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

[Fappy]

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. Many people consider slavery to be the worst thing the US has ever participated in. While I agree that it is horrible I find it hard to put it above that of what our forefathers did to the natives of the land we called home. We ripped them off, killed them off and exiled them from their ancestral home... that's pretty damn unethical if you ask me.

I could elaborate, but I couldn't find the Chris Rock clip that would have fortified my point and I am more interested to hear what you guys think is the worst crime your country has ever committed.

Rule: Supply the thread with what you think the worst thing your country did! If you're not from the country you are criticizing you lack the insight that this thread demands! Thank you for your cooperation.

EDIT: Daystar found the Chris Rock clip!

 

[Daystar Clarion]

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.'

 

[General Twinkletoes]

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.

 

[Fappy]

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.

I'd say civil conflicts count. If a rebel faction was fighting in the name of the country then I'd consider it part of national heritage. By that I mean you could use the IRA bombings as the "worst Irish atrocity" even though the government wasn't directly responsible for them.

 

[Doclector]

Well, I'm english, and we kind of did the whole evil empire thing at one point. Y'know, we took hold of pretty much the entire world. Turned one of the countries into a damn prison, we had that many countries. Think about that, at what point have you reached the megalomaniac level of "Turn entire country into a prison".

Yeah, that's pretty damn awful. Sowwy...

 

[SextusMaximus]

I think attempting to enslave Africa was pretty bad.

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.

IRA?

 

[shrekfan246]

Well, there's always the Nati-

what our forefathers did to the natives of the land we called home. We ripped them off, killed them off and exiled them from their ancestral home... that's pretty damn unethical if you ask me.

Oh.

Well, since you ninja'd me, Fappy, how about 'America: World Police'?

We got Demonoid and MegaUpload shut down! Aw yeah! Which also made all of the other file-sharing sites start pissing themselves and restricting files to only be downloadable by the people who originally uploaded them. Woohoo! And how about that MPAA and RIAA? They sure know what's best for their respective industries.

And then there's the physical stuff we've done! Barging into Afghanistan with scare-mongering about "WMDs" and then using that as an excuse to barge our way into Iraq, with the statement that we're going to "bring democracy" to them, like they need it when we can't even stabilize our wonderful capitalist country ourselves.

America! Fuck yeah!

 

[Fappy]

Well, I'm english, and we kind of did the whole evil empire thing at one point. Y'know, we took hold of pretty much the entire world. Turned one of the countries into a damn prison, we had that many countries. Think about that, at what point have you reached the megalomaniac level of "Turn entire country into a prison".

Yeah, that's pretty damn awful. Sowwy...

I guess that's where the logic of Escape from New York comes from.

 

[Thaluikhain]

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, when we want to play nice, we take all the cultures across teh continent, mix them all up into a theme park version, and pretend that all Aboriginal people belonged to that.

Oh, and, IIRC, the only actual successful genocide committed by humans in history (last one known being the neanderthals, and that's technically pre-history, though any number of other unrecorded pre-historic genocides are possible). There are today no Tasmanian aborigines left. There are some people with some small amount of Tasmanian aborigine ancestry, but the culture are totally lost.

 

[Phasmal]

I'm English, so we had the Empire and everything.
I've also lived in Scotland and some of them are still pretty upset about all the stuff we did to them.
But we're making it up by being villians in movies.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

I think attempting to enslave Africa was pretty bad.

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.

IRA?

I'm going to catch shit for this, but it could be argued that the past IRA were freedom fighters, not terrorist. The parade of the Orange Order in Catholic minority neighborhoods and harassing catholic school children [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Cross_dispute] doesn't make me feel more sympathetic to Ulster loyalist.

OP:As previously mentioned, the terrible actions that the US took on the Native Americans comes to mind.

 

[Dr. Mongo]

Inventing the industrialization of genocide is what my country can claim for itself.
It turns my stomach to think that there are still people here who firmly believe that this is all a lie and that we actually were the good guys in WW2.

But I guess this is what you have to deal with when you're born in Germany.

Edit: And since I overlooked the "fun" thing, there's still this:

 

[Colour Scientist]

I'm going to catch shit for this, but it could be argued that the past IRA were freedom fighters, not terrorist. The parade of the Orange Order in Catholic minority neighborhoods and harassing catholic school children [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Cross_dispute] doesn't make me feel more sympathetic to Ulster loyalist.

OP:As previously mentioned, the terrible actions that the US took on the Native Americans comes to mind.

I don't think you can pin them down with one label. The Irish road to independence was very messy, on all sides.

 

[IamQ]

from 1920-1970 we sterilized people for things ranging from murder to skipping class a few times too many. Wouldn't want to have those bad eggs breed, eh?

 

[cathou]

Well, two things come right away in my mind for Canada, but technically it was the British army that did it

Acadian deportation where the British army cleansed the French from maritime provinces
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Acadians

And the hand out of contaminated blankets by Amherst to natives, hoping to give them small pox. It's one of the first bacteriological warfare event in history. It wasn't that successful but the intent was there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffery_Amherst,_1st_Baron_Amherst

 

[Fappy]

from 1920-1970 we sterilized people for things ranging from murder to skipping class a few times too many. Wouldn't want to have those bad eggs breed, eh?

Holy shit that's pretty brutal. To think there are people alive today that can't make babies because they skipped class

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

I'm going to catch shit for this, but it could be argued that the past IRA were freedom fighters, not terrorist. The parade of the Orange Order in Catholic minority neighborhoods and harassing catholic school children [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Cross_dispute] doesn't make me feel more sympathetic to Ulster loyalist.

OP:As previously mentioned, the terrible actions that the US took on the Native Americans comes to mind.

I don't think you can pin them down with one label. The Irish road to independence was very messy, on all sides.

Agreed, while I don't care for the current IRA splinter groups that feel the need to kill innocent police officers in N.R., I don't think its right to condemn people like Bobby Sands. The man deserves better than that.