This is some of the most idiotic rationale I've ever seen... yeah buddy, that's how EVERY war is won/lost...

And you can't be superior if you lose...

So the best motorcycle/rider always wins the race? There are other factors that come into play in victory/defeat.

Yes, the best rider always win the race. The best fighter always wins the fight. The best always wins... that doesn't mean if you repeated the same thing 100 times, they'd win every time, but at the time they won, they're by definition the best.

I disagree. Environment, timing, other factors can allow an underdog to win. They are not the best, may not even be close to the best, but they managed to scrap it out and win the day.

I noticed you left off the best motorcycle out of your answer. That for sure is not always the case and you know it.

We have seen it throughout history many times when the vastly superior force tries to occupy a lowly country and the residents of that country make it an absolute nightmare to keep control of it and eventually the superior country just gives up.

The winner, by definition, is the better of the two.

Actually it was the "Army of the North" that did that, but only for so long. Also there weren't very many British Regular troops in Upper nor Lower Canada at the time. It was mostly the levy that beatcha ;)

Still doesn't explain to me why we're taking a weekend to celebrate a loss though. It is an interesting place to visit, despite being in the shadow of The Gardiner Expressway these days.

http://goo.gl/maps/PsEhI

If we had lost, we would have become a colony of Great Britain again. By the end of it all, we had our capitol back (slightly toasted), kept New Orleans (unfortunately?) and the Brits quit conscripting our sailors. Not sure how we lost; I don't think the goal of the United States during that war was ever to conquer the Brits (or take Canada), just to get them to quit fucking with us.

My understanding is that a lot of Canadians consider it a victory for Canada. From where I sit, it was never even a war against Canada. It was a war against the British Empire, and Canada was one of the battlefields. That said, had we swept through Canada in a decisive victory rather than fought the Crown to a stalemate, we probably* would have kept it. So, from that perspective, I could see it being viewed as a sort of victory for Canadian independence. If you ignore that they belonged to the British Empire for another 50 years**...



*Definitely

**Or 115 years, or 165 years, depending on your benchmark. I never could really tell when the Canucks considered themselves independent.

The winner is by definition the one that won or is the victor of the event/race/battle. The better team/racer/whatever doesn't always win.

The year Bama beat LSU for the MNC is a good example. LSU barely beat Bama in the regular season and then Bama showed the country who was definitely the better team in the champ game.

I was talking about the Battle of New Orleans. It was the British regulars there and a lot of natives to that area were with Andrew Jackson to hold the line before the Brits gave up and went to pick on Mobile but never got the chance cause of the treaty signing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_American_order_of_battle

And you were fighting American militia, at least on the outset of the war. Not sure what kind of idiot starts a war without much of a standing army to call on; you'd have to ask President Madison and the 12th Congress.