They will, and if you disagreed with her policies you certainly have the right to argue publicly against whatever hagiography is put forth upon her death, just like people did with Reagan in the U.S. But the OP asked whether people would be personally happy about the fact of her death (not the hoped-for demise of her policies, which will be ultimately unaffected by her death). Many shamefully said they would, in the cruelest possible terms.
When she does die, no doubt people like them will write inflammatory columns and blogs, just like people did with Reagan, thereby playing directly into the hands of their political opponents, who will be only too happy to quote these hit pieces to illustrate to the vast middle just how depraved and unhinged Thatcher’s enemies were.
The typical response to events like this is one of the things that ultimately turned me off from the left. Much more so than the right wing, leftists seem to excuse the most extreme and theatrical posturing. I think deep down they feel less secure in their moral position than the right, and it drives them to extreme displays of partisanship in an effort to project confidence.
I’m sure someone will come along and give an example of the same kind of idiocy from the right. So here’s one for you: Fred Phelps. When people post crap like:
that is not an anti-hagiography. That is unadulterated Fred Phelps-style hatred and most people recognize it as such.
But it does not predate the Spanish Empire existance which had a legitimate claim to those islands. Argentina is Spain succesor in the area.
With your logic you would have a better claim to Buenos Aires than us.
The Treaty of Utrech (1713), a treaty signed by England, settled the soverignity issue. Those islands were part of the Viceroyalty of River Plate which exercised it’s sovereignity. Argentina continued to do so after it’s independence (1810) and up to 1833 when we were forced to withdraw to a superior force.
We never relinquished our claim.
The war did not settle the sovereignity issue. Had we won, the sovereignity issue wouldn’t be resolved either. Diplomacy is the answer.
I personally don’t care if the Islands are argentinian or british. I do care that (i) Argentinians are still mostly forbidden to visit the islands: the war happened almost 30 years ago, if the rest of the world held grudges so long, british subjects would be unable to visit almost any country in the world (ii) after the war and well into the 90s the UK continue to extend it’s claim to the surrounding waters, which always belonged to Argentina.
All of this create a lot of bad feelings down here, together with the refusal to negotiate the issue before and after the war.
Is the witch still alive? I don’t want to google her.
The war did settle the issue. It would be political suicide for any politician in Britain to even contemplate giving the islands up, at least while the Falklands war is still within living memory. In that respect, as soon as you invaded, you may as well have relinquished any claim to the islands.
There was nothing to discuss. Selling out the population of a British territory to a dictatorship would have been a neglect of duty of the highest order. I’ve got to admire your guts for complaining about the British not negotiating with you over control of the islands, though, after a war for their control. Simply breathtaking.
Yes, a superior force that’s occupied the islands and maintained sovereignty ever since. As I said, there is no Argentinian claim to the islands.
Saying you will do X when Y happens is not even close to the same thing as actually doing X when Y happens.
Quoted for ridiculousness. Also, let me get this straight: the left alienated you by the language they used? You didn’t and don’t care about actual, y’know, policy positions?
First off, people will do it (make public fools of themselves dancing on Thatcher’s grave when she dies) and second, saying you’ll do it and then not doing it means you’re just engaging in radical posturing, which is exactly what I was criticizing.
I said the language was one of the things that turned me off.
I was taught to respect left-wing politicians from an early age, and did, until I couldn’t stand the rhetoric any more. Having lost respect for them, I took a more neutral look at their politics and decided a lot of their positions were as ridiculous as their language.
The fact that there’s even a question being asked over whether a scumbag Apartheid government might be better than the subsequent native one shows just what an utter hash that Mugabe has made of everything he touches.
I don’t claim membership in the right wing, so don’t look to me to apologize for everything they do, but on the whole, yes, they do use milder rhetoric.
And the Spanish abandoned the islands in 1811, five years before Argentina’s declaration of independence, leaving a plaque claiming them to be Spanish.
There is no reason to assume that they are Argentinean any more than any of the other ex-Spanish colonies, unless “being slightly nearer than other countries” is somehow considered a sane claim these days. Keep in mind that the Falkland Islands are 300 miles from the Argentinean coast, somewhat outside what they claim as territorial waters.
Firstly, if that was such an issue it would help if Argentina would not claim they own the islands. Letting people come that say the place is theirs isn’t always a sound idea.
Secondly, the British Empire pretty much fell apart in the fifties and sixties and even then we, unlike many other countries, managed to do it in such a way that we stayed pretty good friends with the ex-colonies. 30 years ago the Falkland Islands was one of the few places we actually had left and the vast, vast majority there want to remain under British rule.
So quite where this claim of us not being able to go anywhere comes from is beyond me. I was born in 1974 and by then most of the Empire had already gone.
For a start, the closest part of the islands are 300 miles from Argentina. The absolute maximum that territorial waters can stretch, by international law, is 350 miles which would not contain all the islands. Apparently Argentina claims 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) as her territorial waters, a tiny bit short of the 300 “normal” miles to even reach the Falkland Islands.
Of course there is always the murky world of the continental shelf. Argentina managed to get of her arse and make a claim regarding somewhere on 2009-04-21. But then again “A coastal nation has control of all resources on or under its continental shelf, living or not, but no control over any living organisms above the shelf that are beyond its exclusive economic zone. This gives it the right to conduct petroleum drilling works and lay submarine cables or pipelines in its continental shelf.”. Oh , the “Exclusive Economic Zone” is 200 nautical miles (370 km).
So please, do let me know under which international laws have these waters “always belonged to Argentina”.
After the war the UK established a 150 miles “Protection zone” and extended it to 200 miles in 1990.
Argentina claims 350 miles according to international law.
Do the math.
If the previous Argentine claim was, say, 100 miles, and the Argentine government decides to make it 350, that hardly qualifies as the basis for a claim over the Falklands.
Otherwise, we in the US would just like to inform everyone that we’ll be taking Cuba. We claim it, you see, and it’s in our territorial waters.