Winter's assessment of British government has inaccuracies
(Last updated: 11/11/08 7:16pm)Drew Robert Winter’s column Obama could help U.S. see its faults (SN 11/10) brings up many good points about people’s hope for President-elect Barack Obama’s upcoming presidency in reversing damaging U.S. domestic and international policies, and with this feeling I could not agree more. Many of his statements regarding Great Britain’s political history, however, are misguided and downright fallacious.
While I would agree that two-party rule has hurt the U.S., this does not mean that many of Britain’s “dozen parties” are in any way viable. Historically, like the U.S. they have had two main parties, and though currently seven parties have seats in the House of Commons, only three are considered major. Compared to Winter’s appraisal of British colonial rule, however, this inaccuracy is more than forgivable. I think that the 3.5 million Africans the British Royal African Company transported to the Americas as slaves, Mahatma Gandhi, and the millions of indigenous people the British colonizers displaced and murdered would heartily disagree with the statement that Britain could “make imperialism work!”
To make such statements glorifying Britain’s administrative prowess is absolutely absurd. While the U.S. has certainly violated its share of human rights, to hold us up against some falsified view of a country with its own closet full of skeletons is at best poor journalism, and more likely, outright fraud.
Michael Carman
history sophomore
Originally Published: 11/11/08 7:12pm
anon
11/12/08 1:15amwinter claims his article was supposed to be funny, but he hasn’t realized yet that his humor is nonexistent.
LB
11/12/08 9:54amYou’re right, it is absurd. That’s the point. Promoting the idea that Great Britain should be an Empire, and that America should join, is completely absurd, which is why it is funny. It is why it is just another point made in the article.
I know you are really excited because you learned something from your history class Michael, but frankly it is common knowledge and the article is playing off of that.
Good day, pardie!
A&W
11/12/08 10:43amno, drew just isnt funny. the article had comical implications and we all got that, but i would venture a guess that it warranted zero lol’s and an equivalent number of insightful “hmmmms”
TS
11/12/08 10:45amI got the point, but that doesn’t mean the article was even remotely funny. The premise is not funny and the ostensible punch lines were pathetic. Jokes about Tickle me Elmo, Gushers, Hannah Montana, and crying in the queen’s bosom did not add anything to his argument and just made the writer look like an egotistical, self-important prick.
SH
11/12/08 1:20pmTS, you forgot that his picture and using his first, middle and last name as a signoff already make him an egotistical, self-important prick. This latest piece of garbage just added idiot to that list.
The Grinch
11/12/08 1:21pmWhat’s all this cry about a little satire? This reminds me of those people taking Onion articles seriously: seriously?