Hello everyone. This is a video responding to a
Prager University video titled "If You Live in Freedom, Thank the British Empire"
hosted on the PragerU YouTube channel currently with about 1 million views. The video is narrated by H.W. Crocker III, described by
PragerU as a military historian and best-selling author. So, a few months ago I made a video about
PragerU titled "How PraguerU Lies to You" where I put forward the radical, shocking
idea that Prager University isn't actually a university, but is
instead a YouTube channel funded by fossil fuel billionaires with the aim
of promoting a biased and factually incorrect far-right worldview, all of which I think you'll
find is undeniably true and beyond dispute. Now, in that video, I mentioned that
there were a few PragerU 'courses' - and remember, by courses
I mean YouTube videos - that were worthy of a more in-depth look. And so I've decided to take a peek at what
is probably the worst of the bunch today. In fact, it is to me the most blatant
propaganda PragerU have ever published. Before we get to it though, I should mention that there
are several other YouTube channels who have produced their own responses to this video, which
you'll find if you do a Youtube search for "PragerU British Empire response". Now, usually, seeing this sort of thing dissuades
me from making my own video on the subject as I consider the topic covered ground. But with this video, I just couldn't help
getting in on the action myself. It is just that bad. As always, I'd recommend that you watch
PragerU's video first so you can be sure I'm not misrepresenting them, although I
will be showing short clips here as I go. Right, then. Let's get to it. [PragerU video] "Freedom was
an Englishman's right, and wherever he went, he took that right with him,
whether he was an English colonist in America governing himself through a locally
elected assembly-" Okay, so I'll have to stop it there.
That was quick. Doesn't bode well, does it. Now I have to ask if this guy, H. W. Crocker, knows about the American Revolutionary War. And I ask this not just because of that brief
clip describing the American colonists enjoying all that freedom they had, but
also because of this later clip. [PragerU video] "This is our own history too. If you love America, you should also love the
power that gave us our sense of inalienable rights. Rights traceable back to Magna Carta. It all started in America with the British
Empire, a great, liberty-loving empire. It is the Empire's legacy, the English-speaking world that remains the great, global
guardian of freedom today." So the United States should thank
the great "liberty-loving empire" that gave it its sense of inalienable rights. Now, nowhere in this video is it ever
mentioned how the United States came to be or that they fought a war against that great,
liberty-loving Empire in order to be free of its control. I mean that doesn't really make any sense, does it? If your only information about the United
States or the British Empire came from this video, you would conclude that the British Empire peacefully
passed the freedom baton to the United States, appointing them the new defenders of justice
and freedom and liberty and all the other words that are used
completely meaninglessly. [PragerU video] "The British always thought of
themselves as liberators, as bringers of freedom. The British believed the final and necessary
justification of their empire was a moral one." Now here, I'm afraid, Mr. Crocker has fallen - perhaps deliberately - for some very out-of-date propaganda there. Claiming not to be conquerors or invaders, but actually liberators, has been a tactic of
aggressors all through human history. The Roman Empire, for instance, disguised various
aggressive campaigns as merely acts of defense. They exaggerated minor threats to justify
overwhelming force and so on. Even Nazi Germany claimed to be acting in
self-defense when they invaded Poland, staging a series of false flag attacks carried out
by the SS in what was called Operation Himmler. Hitler declared in response to the attacks that he
faked that he was mobilizing his "defense forces" until the safety of the Reich and its rights are secured. The British Empire may have claimed at
times to be liberating and freeing people, but that was just the smokescreen for its
real aims: territorial expansion, access to resources, power, glory, all the usual rubbish. I'd advise looking into the events preceding the 1879
Anglo-Zulu War, fought between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom, if you'd like a handy
example of the British Empire's use of extremely flimsy pretexts for provoking and
justifying wars with people it was just invading. Speaking of flimsy pretexts... how's that for a link there? [PragerU video] "Even Gandhi praised the British Empire,
paraphrasing Jefferson, saying that he believed that the best government was the government that
governed least, and that he found that the British Empire guaranteed his freedom and
governed him least of all." Now, this is really amazing, this bit. I think it's probably the slimiest, most
