HVAL - nice tongue in cheek post.
I find the anti-American rhetoric on here shaming. I've worked here for a couple of years and have more US personnel than UK working for me.
They are hugely supportive of us, and extremely friendly to us, both as individuals and a nation.
The War of Independence was a form of civil war - it really was. Broadly it was a 3 way split for pro-independence, pro-British and the completely neutral. One side got lucky.
The War of 1812...... A bit of misguided nonsense by the Americans. Miscalculated too. They fully expected the Canadians to jump on board with them, it didn't happen, they got a bit of a walloping and, really, they lost. But it was such a sideshow to the Napoleonic main event it didn't register back in the UK and wasn't pursued.
Some of the comments on here about current US servicemen's conduct are so out of context they are laughable. Nasty events, even atrocities, are perpetrated by soldiers of all nationalities in all conflicts. Recently they are more apparent by Americans because so many more of them have been on the frontline compared to all other nation's servicemen. Combined. Troops lose friends and see some awful things and they are affected and react, sometimes badly.
I know an old fella back home from my local who has told me how bored British troops being sent by train around Africa took potshots, for bets, at the local populace as they went about in the 1950s. Disgraceful clearly, and not that long ago.
"Little Englander" statements mocking Americans such as "....and 90% of them don't even have passports" are more indicative of British ignorance than American. We have passports to get sun and to travel. That's because Britain is small. The Yanks can surf, sun, mountain climb, cruise, ski, cross a desert and everything else whilst staying within their borders. Why would the majority go overseas and pay more for the same whilst being patronised by us?
Yanks - don't react to the unpleasant digs at you on here. You're better than that. Most of you anyway.
Rant ends.