The Atrocities of Your National Heritage... This is a Fun Thread! :D

[Benny Blanco]

Real pros use flags to commit their atrocities.


Also, guns.

Lots and lots of guns.

And tea, can't subjugate the natives without tea.

'Back in my day, when we saw a man in a skirt we shot him and nicked his country.'

Basically this. Never underestimate the importance of tea to the British Empire. We fought wars over it (the so-called "Opium Wars" were about the balance of trade with China) and the most famous independence struggle featured its destruction in Boston harbour. Also, without tea we'd be drinking beer with every meal and would have been too mashed to properly oppress anyone on the other side of the world.

The Irish never do anything except fight amongst each other or lose.

EDIT Hell, I don't think we even left the Island until the British showed up with the their oppression and technology. We've hit a nice balance at the moment.

The British had the whole empire thing going on, take your pick.

Yeah, sorry mate. You poor Irish basically got lumbered with being the "tutorial level" for the "British Empire World Domination" game.

My only defence of the British Empire is that it was the least unpleasant of European empires: freedom of religion and language were largely enjoyed by subjects* because the goal was not the glory of the crown or the church (as for most Catholic powers) but commercial success. India, for instance, would not have been colonised by the British if not for French military opposition to British trade.

*Except in the early empire within the British Isles, where the issue of Catholic power plays on the British throne via Ireland or Scotland made religious and linguistic control important strategic goals.
I like to think that this is balanced within the European perspective by the fact that Scotland is the only country in Europe never to have expelled Jews.

 

[Xanadu84]

I'm American and truth be told, the only major difference between out atrocities and the atrocities of past world superpowers is that we decided to become a superpower in the age of 24 hour news networks. I mean really, we arn't that bad, we just get giddy at the prospect of bombing the crap out of assholes at the slightest excuse, and otherwise, we tend to just pay other people to commit their own atrocities. We are just old enough that we managed to jump on board the slavery train, and I suppose that since we got to that party a little late, we overstayed our proverbial welcome. We also killed a lot of natives, and again, you can say, "What country didn't?", but it's still an atrocity. Also, we tried to stay out of foreign countries business during the first chunk of WWII, and after WWII we sort of, well, over-corrected.

 

[BeeGeenie]

The Welsh have done nothing wrong.

Ever.

The Welsh did do one thing: they took the Latin Alphabet and made it their B****. XD

but seriously, I've got a little Welsh in me. Go team.

 

[Evil Raccoon]

snip

snip

True, not our finest moment now that they found bodies on the property of the Dutchbat base.
However, I am not sorry for a lesser known fact of Dutch history: Sailing onto the Thames during one of the many Dutch-English wars, breaking the chain of the English fleet, and then getting out with England's prize ship.

That's what you get when you have a king more interested in screwing and drinking than ruling. That period of history wasn't great for us- civil war, plague, the capital burnt down and then that. Still, we took New York, so there's that I guess?

Yeah, we sadly only won like two of the 6 Anglo-Dutch wars, and lost New York (Then New Amsterdam)in one of the peace treaties.
We still got a Dutch king on the English throne a couple centuries later (yay?)

 

[quantumsoul]

Here's a very interesting Cracked article on myths about the Native Americans. http://www.cracked.com/article_19864_6-ridiculous-lies-you-believe-about-founding-america.html

We weren't as horrible to them as you'd think. We nearly wiped them out by accident. They were a much more sophisticated people than they get credit for and contributed to core ideas of our constitution.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Oh man, I got some awful ones.

We call chips fries, is one.

and don't think "u" is worthy of use in words like colour. You evil bastard

 

[Dangit2019]

I'm German, so my answer should be obvious.

For anyone who still doesn't get it, yes, I am talking about this stuff; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauerkraut.

Absolutely atrocious. I'll never forgive my ancestors for popularizing this disgusting stuff.

You think that's bad?

Spoiler

I'm surprised we're not on trial for crimes against humanity.

Murka's got all of ya'll beat.

Spoiler: INCOMING

 

[Chrinik]

I´m german...

Need I be specific?





....




I obviously mean the sales tax raise a few years back!

 

[Owen Robertson]

As far as I know I'm English, Irish, and Scottish, plus I have a Welsh name. So I just sit around and oppress 3/4 of my self most of the time.

 

[xshadowscreamx]

well im Australian... ummm. i cant anything that was an atrocity in australia.

..? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ehem - sorry. That's kind of hilarious. Doesn't genocide count as an atrocity anymore?

English here, so imperialism, general genocidal nastiness, crusading, all that stuff and nonsense. Whoops!

there was no genocide, it was nothing compared to the native Americans or the Jewish Holocaust.

 

[Jon Shannow]

Canadian: We burned down the white house bitches!

Sorry, Britain gets that one

 

[Jon Shannow]

Do I answer as a Scotsman or as a Brit?

