I had a similar conversation with someone who was rattling off colonialist apologia about Great Britain in India. They were all, "even if you're right you don't have to be so mean about it, whatever happened to eloquence and well reasoned debate?" Mother fucker, millions of people died to preventable starvation and violent repression and you're trying to say it was justified because of rail roads or some shit - shut up and think about what you've done.