deceptive argument PragerU has ever uploaded, and that's a field with some pretty stiff competition. So what's wrong with this quote? Did Gandhi say this? Well, kind of. This quote is actually a paraphrase, and I
consider the tactic of writing it alongside a little cartoon Gandhi as if he said
those exact words to be rather shady, to say the least. However, he did express that sentiment in 1915 as
quoted in "The Speeches and Writings of M. K. Gandhi", published in 1922. Now, in the West, if Gandhi is known for anything, it's being a proponent of nonviolent
resistance to the British rule of India. So why would Gandhi, who thought that the
British Empire was the best government ever, (according to this PragerU video at least) also be leading a resistance movement
against it and asking that it leave India? What a puzzle we have here. Now that quote from the PragerU
video is from 1915, as I said, however, their little cartoon there is actually traced from a photograph of
Gandhi outside Downing Street 15 years later, which is a little deceptive there. What could have happened in those
intervening 15 years? Anything that could have perhaps altered Gandhi's
appraisal of the British Empire's governing abilities? Well, we'll see. Content warning for particularly nasty descriptions
of violence in this next section, folks. And we'll start with the Rowlatt Act, otherwise known as the Anarchical and
Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919, which was a legislative act passed by the Imperial
Legislative Council in Delhi on the 10th of March 1919, "indefinitely extending the emergency measures
of preventative indefinite detention, incarceration without trial, and judicial review enacted in
the Defense of India Act 1915 during the First World War," to quote Wikipedia there. Indefinite detention without trial. That's the great liberty-loving Empire at work there. Now, Gandhi responded to the passing of the Rowlatt
Act by promoting nonviolent civil disobedience, an act for which he himself was arrested. Gandhi's later resistance against the British Empire, the Salt March, the Quit India Movement and so on
are a little beyond the scope of my video, so right now we'll limit ourselves to this
one particularly horrible event. So, on the 13th of April 1919, thousands of civilians
gathered at a public garden in Amritsar to celebrate the Punjabi New Year Festival,
as well as to protest the recent actions of the British imperial government, including the passing of the Rowlatt Act. Fearful of a rebellion, Colonel Reginald
Dyer of the British Army ordered the main exits of the garden blocked, then ordered his troops to open fire without
warning on the group of civilians. He later explained his actions were not to disperse the
meeting, but to punish the Indians for disobedience. British Indian sources gave a figure of 379
dead with more than a thousand wounded, whereas the Indian National Congress estimated that
around a thousand people were killed in the massacre. That's just one of the British Empire's terrible
violent massacres of innocent people there, none of which are mentioned in the PragerU video,
and we have to wonder, why not? Well, not really. It's because they're shameless propagandists presenting
a biased, one-sided view of history. PragerU takes the approach of sticking their head in the
sand and pretending such events never took place. So, who knows what they think about it? However, we do know what this guy in particular,
Crocker, thinks about the incident as he describes it in his book, "The Politically
Incorrect Guide to the British Empire", and I'd like to note the "Three cheers for
colonialism!" tagline there. Also, I'd like to note that his "Gandhi
praised the British Empire" non-point takes top billing among a list of similarly
silly ideas. Anyway, here's how Crocker introduces Dyer,
the colonel who ordered the massacre: [Reading] "Dyer was a hero of the old school. He had been born in India and spent his childhood there
before being educated in Ireland and at Sandhurst. He had a gallant record that extended from service
in the Northwest Frontier to Burma. Most of all, he was a man who stood by the British
imperial principles of justice, fair play and decency-- delivered by force if necessary." ...Jesus. On the massacre, Crocker writes: "Dyer ordered his men
into line and without delay gave the order to fire: 379 Indians were killed and more than a
thousand were wounded. The mob was dispersed--and so was the
feared rebellion in the Punjab. Dyer became a hate figure to anti colonialists--" Imagine that. "--and was repudiated by liberal opinion and
the British government at home." And for what, just for murdering a bunch of people? Jeez. Crocker, PragerU's lecturer, is here justifying the
deliberate massacre of unarmed civilians and calling the man who ordered that
massacre a hero. And that's a direct quote, that is his own word. We see what he really thinks of liberty
and justice and freedom here. They're just words to disguise the only thing
he really respects, which is force. You know, "Do what we say or we'll shoot you dead,
and then declare ourselves heroes for it." It's hard to miss the white supremacist vibe here. And if you think that's a little too much, I'd like to point
