Yeah, the Aborigines and Amerindians were really living in tyranny. I suppose that the Opium Wars were definitely a good thing for the Chinese, and the Boxer Rebellion wasn't at all warranted. Your eurocentrism is both amazing and appalling, McBoyne. You actually think that the Europeans invented justice and fairness? Admittedly, Christianity espouses more virtues than most animistic or polytheistic religions, but the imperialist Europeans practiced very few of them. The Industrial Revolution made the poor even more dependent on the rich than they already were. A farmer at least owns his land (unless it's been stolen from him and given to a colonist of the right nationality), and while it may underproduce, he won't have his livelihood and home stripped from him because the factory owner doesn't need him anymore and he can't make the rent. The British policies in Ireland might not have been as oppressive in the mid-20th as they had been earlier, but that doesn't mean that they were preferable to independence. And why do you think that the Irish will consider their period of subjugation a Golden Age? Not only was it marked by incredible amounts of factional violence, but their economy is actually improving markedly now, where Britain's is progressing at a rate slower than just about any other Western European nation.