Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Normal people...

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Pirates bad, British colonial rulers good

The new Pirates movie is a bad movie, as I noted in my movie/humor/football/medical tourism blog. But it also teaches us falsehoods. Here in my political blog, I would like to point them out.

My mother taught me that if I don't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all. Well I do have something nice to say about the Pirates movie. It has a very accurate portrayal of pirate teeth, at least in the minority characters' parts. As pirates had a very difficult time getting dental coverage into their health plans until the late 1800's, most pirates had very bad teeth. Also, pirates had swords and sailed around in ships, as portrayed in the movie.

Okay, that about does it for the historically accurate parts of the movie.

I would like to point out that most pirates were not feminists who took orders from women. Most pirates, in fact, raped and murdered women, as well as children. Pirates robbed from the rich to keep for themselves, and recruited or killed the poor. Pirates may have spoken about freedom, but not as eloquently or ingenuously as in the movie, because in real life pirate ships were despotisms of the sea, where the captain had absolute power and his men were beaten or put to death at his whim. That segues nicely into my next point, which is that pirates were not democratic (or republican), did not have an unbreakable code or law, and did not have a U.N.-like body politic where Keith Richards presided and played guitar. (Actually, I think the real pirates come out a little ahead in that one sense.) Real pirates were largely racist.

British imperialism, the East India Trading Co., and the British in general did not come off so hot in Pirates 3. In real life, British imperialism has been the greatest single cause of political and economic freedom in this world, with the possible exception of New Testament Christianity. But the latter cause is kind of hard to nail down when it comes to its economic and otherwise tangible effects. On the other hand, the explosive prosperity of Hong Kong, Singapore, and even the U.S. is directly traceable to those countries' experience as British colonies, and their close adherence (except recently in the U.S.) to the principles of law and entrepeneurialism laid out under British colonial rule. India is just now recovering from the economic devastation that they wrought upon themselves when they did away with those principles as they rid themselves of the imperial power that imparted them. South Africa's relatively happy economy is alone on its continent, despite apartheid, because they have done less to eradicate the vestiges of British colonialism than have other African countries (or because many African countries were colonized by the French, whose colonial legacy cotrasts with Britain's the way a serial rapist contrasts with a king who has concubines whom he keeps in luxury).

Anyway, British people, and the East India Trading Co. in particular, did not wreak mischief and violence and woe wherever they went. They engendered prosperity and good hygiene, and a great many Indians, Singaporeans, and uh, Hong Kongians are much better off for their countries' experience with British imperialism. Just so you know.

SRS
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