America's independent spirit
A belated happy Independence Day to you all, and, yes, as a Brit, I am happy you got out from under our heel. I began my 4 July watching a sweetly-small neighbourhood display: a big fire engine, an old Chevy and about 30 kids on bikes with stars and stripes flying. I've munched on several lots of hot dogs and finished up watching the Washington fireworks with friends from the BBC, American and British. As we watched the staggering display from a balcony, on the street below an individual - displaying true independence of spirit - let off his own Roman candles and crackers beneath a tree on the pavement. It was a lot less impressive than the federal government's show but lasted longer.
At the party a couple of American colleagues were talking about what a wonderful man Thomas Jefferson was and how they would have loved to have met him. This struck a chord today when I was flicking through a slim book called 2014 - How to survive the next world crisis, by Professor Nicholas Boyle.
My eyes lit on a passage claiming that America's conception of itself can be understood in the desire to disguise what he calls "the darkness beneath Jefferson's cloak". I haven't yet read the whole thing but, as far as I can see, he argues that the defining event in US history was not the American War of Independence but the Civil War and that the darkness was that the American state (like all others) was based on force, not consent.
He says Jefferson is the American saint and "if a saint tells you there is no elephant in the drawing room" you can, like the northern states, ignore the elephant, or, like the southern ones, "call the elephant something else". He goes that this is why southerners hold a belief that "America was made by God, not by the Yankee state, however heretical and implausible that belief may be". If it stays a quiet news day, I may find time to do more than skim-read the book, but it promises to be provocative stuff.
I’m Mark Mardell, the BBC's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~29~RS~)
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Dr. Nicholas Boyle’s book has yet been released in Canada. So, I’m not going to tell you where I got my sneak peak.
Dr. Boyle argues (almost begs) for economic and political reform if the events at the opening of this century are not to be repeated. He maintains that, unfortunately, he believes that a new world crisis is looming. In other words, change will not come quickly enough, or too few people will feel the need.
Dr. Boyle seems to feel that by the middle of Obama's second term, or of the first term of his (Republican?) successor, America's legacy to this century will already have been decided…and it won’t be good. Dr. Boyle thinks that the cause of the present crisis lies in an unbalanced world which has failed to match economic and political integration.
False models of nationhood, economic markets, and military empires have hindered the development of global advancement and led to too much bloodshed and waste.
The attachment to the past, the inability to think outside the box have been ingrained in the American way of life, part of the ideology of American “exceptionalism”.
Dr. Boyle believes that what is necessary (and here is where he and I go completely separate ways) that ideology and “exceptionalism” will have to be replaced by acceptance of inter-national authorities, especially an enhanced IMF and WTO. Personally I think this increased authority for the IMF and WHO will only lead the world down a path of additional suffering and economic collapse; in fact, I would rather see them completely overhauled, or allowed to die a quiet death.
What nations think of themselves, Dr. Boyle, espouses has simply lost touch with reality. We need world order.
“And where”, I would like to ask Dr. Boyle, “is that new order to come from, the United States, IMF and WHO?” If yes, I fear that the earth and everyone on it are damned.
I feel the new order must come from a revamped United Nations, especially the Security Counsel, and especially the elimination of VETO power. The votes of the Security Counsel should be straight up, no veto. Americans simply have too much power for their own good and surely for that of the world, especially the Middle East. Also I would like to see the SC expanded to correspond to the current world populations, not the world of 1944.
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My eyes lit on a passage claiming that America's conception of itself can be understood in the desire to disguise what he calls "the darkness beneath Jefferson's cloak".
That will be Sally Hemings ....
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We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
The guy who penned the above T.Jefferson, how can one take what he said & not think hypocrite...
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2. At 9:54pm on 05 Jul 2010, ukwales wrote:
My eyes lit on a passage claiming that America's conception of itself can be understood in the desire to disguise what he calls "the darkness beneath Jefferson's cloak".
That will be Sally Hemings ....
LOL! Good one.
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I'm not familiar with Dr. Boyle, so my conclusion could be wrong. It seems he's suggesting that America should disregard it's constitution, the very thing men like Jefferson worked so hard for, and use it's military to help install (or defend) some global organization into a one world government. Unless nations across the world wish to become an additional star on 'ole glory, it's not going to happen.
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Whew, and here I was worried that you were mistaken for a Redcoat. Not a good time to be wearing one of those uniforms, at least not in the US :0)
In looking at US history from a broader perspective than I was taught in school, it seems hard to justify the legality of the Civil War. Like it or not, it appears to me that the Southern states had every right to cecede. However, that happened one hundred and fifty years ago and it is now ancient history. It's all academic, there's no going backwards. It is a matter of absorbing and learning from the past rather than trying to somehow come to grips with what seems to be a contradiction of what America said it was and what it actually was. There is in this also the fact that while Jefferson was one among a large number of great men who conceived of and brought about the creation of the United States of America, Lincoln stood seemingly alone in his and the nation's time of ultiimate trial and tribulation and in having made the hard choices seems somehow to loom above all of them. Had it not been for him, the United States of America if it existed today at all as a single nation would have been a very different place. Certainly in most of the nation if not in the South, as great as Washington, Jefferson, Adams and the other notables of that era were, Lincoln probably remains the best loved and most revered of all Presidents. He alone solved the problem of slavery the founding fathers failed to come to grips with and the end of it was definitive. It set the nation on a different path and when the wounds finally healed over left a far more united and stronger America for it.
