@DrewDad,
DrewDad wrote:
Oddly enough, I did not feel the need to decry the terrorist acts of the Irish Republican Army.
Without the British, the Irish would still be speaking Celtic. As it is, the Irish have a hard time pronouncing "th."
My point is what were the British supposed to do with Ireland and its population, so close to Britain for all those centuries? Exploitation was the name of the game for any country that raised itself above other competing nations.
So, in some ways, the Irish may be ungrateful for the civilizing effects of British exploitation. And, since the "famine" in 1850 could have still fed many Irish in Ireland, but the British continued to export food out of Ireland, the result was that the United States benefitted by getting all those Irish immigrants. Where would our urban civil service jobs be without the Irish to have been police, fireman, trolley car conductors/drivers, etc., etc.
So, the violence of the Irish Republican Army was just willing to hurt innocent British citizens for a cause that reflected ingratitude to the British for the fact that they "shared" their language and culture, not to mention their laws and overall civilization with an original group of uncivilized peasants, in the opinion of some people.
