Posted on 03/12/2022 8:43:28 PM PST by algore
Comedy legend John Cleese had his microphone confiscated at the South by Southwest festival during a comedic discussion in which he suggested Italy and France owed historic reparations for enslaving Brits.
The Monty Python icon, 82, was riffing with other comics in front of the crowd in Texas when he talked about the 'competition' between cultures over who has been more oppressed by colonisations throughout history.
Pointing to world history being 'a history of crime', he added: 'It's a history of people who were stronger beating up people who were weaker and it's always been that. It's deeply, deeply distasteful.
'But to pretend that one lot were worse than another – you do know the British have been slaves twice, right?
Cleese explained: '[People] get competitive about this business of being oppressed. We were oppressed, the English, by the Romans from about 0 to 400.'
Despite the event being labelled a 'comedy panel', his remarks sparked horrified reactions and an awkward environment for those in attendance.
At one stage Cleese even had his microphone confiscated by American comic Dulcé Sloan, who said she did it to 'save a comic whose career I respect', per The Hollywood Reporter.
'And now you saved the colonizer,' Pasternack said. 'I saved a comic whose career I respect,' Sloan fired back Cleese rebutted claims that the British Empire was the first to colonise communities
The British comic insisted England was owed 'reparations' from both Italy and France, referring to the historic invasions of the Romans, and 1000 years later by the Normans under William the Conqueror.
'I want reparations from Italy', he told the stunned crowd. 'And then the Normans came over in 1066... they were horrible people from France and they colonised us for 30 years and we need reparations there too, I'm afraid'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
If leftists were capable of thought, they’d realize he’s spot on.
Not that modern Britons deserve whatever, but everyone everywhere has ancestors that were beaten up by some other peoples sometime — so the whole concept of reparations and ‘justice’ from one specific group is crap.
Of course that is *the* sacred cow to the left and their fount of political power so of course they freaked out.
Cleese is absolutely right.
The Roman Empire brought in almost 500,000 slaves a year because they worked them to death, so they ran out quickly.
Most of those slaves came from Britannia and Gaul.
The numbers were enormous.
Sorry John, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Hell yeah
He’s not wrong.
The Irish should get reparations for the Great Potato Famine.
LoL. On a side note, John Cleese tripped over my wife in a Vegas casino many, many years ago. He was very polite exchanging apologies, but as we walked away my wife didn’t know who he was.
Well, the people who left with Moses did take a lot of Egyptian gold and silver with them...
From Idaho

“From Idaho”
—
or Lay’s.
Cranky old man
I introduced Monty Python to my kids when they were in high school, early college years. Now in their 30’s, they were astonished to learn just how old John Cleese really is.
None of their skits would pass the social justice pearl clutchers these days. They were funny because they challenged the “polite” and puritanical society of the late 60’s but managed to be aired anyway. Now, they would be canceled.
In truth, about 300 years back, almost everyone was a slave, a serf, a bondman, or subject of a monarch. Freedom was exceedingly rare.
They have no problem with the 150 countries around the world that have slavery, just American from 200 years ago.
There were also over 300,000 WHITE SLAVES sent to America between 1618 and 1775, as the British simply snatched children, prostitutes, and others that were easy pickings off the streets of Scotland, Ireland, and England and shipped them over to provide labor for the tobacco fields (sound familiar?). Technically, they were indentured servants who could earn back their freedom, but often their British masters would, amazingly, decide that they were no longer going to honor that agreement, and they became simply chattel slaves. They were beaten and treated horribly (hmm…again, sound familiar?) as well.
Put those two inconvenient facts together and I don’t EVER want to hear anyone whining about black slavery in America ever again! It was nothing unique, and the Africans brought here were no more victims than were the hundreds of thousands of whites who experienced exactly the same unfortunate fate. And none of it had anything to do with race - the drive behind it was simply to obtain free labor, whether it came in the form of white British subjects or black Africans. In fact, had African chiefs not rounded up members of their rivals’ tribes and offered them up to western slave traders, it’s doubtful that many Africans ever would have become slaves, at least in the Americas (they had already been enslaving each other in Africa for generations).
And to the clueless libs and race hustlers who today cry and moan about slavery in America hundreds of years ago, I say if you’re so worked up about it then get your butt on a plane and fly over to the Sudan or one of the many other places where Muslim Africans are enslaving Christian Africans TODAY. In fact, they’re even doing so with all of the historical trappings, including slave auctions, beatings, etc. If you have the chance to work against slavery that is occurring right this minute, but would rather complain about something that ended over 150 years ago, then just go away and shut up about it, because you’re a clueless self-centered hypocrite.
Weren’t the Pythons go to Cambridge or Oxford? one of those fancy British universities. I think the late Terry Jones was an expert on Chaucer. These guys got good educations back when going to university meant something.
WTG John Cleese! History in perspective.
Meanwhile, the virtue-signaling Left does not give a hoot about modern-day slavery that benefits them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.