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The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the World Wars, they are all defining events that have shaped us into who we are today. And they have proven we are real warriors. But they are all important. It is the Butterfly effect. One thing changes, which causes another change, another change and so on... I don't know that you could really say one was necessarily more important or more effective than the other. Because we might not have had the Civil war the way it happened if we had been under Britain's rule. Perhaps the British would have told us, you can have them or you can't have them or whatever. Maybe we wouldn't have even had a choice. During the Civil War, people had the choice to choose which side they were on. And the strongest side won. That is the power of the people.
It would be bizarre to think of living under British rule today or talking British. Too strange. Glad we fought them off, with the help of France, too. And today, the British and ourselves are good friends and allies, even if we do not agree on everything. Even the new Spider-man is British American.
July 4th is a day in which it feels like we are truly one people.
One nation, under God. Indivisible, with liberty for all.
Even though things are crazy, it feels like things are alright.
I can't think of anywhere else I would want to be.
Go USA!!! ;)
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This is the text written for "Lincoln Portrait," the music written by one of America's greatest composers Aaron Copland. There are many fine performances of it. Probably plenty on Youtube. It is worth hearing if you've never heard it and worth hearing again if you have.
""Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history."
That is what he said. That is what Abraham Lincoln said.
"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility."
He was born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana, and lived in Illinois. And this is what he said. This is what Abe Lincoln said.
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we will save our country."
When standing erect he was six feet four inches tall, and this is what he said.
He said: "It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. It is the same spirit that says 'you toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."
Lincoln was a quiet man. Abe Lincoln was a quiet and a melancholy man. But when he spoke of democracy, this is what he said.
He said: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."
Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of these United States, is everlasting in the memory of his countrymen. For on the battleground at Gettysburg, this is what he said:
He said: "That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.""
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#2, ukwales, that was very funny!
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uke of wails;
"The guy who penned the above T.Jefferson, how can one take what he said & not think hypocrite..."
How can one take what you said and not think fool?
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Patriotism in the USA is being severly tested due to Obama being elected. The liberal left was deceived into thinking that a black man like Obama would be fair and non-discriminatory. This is because they attribute discrimination only to whites, predominantly white males. Obama has demonstrated his racial profileing behavior and discrimintion on multiple ocassions, for all to see. A liberal mind set that fails to take this behavior into account will necessarily be self destructive, and must be actively advocating for an enhancement of the already generous reverse discrimination principles. (such as affirmative action which offers "unfavored groups" a competitive advantage in career and education). Your folly is that the reverse discrimination will be only temporary and that multiculture nirvana will descend upon the USA in waves of red, white and blue; thus eliminating the need for the "favoritism" afforded to minorities. This is not sound logic to anyone who understands sociology or human nature.
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Right now, USA is together.
But could an American Civil War happen again?
Absolutely.
The key to keeping us together is finding what common interests we have and avoiding the controversial interests of special-interest groups.
Controversies that could bring about another Civil War include:
giving citizenship to illegals
if we let in so many immigrants that the "old-value" immigrants fight with the "foreign-value" immigrants
passing gay marriage as a federal law
taking away our gun rights
abortion issues
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I firmly believe the United States was set aside for people to be free, not to be ruled by Kings or Queens and not one man to be a ruler over another. That was what the Revolution and Civil War were about.
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By talking British, I meant talking with a British accent. Obviously, English is our prime language. (Well, those of us born in USA)
I would like to add that Great Britain is such a good ally today that if anyone tried to attack them, USA would help fight the invaders.
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LucyJ;
"It would be bizarre to think of living under British rule today or talking British. Too strange."
The fathers of the American Revolution not only won for us political independence from Britain but an independence and freedom from the conceptualization of life as it relates to government and its role in society, as we relate to our own lives. It won for us a different perspective we do not share with them because they have not evolved to it even to this very day. Are we allies? I'm not so sure. We have a commonality of views and interests in some regards such as the threat of Islamic terrorism but we do not share many others in common by a long shot.
I think that we are smug in our knowledge that we are not only far better off than we would have been under them, than Canada is for example but that we exist in a society that is far superior to theirs in every way including those which can't be measured and far superior to all of the rest of Europe as well. This leads us to overlook abuse and insults hurled our way for which we have every right to be indignant and to express our indignation. In a sense they still haven't gotten over the fact that they don't own us, don't rule us, can barely influence us or be heard unless what they say makes sense from our perspective and in light of our own interests as we see them. They haven't gotten over the fact that in our existance they are minor players with merely an occasional bit part, a single line to utter and then quickly exit the stage of our national life. We here have the opportunity to redress that imbalance and let them know exactly how we feel and what we think. I hope some other Americans besides me take that opportunity. It is reality as we see it from here, not as they see it from Europe. It is a reality that they are unfamiliar with and find very displeasing and unsettliing. All the more reason they should hear it.