out that the first section of another of Crocker's books, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War", is
titled "Why the South Was Right"! That book is glowing in its praise for the
Confederate States, which for anyone who doesn't know, fought a civil war against the United States
because they wanted to uphold slavery. It consists of fawning profiles of southern generals
and harsh criticisms of northern ones, very boring descriptions of battles, which is the
worst sort of historical writing, and it ends with a bizarre bit of fan fiction talking about how great everything would
have been if the South had won the war. Well, actually it ultimately ends with these words, which
were the national motto of the Confederate States. Just in case there were any doubts as to where
the author's sympathies lie, there. Now, let me just say, I am fine being
considered politically correct if that means thinking slavery and the
mass murder of innocents is bad by the way, I just thought I'd throw that out there. You know, if that's what being politically incorrect
means, then count me out, you know. [PragerU video] "The British did not try to nation-build
in the way we think of it now. They were under no illusions about making Arabs or
Afghans or Zulus into Englishmen. They were more than content to leave people alone,
to let them be themselves, to govern them with the lightest possible hand." So then, Ireland. Now, I've used this line of argument before,
but I would really like to see this guy explain to the Irish that the British were content to
leave people alone and let them be themselves. And there's too many things to
even talk about here, of course. Cromwell's conquest of Ireland, the mismanagement of the response to the Great
Famine which led to mass starvation and emigration, the prohibition of the Irish language
being taught in schools, Margaret Thatcher, generally. That was sort of a shared burden, that one, though. And all the problems with the border between Northern
Ireland and the Republic of Ireland that are currently still now ongoing, thanks to Brexit. "But hold on there a second, Shaun," say all ten of you diligent folks who actually go
and watch the other video when I suggest it, "PragerU's video actually references Ireland in the single instance of admitting that the British
Empire was not completely perfect." Let's have a watch. [PragerU video] "...even where the British have
merited criticism, as in Ireland, there is more to the Imperial story. During negotiations
to create the Irish Republic, for instance, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George,
who could speak Welsh, reminded the Irish nationalist and Gaelic
extremist, Éamon de Valera, that the Celts never had a word for 'Republic'. It was an idea given to them by the English." So... what was that? Crocker admits that the Empire "merited criticism"
in Ireland, which is putting it rather lightly, but as a counter-argument, quotes David Lloyd George
talking about the origin of the word 'republic'. Which has nothing to do with anything, you know? Not only is it completely disconnected from any
of the criticisms that the British Empire merited, it's a misquote. Now, there are different accounts of this
particular conversation, but none of them are so ludicrous as to credit the
English with the concept of the Republic. That's from the Latin, you know, as is this Irish word,
which has its roots in "populist" there, which was one of two competing Irish translations
of the word Republic at the time. Not that any of this matters, of course. What a really bizarre way to avoid actually
mentioning any of the crimes of the Empire. Never fear though, if we want to see exactly
what Crocker thinks about the Irish, we can just once again take a peek at his
Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire, where we see him talking about Ireland's
"recidivist barbarisms". He says, "There is much to admire about the Irish, but it is also easy to see why the English, when
not regarding them as comical, tended to see them as shiftless, ignorant,
stubborn, contumacious, and cruel." Crocker concludes that "the English left Ireland
language, laws, and parliamentary government, but did nothing to tame the stubborn
pugnacity of Ireland's Celts." Geez, "left Ireland language"? It already had a language! Honestly. If you had to guess when this racist drivel
was written, you'd guess like 1910 or something wouldn't you, not 2011,
which is when it actually was released. Now, not mentioned in the PragerU video, of course, are any of the Empire's various other crimes,
which again are too numerous to mention here. There's nothing about the Empire's use of
concentration camps in Africa, its massacres of indigenous Australians, overseeing a famine in India that killed and displaced
millions of people during the Second World War, though I'm sure Crocker could find someone loosely
associated with each of those events who had once said the word "republic" or
"liberty" or something. You know, don't look at all the bodies, just say words
