> Which imperialist was the non-violent one then?

Well that's the jolly old clinch, isn't it? Every imperialist was violent, and the English are an empire, and as I am both want and compelled to agree with your so astutely observed argument, I'm afraid I have no recourse but to concur with you that the English are violent. Yes, yes, very well put, old chap, I say!

> Perhaps you can name another country, perhaps your own
> undoubtedly spotless nation,

My nation was never an empire, and it protected Europe for hundreds of years from marauders, rapists, murderers and especially from religious fanatics, and amazingly enough continues to do so even today. Not only that, but my nation paid the price of Europe not writing in or speaking Arabic or Turkish for that matter, and with a sizeable portion of her own territory, visible in the country's unique border, unlike any in Europe today. Not even the mighty British empire can claim such a feat. Oh, and while we were bleeding our hearts and bodies out for Europe, the English were sitting on their island, but they didn't come to help until 1914, and then they only came because they saw their own interest in it, and then they made a mess of things... everything that we had fought so hard to preserve across almost six centuries, they have destroyed on the altair of their own short-term interest in the span of a few decades. In one fell swoop, it was the British who decided to sell us into slavery as thanks for protecting Europe. In most recent history, while we were being brutally raped and slaughtered, tortured by being beaten with iron bars, or electrodes and high current put through the testicles of our people, while we cried for help, it was the British who had sided with those who did this to us, while they were doing it, and purposely delayed any action of the European Union while this was taking place. Jolly good, that!

And yet, even though we dislike them, and we do not trust them, we bear the English no ill will and will continue to protect Europe as we have always done. That is the ethical and moral high ground which not even the mighty British empire can claim. To subjugate, to murder, to plunder, yes, but not to protect as we will continue to do, even those who have done us wrong. And while my nation isn't spotless, it feels pretty good to be the protector rather than all these other things that the English have wrought upon the world. Yep, life is great.

> that has over 50 former colonies,

The Sun never sets on the British empire, isn't that how the saying goes?

It is not a point to be argued in favor of one's honor, but of one's eternal shame at subjugating, murdering and stealing from others over the span of several centuries.

> The mess of leaving it as the world's largest democracy?

It's grossly impolite, to the point of not minding one's p's and q's, to imply that the English are somehow deserving for establishment of democracy in India, an honor that history has recorded as going to one Mahatma Gandhi. It would be awful, just horrid, don't you agree, to claim someone else's accomplishment as one's own, wouldn't it? I mean that would strike at the core of the good old proper British values, almost bordering on the waffling, wouldn't it now?