As for the Empire vowing to wipe natural grace and beauty from the Earth... lighten up dude, it's a joke. The humour arises from the absurdity of the idea of people taking solemn vows to do what people have done quite naturally for a very long time, which is to cause environmental damage wherever we go. When humans moved into the North America and Australia, there followed thereafter a suspiciously swift collapse of both continents respective megafauna populations. All the great Imperial powers did it. And not just the European ones. Pretty much everyone throughout history has done it, and environmentalism is a fairly recent concept.

So yes, of course the British were ecological vandals. See the example of the thylacine for an excellent case study. Of course at that point in time, so was everybody else. But since it was the British who settled here, they're going to be the people that are mentioned in discussions about Australia.

However I think that it in the interests of balance and not upsetting the overly-sensitive, that in future any discussions where the unfortunate and grim realities of British imperialism are raised should be accompanied by the statement 'but the French did it too'. I feel this should keep everybody happy except the French, and when were that miserable bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys ever happy about anything?

Foxy,

"Here's another "opinion piece " for you to knock back:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/19/end-myths-britains-imperial-past

Fair enough description, it is an opinion piece and one that highlights the negatives without once mentioning a positive.

Toni,

"As for the Empire vowing to wipe natural grace and beauty from the Earth... lighten up dude, it's a joke"

So is the author of that ridiculous statement; if she intended it as a joke then let her tell us so.

Dear Toni,

Thanks for posting what should to normal people be
obvious.

However you're wasting your time with
this person. I stopped explaining myself to him when
I realized that he only understands things from his
level of perception.

Foxy,

Here's the full quote again, is it all a joke as I originally assumed or only partly a joke?

"Meanwhile white hunters shot the Aboriginal hunting dogs
and the kangaroos that were a staple food for the locals -
kangaroos were a threat to the white invaders because
they competed with cattle for grass and water, and were also
symbolic of natural grace and beauty, two things that the
British Empire had vowed to wipe off the face of the earth."

Pray tell us which is the funny, make-believe part?

Is Mise,

Why do some people assume that whites have always been all-powerful, that they have come in vast numbers to efficiently conquer helpless people ? In much of the outback, whites have been in the majority for barely a century, for much less in some parts.

Muzzle-loading muskets took up to a minute or more to clean out and reload, while spears could be thrown every few seconds. Single-shot carbines and rifles weren't introduced until at least the 1840s, and repeater rifles (I've seen an assertion that they were used in the Pinjarra Battle in WA in 1832) weren't invented (the Winchester rifle) in the US until the 1870s.

When pastoralists seized/were leased land, they needed labour. So they attracted young men to their stations with rations, and by building small weirs or dams across rivers, to encourage people to come and settle nearby. That continued really, until the 1960s.

The truth is what counts, not stance or passion or narrative.

Joe