kvanlaan
Puritan Board Doctor
Not to belittle anyones arguments here but I notice a very strong difference in family background here which probably has a very big impact on personal opinion in this area. Those of us who were 'children of the empire' are much more likely to have been schooled in British thinking about these things. I know I grew up hearing stories of the Boer war and in school trips we would go to museums and see the guns, reenactments etc... as if this was something to be proud of. I never questioned this as a kid and I guess it has got into my thinking as an adult.
Ah, but here's the thing: I was raised a very devout little subject of the empire. Remember, Canada wasn't released from the Crown until 1982. Even then, little bits of Empire clung to us for some time; that is, I sang "God Save the Queen" in school every morning for a few years and remember being fascinated by the big red map, showing how the sun never set on the British Empire, of which I was sorta-kinda a part. I remember in my teenage years very sanctimoniously telling Americans I knew that their anger over British taxes was rubbish, seeing as how they were simply paying for the protection that we were affording them - they didn't need to go and start a war over keeping a few more dollars in their pockets. And then I spent some quality time in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, taking my glengarry off to the Queen every time I entered the wet mess (thanking her for the cheap beer, in addition to the honor bit) and having a true love for the music of the bagpipes in my heart. Heck, I even learned Imperial measurements before we jumped on board with metric. I'm not Her Majesty's most loyal subject, but I sure was raised as one.
A small note on the religious aspect of the Boere nation: I think their views on race are completely without merit. But if a bunch of AoG folks are living atop some bullion and diamonds we want, are we going to open Arminian death camps? I think not. It takes a Kitchener, Roberts, or even the King of Boy Scouts, Baden-Powell himself, to pull that one off (though Baden-Powell doesn't deserve the snath, scythe, and hooded cloak that the other two do).