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|  he British Empire was once the greatest in the world, covering (at its height) over a quarter of the world's population and a quarter of the Earth's total land area. Lasting from the formal annexation of Newfoundland in 1583 to the return of Hong Kong in 1997, and stretching across all of the world's latitudes it was said the sun never set upon it. As a new age of chivalry, civility, and military glory, its rulers and many of its subjects glowed with pride to be a part of it.
The fact remains, however, that had they been treated fairly and as equals, the inhabitants of the colonies would have embraced and become the British with enthusiasm. And when the native peoples of foreign lands are not killed, don’t have their lands unfairly confiscated, are treated fairly and as equals, aren’t enslaved, tortured, or submitted to humiliating ignominies, and are given full representation and human rights, there remains very little to choose between the opposing ideologies of nationalistic self-determination and imperialism. Both are simply ideologies, and neither more valid than the other. Anyone who disparages European Imperialism simply for denying colonies self determination are to be reminded that most places in Britain were at one time conquered and annexed by neighbouring states, and submitted to the same ignominies; but that provinces and conquerors reformed together into what is simply a larger, unified state. Given another hundred years, India and Kenya et al would have been as much part of Britain as Kent and Wessex. [adapted from King Dominic's A Defence of Imperialism]
 s whole-hearted supporters of the benefits and aesthetic qualities of empire, Old Rectoryland is committed to its policy of Imperial growth provided it is achieved by respectable and egalitarian means. We as a nation mean to have all the rewards of domination with none of the unfortunate consequences.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Old Rectorian Empire is precisely what the British Empire should have been, just as Old Rectorian culture aims to be what Britain should be, and in the popular nostalgic imagination, once was. We are the new Camp Coffee logo, not the old. Having colonies is far more practical than trying to maintain hundreds of scattered exclaves of mainland Old Rectoryland, gives the colonial peoples a greater degree of independence and cultural identity, and allows the administration to wallow in harmlessly jingoistic imagery of pith-helmets, khaki, stiff-upper-lips, Imperial pomp and circumstance, cultural exchange of tea and cricket for pyjamys and bungalows. The Old Rectorian Empire, which has colonies on three continents, looks to remain a part of our nation for the long term.
Here is a list of the current Old Rectorian Colonies, with their flags:
Old Rectoryland has claimed the asteroid Cruithne (also known colloquially as 'Corithne') as its first, token, extra-terrestrial colony, but expects to land on the moon before attempting to reach it. Old Rectoryland is not a signatory of, and does not recognise, either the Outer Space Treaty or the Moon Treaty.
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copyright © 2009 Lindisfaras Eardstapenascoppa |
Yet the British Empire from its first days was beset by problems, injustices, and crimes against humanity which marred its noble face apparently irrevocably. The Empire was taken by drawn-out wars with high death tolls and unreported atrocities; it was beset from the beginning with revolutions and tit-for-tat feuds with the locals where both sides competed for who could commit the bloodiest genocide; the traffic in human lives that funded the initial expansion is already famous despite the Empire's later commitment to ending the slave trade; xenophobia was ubiquitous; and the lack of representative government for the colonies lost the Empire America and the happiness of many of its people who demanded the right to self-determination. Paradoxically, as well as being a golden age, the age of Empire was simulataneously a reprehensible and barbaric one.
ince 11th November 2008, Old Rectoryland has had a Space Agency (