Text 17479, 58 rader
Skriven 2005-12-02 13:40:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 17474 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
Ärende: Copyright
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Hello Ward,

>>> None of you seem to realize that the US won the war for you.

>> None of you seem to realize that Hitler had already been beaten
>> by the time you guys entered the scene.

>> Yes, you helped clean up the mess. No, you did not win the war for us.

 > It was a coalition.

The uS joined that coalition relatively late in the game.

 > Without that coalition Germany would have lost the war in Europe anyway

Indeed, without the US Germany would have been beaten anyway. For all practical
purposes they were already beaten in 1942 and that was before the US came in.

 > but perhaps the Nazi-regime might not have been defeated ...

Maybe. Or mayby not. I doubt the coalition would have allowed Adolf Hitler to
remain in power and without the driving force of Hitler the Nazi regime would
probably have died a natural death.

 > or perhaps you and I would now be mailing in Russian ...

I keep hearing this "if not [fill in favorite event] you'd all be speaking
German|Russian|Chinese. I am not impressed.

First of all, conquerers seldom have long lasting success in imposing their
language on the conquered. Who has Latin as the native language these days?

Secondly, as a native speaker of a language with a very small scope, I'd
consider that part of the deal a blessing.

I don't go for this "identity" nonsence. For me language is a tool for
communication. Unfortunately for me, the best tool in my toolbox - my native
language - is the least useful in the global village. Only an estimated 25
million people use it. I would not mind at all had German been my native
language. It would have spared me the torture of having to learn all the
inflections and cases the hard way. The *very* hard way I should say.

OTOH, had I not been forced to learn several languages other than my native
language, I may have been just as arrogant as our monolingual friends across
the pond...

 > Personally I like the present situation ... no Nazis, no
 > Commies and we owe it to the coalition of that time. Not to a
 > single participating country.

I wonder how our brethern in Eastern Europe look at that. They'v had to live
under oppressive communist regimes for some four more decades after WWII. ...
Because of the same coalition...

Cheers, Michiel

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