like "freedom" and "liberty" over and over. Now I earlier said that those words were being used
meaninglessly, and just to back that up a bit I'd like to quote again from Crocker's
Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War. He says, "The Confederate States of America, in short, had formed a republic with a limited government that
guaranteed individual and state rights-" (unless you were a slave, of course) "-and unlike the Republic up north, didn't insist on
subjugating states that didn't want to be a part of it. The Confederacy might have had slavery, as the
United States did, but it was no tyranny." Again, unless you were a slave. Now, the United States of America is presented
throughout this book as the aggressor, as denying the sovereign states their
inalienable rights to own other people. You know, as being anti- all those good words
like "liberty" and "freedom" and so on. Crocker's allegiances will change with the conflict. He'll sing the praises of the United States
in the PragerU video, whereas in his books he writes fanfiction about it
being defeated and conquered by an enemy. It's a bizarre trend among people who claim
to love Western civilization to find themselves praising its greatest enemies. For instance, new PragerU collaborator Candace Owens
recently got herself in some hot water for claiming that Hitler would have been "fine" if he
kept his ambitions inside Germany. Now, I'd like to close out today by asking who
on earth this video was made for. You know, anyone in or near a former British colony
will immediately recognize it as bullshit. Maybe it was made for... Americans who don't
know about the Revolutionary War, I guess, British nationalists who refuse to admit the
Empire wasn't purely altruistic, maybe just the far right in general. I don't know, genuinely. Let me know
what you think in the comments. Maybe it was made for the world's
worst homeschooling teachers. You see, this one has a study guide with
questions to answer afterwards as well. "The British were more than content to leave people
alone, to let them be themselves, to govern them with the lightest possible hand. True, false. It's fucking ridiculous. That's all from me today folks. Sorry to go back to the PragerU well so soon, but I saw this video and how many views it had and
had to start typing a response immediately. Thanks, as always, to all of my patrons
who support me over on Patreon, whose wonderful names should
be on the screen right now. If you'd like to join them in supporting the channel, click
that Patreon link below the video and go check it out. I'll also include links to my Twitter and CuriousCat
pages, if you fancy giving me a follow or asking me a question. Also, a quick behind-the-scenes note here. We're coming up on 200,000 subscribers,
which is very exciting. We'll probably pass that within a
couple of days, actually, and I'll be putting out a quick Q&A video
sometime soon to celebrate, so look forward to that. Right, thanks folks, and I'll see you next time. More like... crock of shit! Thank you.
"The British left Ireland a language" One of the worst lines in the whole video :(
The only time the Prager U guys admit that the British Empire had some rightful criticism was about the Irish who are white. I guess none of the brown people criticisms matter.
Lol HW Crocker III
Just to cooy paste my comment because I'm a lazy fuck.
"As much as I liked this debunking video, I do wish you would have covered their claims about the British 'funding anti-slavery' and the whole thing of 'widow burning.' I feel if you had covered those points in depth as well and pointed out the blatant hypocrisy present it could have been a stronger video. Nonetheless, great work as always."
Also an obligatiry fuck PrageeU.
I'm amazed by how unpatriotic true conservativism (my phone tried to auto-correct that to "contrarianism," so that's fitting) is. They'll defend nearly any historical enemy of their nation, so long as that enemy is 1) Also white, and 2) More hierarchical than theirs. Back when I was a conservative, I at least had the consistency to think the Revolutionary War was a response to tyranny. Now that I'm an anarchist, I'm certainly more critical of the Revolutionary War and the motivations behind it, but not because I'm defending an actual fucking monarchical empire.
Blessed skullman
Shaun is the best YouTuber. I've made a handful of baby leftists with the help of his videos, and swayed a lot of people away from the right.
I like (fucking despise) how Prager tries to recruit centrists by acting like a neutral ant-progressive on his YT channel the likes of Joe Rohan, Tim Pool etc. then writes ridiculous Christian Right opinion pieces on various news sites.
I remember him writing an article on Shapiro’s website about how women becoming more important in the workplace was a bad thing, but he’d never make that into a PragerU video.
It's pretty obvious who the target audience is: American Conservatives.
No one else drools on about "small government" like that actually means anything. The USA has 50% of the entire worlds spending in military budget, yet there is not a single conservative arguing for smaller gov in those areas.