h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But Dave, this is what I don't understand...if you KNOW you have a lack of knowledge, how can you possibly judge others to be the same?

I don't believe anyone has had to correct me yet...and if they do, I am quite open to being put right. I have NO problems being wrong about something (unlike yourself). I actually don't have that great in-depth knowledge of early US history, but I have the basic ideals of what went on, as you *have* to have when studying modern history: you have to know what came before, in order to know you are studying.

Ictoan.

Hullo there.

indeed. More of a -

excellent idea zoomer.

dave

Saturnine,

if you think that the US was a major military power for the last 2 centuries, then we have to agree to disagree.

dave

Hello all.

Dave, be careful!



Actually Anhaga addressed that as well, if you have a look at his contributions. In any case let's not go there since you interpreted a *couple* of centuries as 3. We've all made mistakes, can we move on?

well it must have been fairly good militarily from its inception since it managed to win a major war against the largest and most powerful empire around.

I didn't say it was a major military force since it's conception (it would have been hard to take over the world via the original 13 colonised states). Just that it was a "wealth of power".



Dave, your ignorance is getting boring.

True, and I hope I didn;t say you did, was merely voicing my own thoughts. However, my point stands, if you and your mates have managed to beat the hardest gang in town, you would be considered a fairly hard group yourself, yes?

having just waded through the entire backlog to this flame war, allow me to speak to the various combatants:
Zoomer: Glad to see you've calmed down some, take a few more deep breaths, a restorative beverage or two - the kind that come in 355ml brown bottles - wouldn't hurt either. You are an exceptionally patient individual and you ought to be getting a tution cheque from you opponent for trying to teach him what you have.
Dave:ARE YOU F****** KIDDING ME! I don't even know where to start in on the cartload of total crap you have slung around in here, especially after admitting early on (post 7) that you don't know what the aitch ee double hockey sticks you are talking about.

the USA has been an actor on the world stage since day one, and a major global power since the early part of the 19th century. To suppose that the U.S. was not a (if not 'the') major power in the Americas at any time since about 1800 is absolute nonsense.
Yes, the U.S. won WW2, in the sense that they didn't lose it. As to who deserves the lion's share of the credit for beating the Germans, any historian with any sense at all and even many with none will tell you the Russians bled them dry. The U.S. helped out in North Africa and the main European theatre, but were no more and no less responsible for the allied victory than the Commonwealth Forces. The U.S. was the main combatant against Japan in the Pacific after 1941, but the Chinese Nationalists and Communists kicked them out of China after the U.S. took some of the pressure off. The British, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians et al fought and died in Singapore and Hong Kong and in the Burma road campaign (the so-called back door to Tokyo)that kept materiel flowing to the Chinese. So it wasn't like the U.S. defeated the Japanese single-handedly either.
All in all the major conflict in terms of lives lost and geopolitical importance was fought in Europe. The Pacific war was a significant part of WW2, but what happened in Europe was the larger part of the 'the big show' in every way.

Admittedly numbers are not the only thing that determines the outcome of a battle or a war, but they do have a lot to do with it.
Lets look at some numbers:

The United States lost about 300,000 lives in WW2, and suffered virtually no civilian casualties.
Yugoslavia lost 300,000 fighting men and 1.3 million civilians died
The Commonwealth lost 450,000 soldier and about 60,000 civilians
Japan lost 1.7 million fighting men and 360,000 civilians (most of those in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the fire bombings of Tokyo)
Germany lost 3.2 million soldiers, sailors and airmen and 3.8 million civilians
Its ally, Austria lost 230,000 fighting men and 80,000 civilians
Italy lost 330,000 men and 85,000 civilians
China lost 3.5 million soldiers and 10 million civilians

Russia lost 13 million men and 7.7 civilians - more than the entire population of Canada at the time, three times more people than were lost in Holocaust.

If anyone 'lost' the war it was Russia, but without their sacrifice, Germany would never have been defeated - not by the British Empire, not by the remote United States, not by anyone. The Eastern Front in Europe accounted for anywhere from 70 to 85 percent of German casualties (depending on whose analysis you read. The battle of Stalingrad alone cost 850,000 German lives and over a million Russians. Despite their late entry into the war against Japan, at the end of the war the Russians killed more than 200,000 Japanese in a brutally opportunistic campaign.

Zoomer may have been making a joke when he said the Russians won WW2, but the facts of history support that statement.

All we've seen from you Capt. Oblivious is a lot of utterly uninformed juvenile attempts at sarcasm. Apparently neither logic nor history are taught at MIT or in your high school- at least not to you anyways.

Saturnine, what exactly do you mean by wealth of power?

And will you stop insulting me?

Well my attempts to make things more polite have ended badly. Saturnine, you are so full of fecal matter it's shooting out your mouth and nose like a firehose. You're ignorant, mean and spiteful. You won't let it die. I hope you are well rewarded for your ignorance in RL with many mistakes and accidents.

dave

Geez dave, what did Saturine do to deserve that? Wishing someone ill luck and accidents in RL CERTAINLY isn't spiteful.

Insult met with insults.

IMHO she lashed out for the same reason I did originally, Dave. Frustration over your blind allegiance to false statements. I have come to realise that you are an immoveable object, a product of your education and personality, so I've left it alone. Others may not feel that way, as you see. We try to all get along here on Hootoo but now and then someone lashes out. You did when you started this flamewar, and now you are getting some back. It's quite simple, really. When you make a statement and then don't logically back it up, someone will probably call you on it. If you don't then say either *Oh, I see, I didn't know that* or *No, you are wrong and here is the proof.* then you will get an argument. An argument is an argument, but a flamewar happens when you attack someone personally. That's what you did in post #1 here. Now you are, as I said, reaping the consequences.

"And will you stop insulting me?"

No.

Sat, you crack me up!

OK, you two go at it, but remember- machine guns are OK but no WMD!

Oh, and your mothers both dress you two funny!

Eh? What did I do?

Lead Head

You've used the phrase Saturnine "wealth of power", please enlighten my feeble & ignorant self as to what it means.

dave

Why do you keep asking questions that have already been answered?