I actually can't think of any atrocities committed by the scottish, we usually just kinda chill, and then freak out if someone tries to take our land.

I'd say the whole making a belt out of guy was losing our cool a bit. And Both Wallace and Bruce's tactics verged on dick moves more than a few times.

 

[Sprinal]

Similar deal as you, killing off a large amount of the country, enslaving it and destroying almost most of its culture, so many, many languages die off all the time, and most aboriginal kids know jack shit about the way their parents and grandparents lived.
Then after we had settled in, the stolen generation, where we kidnapped black kids so they would learn to live in a "normal" society, rather then an aboriginal one.
Smooth moves, Australia.

Don't forget that we used to hunt them for sport

 

[JokerboyJordan]

Well, mainly being British, that's already been pretty much been covered, I'll point to my other heritage which includes the Armenian, Assyrian, Greek and Kurdish Genocides [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides#Ottoman_Empire.2FTurkey]

And also we were on the Axis in WW1 (and possibly WW2)

So...yeah. Although I'm really just British anyway.

 

[Erja_Perttu]

well im Australian... ummm. i cant anything that was an atrocity in australia.

..? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ehem - sorry. That's kind of hilarious. Doesn't genocide count as an atrocity anymore?

English here, so imperialism, general genocidal nastiness, crusading, all that stuff and nonsense. Whoops!

there was no genocide, it was nothing compared to the native Americans or the Jewish Holocaust.

So for it to be an atrocity, it doesn't matter that a race of people were systematically wiped out, especially in Tazmania, it has to be on a par with the Holocaust or it doesn't count. Sorry, but that's not how genocide works.

Anyway, on the subject of there not being one, that's not how the three Australian museums I went to presented it. I'll also point you to this -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Australia , and I'll throw in some personal experience.

Spoiler: A short story involving my Grandpa

My grandfather was in the merchant navy in the fifties, and when he got to Sydney and was hitting it up with the (white) locals, they asked him to go on a trip with them. A hunting trip to be exact. I'll give you three guesses as to what they were hunting and considering the context of this conversation, you should get it in one.

The thing about it was, this practice was considered normal. It wasn't looked down on, or seen with horror to the majority at the time, it certainly wasn't illegal or considered murder. These people hunted aboriginal men and women for sport. As my grandpa was telling the story about it, he wasn't overly concerned, or guilty that the men he was with, and perhaps he himself, he didn't say, active went out and MURDERED people.

If you insist that the killing of many aboriginals wasn't genocide, believe what you want. But how is the story above not an atrocity?

 

[lacktheknack]

Ah, Canada and the WWII Japanese prison camps. I know someone who STILL hates us for that.

 

[Fappy]

well im Australian... ummm. i cant anything that was an atrocity in australia.

..? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ehem - sorry. That's kind of hilarious. Doesn't genocide count as an atrocity anymore?

English here, so imperialism, general genocidal nastiness, crusading, all that stuff and nonsense. Whoops!

there was no genocide, it was nothing compared to the native Americans or the Jewish Holocaust.

So for it to be an atrocity, it doesn't matter that a race of people were systematically wiped out, especially in Tazmania, it has to be on a par with the Holocaust or it doesn't count. Sorry, but that's not how genocide works.

Anyway, on the subject of there not being one, that's not how the three Australian museums I went to presented it. I'll also point you to this -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Australia , and I'll throw in some personal experience.

Spoiler: A short story involving my Grandpa

My grandfather was in the merchant navy in the fifties, and when he got to Sydney and was hitting it up with the (white) locals, they asked him to go on a trip with them. A hunting trip to be exact. I'll give you three guesses as to what they were hunting and considering the context of this conversation, you should get it in one.

The thing about it was, this practice was considered normal. It wasn't looked down on, or seen with horror to the majority at the time, it certainly wasn't illegal or considered murder. These people hunted aboriginal men and women for sport. As my grandpa was telling the story about it, he wasn't overly concerned, or guilty that the men he was with, and perhaps he himself, he didn't say, active went out and MURDERED people.

If you insist that the killing of many aboriginals wasn't genocide, believe what you want. But how is the story above not an atrocity?

Holy shit, that is pretty fucked up. When people wonder why we're still so fucked up today all you need to do is look back no more than half a century in the past. The West made many of its unforgiving blunders not too long ago.

 

[crazyfills]

Errm well umm . . . Empire . . . slavery? . . . politics dominated by a tea company? . . . nope . . . oh I got it, the invention of consetration camps.

Yeah england has been behind some terrible atrocitys thats for sure and thats not counting food or music.

 

[Yeager942]

For a long time I have always wonder why Native Americans are rarely ever considered when the "sins of our fathers" are discussed in the US.

Where exactly do you live? I've been hearing about the atrocities committed against Native Americans all my life.