>>508909954
I'm a straight, white man who loves western civilization and I COMPLETELY AGREE with the OP. You can still love Western Civilization while simultaneously admitting that slavery and colonization were a mistake. Take the British Empire, for example. There's a lot of debate as to whether or not the British Empire was a force of good. The truth is, as always, nuanced. In the early 1700's, the British Empire was Newfoundland, Hudson Bay (Doesn't count because there's nothing there) Jamaica, the 13 Colonies and some TRADING posts in India and Indonesia. It wasn't until the late 19th century that the British started to conquer Africa and became bastards. So really, when we idolize Western Civilization, we should be thinking about the late 17th, early 18th century, when Western Europe was more innocent.

There were wars during the period, but they were called "cabinet wars" because they were low stakes and low casualties. People were ginned up and drinking smuggled tea from China. If you went to the right pub, they would protect you from being press-ganged into the navy. You would have a badass artisan job like making barrels or making candles. You could go bald and women would still think you're sexy if you had a powdered wig. You got to wear badass tri-corner hats. You only had a 30 percent chance of dying of smallpox, 70 percent lived. Only 30 percent of the population had syphilis. America was still part of the British Empire. It was before the Industrial Revolution. They'll never know how good they had it back then.