Historical "Good Guys and Regimes"

[zoomar]

To go with the "10 most evil" poll here's your opportunity to rank 10 randomly selected movements/regimes in history as "good guys"

(1) Greek Rationalist-Classical Civilization
(2) The Roman Empire
(3) Confucian China
(4) Early Christianity (prior to its adoption as Roman state church)
(5) Early Islamic Civilization
(6) The Ottoman Empire
(7) Napoleonic France
(8) The British Empire
(9) The United States
(10) Modern European Social Democracy

[Grey Wolf]

Originally Posted by zoomar

To go with the "10 most evil" poll here's your opportunity to rank 10 randomly selected movements/regimes in history as "good guys"

(1) Greek Rationalist-Classical Civilization
(2) The Roman Empire
(3) Confucian China
(4) Early Christianity (prior to its adoption as Roman state church)
(5) Early Islamic Civilization
(6) The Ottoman Empire
(7) Napoleonic France
(8) The British Empire
(9) The United States
(10) Modern European Social Democracy

Um, where's the poll, lol ? I wanna vote for either 8 or 10, am not quite sure

Grey Wolf

[Xen]

The Ottoman Empire as good guys? *RAE* We cant be talking about the same Ottoman Empire. I read too much of what they did when they invaded Europe to even consider them a good guy. The siege of Constantinople, and the battles of Vienna, butchering surrendoring soldiers, wiping out entire villages by the sword or impaling them, carting young girls off to their Empire to be sold as concubines. True all of them mentioned have problems, but the Ottomans were particularlly brutal to those they conquered, I know its a subject of controversy but there is also the Assyrian and Armenian stains on the Ottomans hands in the First World War, hardly the stuff of good guys.

[Diamond]

Oh God, here we go with the Ottoman/Armenian debate once again....

I go with the USA, of course.

And the British Empire should be in the 'Villains Poll'.

[Grey Wolf]

Oh I should think that the Ottoman Empire is in there because they were historically very tolerant towards minorities of ethnic or religious types. This is of course down to the fact that there was a religious set-up to the state and the first division was whether you were Muslim or not. If not, as long as you were 'people of the book' you were OK, as you were taken to be sort of second class God lovers. This gave these communities local self government and rights that religious minorities elsewhere in Europe lacked

Grey Wolf

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Diamond

Oh God, here we go with the Ottoman/Armenian debate once again....

I go with the USA, of course.

And the British Empire should be in the 'Villains Poll'.

I go with the US.

Britain's ambivalent, frankly.

Napoleon's empire isn't good, but it had the corsican mafia ruling Europe.

[Grey Wolf]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

I go with the US.

Britain's ambivalent, frankly.

Napoleon's empire isn't good, but it had the corsican mafia ruling Europe.

Britain's ambivalent....but not the USA ? I am intrigued

Grey Wolf

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Grey Wolf

Britain's ambivalent....but not the USA ? I am intrigued

Grey Wolf

Yeah. Check out what happened in the 40's in India. I also favor our policies before 1900. (The death of native americans, while tragic, was ineveitable).

[zoomar]

Actually, here's another one I'm embarrased to have left out:

(11) Gandhi and the nonviolent movement for Indian independence

And yes, Wolf, I put the Ottomans in the list for the reasons you mentioned.

[Grey Wolf]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

Yeah. Check out what happened in the 40's in India. I also favor our policies before 1900. (The death of native americans, while tragic, was ineveitable).

Er wasn't the Indian disaster a symptom of INDEPENDENCE not of empire ?

And whilst tragic but inevitable can be used by anyone to justify anything really. Was it inevitable that the USA would sign treaties and break them ? Well, perhaps it WAS - after all when national interests are at heart the US can always point to the constitution that says that nothing should be more important to the country than the constitution so that when they want to they can abrogate treaties as not being in the national interest. I pass no particular comment, but its not exactly being a 'good guy' ~!

Oh, and then there was the Mexican War - read Lincoln's comments on that

Grey Wolf

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Grey Wolf

Er wasn't the Indian disaster a symptom of INDEPENDENCE not of empire ?

I mean the famines where Wavell asked Britain to try to help and Churchill refused.

Oh, and then there was the Mexican War - read Lincoln's comments on that
Grey Wolf

Of course, there was also the invasion of southeast asia, and the opium war for drugs.

[zoomar]

Come on you bickering anglophones out there. There is really no logical way to have the USA "good" and the British Empire "bad", or visa versa. They share many of the same good and bad traits. "Ambivalent" to both I'll accept

[Grey Wolf]

Originally Posted by zoomar

Come on you bickering anglophones out there. There is really no logical way to have the USA "good" and the British Empire "bad", or visa versa. They share many of the same good and bad traits. "Ambivalent" to both I'll accept

I will agree to that IMHO the USA of today shows all the traits of the British Empire of yesteryear, both good and bad

Grey Wolf

[Diamond]

Well, if you'll look back at my post, the two were there to indicate I was JOKING . I actually have quite a bit of respect for a lot of the British Empire's policies, historical choices, etc.

That being said, I still pick the US.

[David Howery]

The US, of course. All others pale in the face of our benevolence and grace. Britain doesn't compare. They call the US 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'. What do they call Britain? 'Perfidious Albion'.. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but it doesn't sound like a compliment. How come Canada isn't on the list?

[aktarian]

Classical Greece. Altough I have troubles deciding between Sparta and Athens. If pressed I'd go with Sparta though.

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

TOTALLY avoiding the 20th c., I think we're a bit too grown up here to be repeating MEDIEVAL propaganda, aren't we? These are the same folks who claimed Jews sacrifice and eat babies.

The Ottomans did occasionally massacre PoWs, as did the Christians. They did not massacre civilians, except those that died as the result of the sack of cities that did not surrender, as opposed to Christian armies, that raped and pillaged everywhere they went (4th Crusade, anyone?). Ottoman troops were executed on the spot for taking anything from peasants without compensation. The most famous massacre of PoWs occured after the battle of Nikopolis, when Bayazid massacred the PoWs in retaliation for the Crusader's massacre of the Muslims of Nicopolis; however the nobles were ransomed (Duh). And interestingly, in a battle that was a pretty close call, the Serbs remained on the Ottoman side, prefering the Sultan rule to Hungary. The mere fact that Muslims were not allowed alchohol would have made a very large difference in the behaviour of an Ottoman army vs. a Christian (not to mention military performance).

The Ottoman tax load was a fraction of what your typical Christian peasant faced, subject to feudal dues instead of the needs of a centralized government, and its hard to argue that the Ottomans were anything but the most religiously tolerant regime in the European world - their rise coincided with the horrific wars of religion wracking Europe, and the Jews of Istanbul are the direct decendants of those expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. Ottoman success was not just due to military superiority, but also organizational superiority and the desirability of Ottoman rule vice the rapacious rule of Feudal nobles. If you have ever read an account of the Hundred Years War, you would know what a huge problem the armies of mercenaries roaming around destroying everything were.

[Faeelin]

John, what about the muslim pogroms in grenada?

[DuQuense]

The US never broke a Treaty with the Indian Nations. For there to be a Treaty It has to be accepted by a 2\3 vote of the Senate. And it then becomes "US LAW". No Indian treaty has ever been Passed by the Senate. In Fact no Indian Treaty, Has ever been submitted to the Senate.

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

John, what about the muslim pogroms in grenada?

Which pogroms? I don't recall there ever being a Muslim Carribean. Oh, wait, you mean GRANADA, not GRENADA. Do you mean what the Spanish did to the Muslims after the fall of Granada?