better hunting, or better access to the sea. Vikings conquered Europe, Genghis Khan marched through Asia, Africans sold captured villagers into slavery, etc. So what? Humans have always done everything that we’re doing now. Are you suggesting that we should just toss out any notions of justice whatsoever that aren’t based on “the strong seize what they want from the weak”? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155/60 "2012-09-11T20:35:03Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > Humans have always conquered each other through force. From the time man has walked upright he has fought other men for land he thought more fertile, had better hunting, or better access to the sea. Vikings conquered Europe, Genghis Khan marched through Asia, Africans sold captured villagers into slavery, etc. There’s this category of arguments–from nature, from history, from books–that are total non sequiturs when you’re talking about ethics. Who gives a shit what happens naturally/what happened historically/what happened in a book, if you’re trying to decide what you should do now? I mean, the natural world, the effects of history, the writings in a book might provide you with some information you need to make a decision. But none of them make any sense either as a model for your actions, or as an excuse for them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-us-citizen-i-would-vote-anti-colonial-over-a-colonialist-any-day/634155.md?page=4)