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Thread: The United Kingdom; The European Union; NATO: which is the primary sense of identity?

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    Iron Fist Senior Member Husar's Avatar
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    Default Re: The United Kingdom; The European Union; NATO: which is the primary sense of ident

    Quote Originally Posted by Beskar View Post
    If you want to go there, I will give you a history lesson, boyo.

    Ever since before the Roman days, the standard was people being on the left hand side. This is because the vast majority of people are right-handed, thus if there are any issues, they could whip out their sword and defend themselves, using the right hand.

    Then Napoleon came to power, who was left-handed. Now, he decided to reverse the standard, which made people who meet on the right to have no defense from the left.. unless they were left-handed like Napoleon. Napoleon decided to conquer all of Europe and force everyone to use the right-side of the road. Some other countries like Sweden later converted for cheaper cars from Germany and other economic reasons.

    As for the USA, the standard of the right was present in the old french colony of Louisiana and they were in defiance of the British, who used the left-side. So they used the French to make a statement. Canada later converted due to cheaper cars from USA (economics).

    This made most of the world use the right-hand side, whilst the rest such as the UK, Commonwealth, Japan, and others, retain using the left-hand side.
    That only seems to be partially true. Especially the comment of Napoleon wanting an advantage in road rage incidents made me very suspicious so I looked it up:

    http://www.worldstandards.eu/cars/driving-on-the-left/

    It says that in France, the US and also Russia, driving on the right became more common before Napoleon. In France it became the norm after the revolution because freedom, and the US adopted it to celebrate freedom from Britian. It further notes that the only countries to still drive on the left today are Britain and the ones that kept it as a remnant from their slavery to British imperialism. Which basically boils down to free people driving on the right while monarchists/their victims drive on the left.

    Also:
    The trend among nations over the years has been toward driving on the right, but Britain has done its best to stave off global homogenisation.
    And this is why you have Brexit, everything is linked somehow...


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