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When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

oikofuge.com

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Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Indians have been in Fiji for the same amount of time. (they were first taken to Fiji in 1879, 145 years ago) Please, do try to make an effort.

Are you intentionally entirely missing the point? Once again the question is not if it’s doable but why it should be done. Indian in Fiji is entirely irrelevant here (unless you think a military dictatorship supported by the church is somehow what New Caledonia needs). If you are arguing they should leave because New Caledonia is the ancestral land of the indigenous population, well, I will let you apply the argument…

> Are you intentionally entirely missing the point?

Ok angry dude.. what point am I supposedly "intentionally missing"

> why it should be done

Yes, why should people have the right to self determination of a land they have occupied for thousands of years.

> Indian in Fiji is entirely irrelevant here

Since f*cking when?

> unless you think a military dictatorship supported by the church is somehow what New Caledonia needs

I explicitly pointed out that whether I think things should or shouldn't happen is besides the point, and you deliberately ignore that because you have a problem.

Facts don't need me to agree or not, what has happened has happened.

> If you are arguing they should leave because New Caledonia

Please, do copy and paste where I have said, or inferred, anything of the sort.

> apply the argument to the USA and Israel.

So, now they're relevant, but not Fiji and the Indians.

Well the argument was about the French empire sun setting, and the evidence is what's happening in the Caledonian political sphere.

You are providing a perfect example of the USA's empire still being alive and well, and more than in control of what it considers to be its territories.

Once the USA's empire does recede, like every empire before it, whomever is the strongest will take those lands.

Thanks to you for proving my point.

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a better look at Fiji - the indigenous people there have been outnumbered by the people bought into the country from India (by the English) The Fijians have had multiple coup, and changes to their constitution to ensure that only indigenous people can run the country Whether I agree with that or not is beside the point, the point is that what you claim is false, what can happen has happened elsewhere, and where…

Wether you agree or not is the entire point. This is not a theoretical question about what could be done. The question is why should it happen in the first place? Why do you think people who have been there for 150 years and ask nothing more than cohabitation should be forcefully removed from a place? As I said, it is not that simple. It has absolutely nothing to do with "the sun setting on the French empire".

> The question is why should it happen in the first place?

The OP never indicated if they agreed with the claims or not. They raised it just because it was relevant to the sun setting on the French Empire.

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#183

Though empires are out of fashion , British colonies universally benefited from the British empire. The ones who are thriving today owe a huge debt of gratitude, and the languishing ones are that way because they decided not to continue the British tradition. The 20th century decline of the British empire is one of civilization's worst failures, on par with the decline of the Roman Empire.

I remember asking this question to a work colleague from India almost 30 years ago. I asked something like if he hated the Brits for invading his land. He said on the contrary. They advanced their people so rapidly and efficiently through education and technical advances that would have taken hundreds of years by themselves. He said this allowed them to kick the British out once they had outlived their usefulness. Or…

The brits took India from a variety of different rulers, but principally the Mughals. The Mughals werent any one thing, but they were despised in a lot of places.

The brits also largely permitted the caste system to proceed. my experience is that upper caste indians preferred the brits, where the lower caste ones dont really discern the difference.

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, it's unlikely that the entity currently managing .io (a hedge fund if I'm not mistaken) has the legal muscle to force ICANN to keep it in the list ICANN periodically lets anyone with $1 million create random new generic TLDs like .top and .win and .google and .hiv and .amazon and .zip - it's pretty clear there aren't any real rules or standards for TLDs apart from having money. Why should ICANN break thi…

Aren’t two letter codes reserved for countries though IIRC.

country-ish entities. For example European Union has .eu despite not being a country. They gave Taiwan one while simultaneously calling it "Taiwan, Province of China". And Russia has three: .ru, .рф and .su. The latter arguably falls in the same category as .io since the Soviet Union has ceased to exist, yet ripn.su is still active and you can apparently still get new .su domains

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#185
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does their king have any more hard powers in Canada or Australia than, say, Taylor Swift or some other rich celebrity?

In 1975 the British Queen instructed her representative the governor general to dismiss the Australian prime minister, dissolving the Australian parliament. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitution... In principle this power still exists. Whether Charles could pull off the same trick depends on the political situation on the ground.

The claim that the Queen actually _instructed_ the Govenor General to dismiss the PM isn't widely supported.

It's true that the palace was involved in discussions with the GG to a greater extent than most Australians though was acceptable though.

However this was before the 1986 Australia Act which cleared up the ambiguity around that.

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those wondering, it's Brazil.

> The Franco-Spanish border runs for 685.42 kilometres (425.90 mi) between southwestern France and northeastern Spain. [1] > The Brazil–France border is the line, located in the Amazon Rainforest, that limits the territories of Brazil and France. The border is located between the Brazilian state of Amapá and French Guiana. It is 730 kilometres (450 mi) in length. [2] I'll be damned! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Is there a standard for measuring borders for these purposes, in light of the coastline paradox?

I don't mean to suggest that there's no sensible way to do it; I just wonder if people might be using inconsistent methods sometimes, leading to not-very-comparable estimates.

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#187
post #75

As an outsider I consider Canada and Australia - British Empire. Hard to think otherwise as they have the same king.

I'll give you another reason to consider Canada as part of the British empire. It's actually called Canada.

The local Indians have two words for settlements - one word for their own settlements, and another word for the settlements of other peoples who have come to their lands. Canada is the latter - it actually means "foreigner's settlement on our land" or "invader's settlement". Interestingly, I just tried to Google it and the only two websites I looked at - Wikipedia and some official Canada site - both conveniently leave out the part about it being a foreign settlement. Both simply translate the word as settlement, without the nuance.

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should eventually get removed by ICANN, since the country code TLDs are managed by ISO 3166-1 alpha 2 (it's however not an exact match), and the transfer will mean the British Indian Ocean Territories will no longer exist. ISO is going to be the entity in charge of removing the io country code, which it probably will do since ISO 3166-1 alpha 2 isn't just used for domain names. There's a standardized process for t…

> That said, it's unlikely that the entity currently managing .io (a hedge fund if I'm not mistaken) has the legal muscle to force ICANN to keep it in the list ICANN periodically lets anyone with $1 million create random new generic TLDs like .top and .win and .google and .hiv and .amazon and .zip - it's pretty clear there aren't any real rules or standards for TLDs apart from having money. Why should ICANN break thi…

> ICANN periodically lets anyone with $1 million create random new generic TLDs

Why? Isn't ICANN non profit?

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#189

This is great! It’s high time a brutal empire that starved Ireland and India and created the situation that resulted in the genocide in Palestine loses its literal shine. Honestly it is crazy that this country still exists as a monarchy in the 21st century.

Unfortunately in the case of Palestine Britain merely handed over the baton to an even more hideous imperialist monster - the U.S.A. - which has reverted to Napoleonic levels of barbarity. Imperialism is alive and well in 2025.

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#190
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true? “”” Charles III, by the Grace of God, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. “”” So in my head canon, he is the King of the UK and Canada … the same person and the same office. Ie there is no King of Canada officially - the title is always King of UK (first) and of other places as well … i…

Elizabeth II was at war with herself, briefly. Jamaica has the monarchy. Jamaican forces were part of the US-led coalition that invaded Grenada in 1983, after the communists seized power. The communists found it politically expedient to maintain the structure of parliamentary government, and so the head of state of Grenada also remained nominally, Elizabeth II.

One wonders what to do, when's One's subjects are wont to misbehave so?
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