birdy, i am still laughing about you putting the word english, and the word morality, in the same paragraph.
Alright, use "British" if that gores your particular histocal oxen less but.....
...the Germanic folks in general (including the Angles and Saxons) were the progenitors of our present Western representative governments, a splendid impulse towards inalienable rights since well before William set things back in 1066. Ain't fer nothing that the Atheling up in Iceland is the oldest extant such body. Meanwhile the collective Celts at that time were slaughtering and eye-gouging their rivals ad nauseum right up through Medieval times.
B$tch at the English if ya want, but recall the British Empire fell under the weight of its own morality, its subject peoples voting themselves free.
If we won the Rev. War, it was largely because so many Brits at home supported our cause, likewise by the Nineteenth Century, England was a nation where a William Wilberforce could become a national icon.
And they were WAAAYY ahead of us on the slavery issue.
Hey, FWIW all my grandparents were Irish Catholics, Native Irish on both sides.
Birdwatcher