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Abraham Lincoln was also very religious.
He read his Bible all the time.
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I often read this blog and never dare post anything. I feel that what ever I might have to offer pales in comparison to all the witty post others offer. As a son of LEGAL Mexican immigrant, and a very proud American. I have often agreed and have enjoyed Mr MarcusAureliusIIs posts. Bluesberry is one who easily rubs me very much the wrong way. His one singular endevor no matter what the topic is about. Is to slander America. He enjoys using many facts and long posts to try and make his worped point. We are far from a perfect people. We American are at times are loud, impeteous, and hardheaded. But we are a good people, hardworking and noble. As a country we pulled ourself up by our bootstrap. We believe in ourself and the worth and value of our country. So on this latter part of my beloved country birthday I would like to say to Bluesberry to take a long walk on a short pier. God bless America and the United States Marine Corp (former Marine here)
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4. At 10:45pm on 05 Jul 2010, Gavrielle_LaPoste wrote:
2. At 9:54pm on 05 Jul 2010, ukwales wrote:
My eyes lit on a passage claiming that America's conception of itself can be understood in the desire to disguise what he calls "the darkness beneath Jefferson's cloak".
That will be Sally Hemings ....
LOL! Good one.
____________
The thing is, Sally Hemings (Henning?) was the step sister of his first wife, anyhow.
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#18 IF,
"The thing is, Sally Hemings (Henning?) was the step sister of his first wife, anyhow."
Sally Hemings is alleged to be the half sister of Jefferson's first wife, not step sister. Her genealogy and birth of Jefferson's children are not definitive. It is clear that a Jefferson did father Sally's children, whether it was Thomas Jefferson or his nephew are still disputed.
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Blueberry wrote:
"I feel the new order must come from a revamped United Nations, especially the Security Counsel, and especially the elimination of VETO power. The votes of the Security Counsel should be straight up, no veto. Americans simply have too much power for their own good and surely for that of the world, especially the Middle East. Also I would like to see the SC expanded to correspond to the current world populations, not the world of 1944."
America is not the only country with veto power in the UN.
The UN selects countries like Cuba to be in its Human Rights Council. I think that is all that needs to be said about that joke of an organization. The sooner it leaves America the better.
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ukwales wrote:
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
The guy who penned the above T.Jefferson, how can one take what he said & not think hypocrite... "
His hypocrisy doesn't impact in any way those truths.
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LucyJ wrote:
"The key to keeping us together is finding what common interests we have and avoiding the controversial interests of special-interest groups."
Yeah, like our common language.
The sick support of a foreign language (Spanish)in America while allowing millions of illegal immigrants into the country that speak that language is the best way to divide and destroy our country.
"Controversies that could bring about another Civil War include:
giving citizenship to illegals if we let in so many immigrants that the "old-value" immigrants fight with the "foreign-value" immigrants."
What are you talking about? They are *illegal* immigrants, period! Why are you calling Americans "'old-value" immigrants'?"
"passing gay marriage as a federal law
abortion issues"
I don't think that would lead to a civil war.
"taking away our gun rights."
That would and rightly should lead to a revolution.
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18. At 04:38am on 06 Jul 2010, Interestedforeigner wrote:
The thing is, Sally Hemings (Henning?) was the step sister of his first wife, anyhow.
You're point? That because Sally was somehow related to his late wife that there was something wrong there? I would think the fact that she was a slave at the time and not really free to choose would be of more concern then her lineage.
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Andresmalo wrote:
"I often read this blog and never dare post anything. I feel that what ever I might have to offer pales in comparison to all the witty post others offer. As a son of LEGAL Mexican immigrant, and a very proud American. I have often agreed and have enjoyed Mr MarcusAureliusIIs posts. Bluesberry is one who easily rubs me very much the wrong way. His one singular endevor no matter what the topic is about. Is to slander America. He enjoys using many facts and long posts to try and make his worped point. We are far from a perfect people. We American are at times are loud, impeteous, and hardheaded. But we are a good people, hardworking and noble. As a country we pulled ourself up by our bootstrap. We believe in ourself and the worth and value of our country. So on this latter part of my beloved country birthday I would like to say to Bluesberry to take a long walk on a short pier. God bless America and the United States Marine Corp (former Marine here)"
Andresmalo, I am happy that your father respected our country enough to come to America legally. I am more happy to see you express your respect, affection and love for your country, America. Your father is the kind of immigrant America needs and you are the kind of American all Americans should be proud of.
You go on and keep posting. As long as you speak the truth and get your message out "witty" comments are not necessary.
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Given the current state of politics in America, the level of extremism rising on the left and right and the worsening US economy, is it too late to petition her majesty to let us rejoin the Empire?
James P
California
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LucyJ said:
I can't think of anywhere else I would want to be.
Really Lucy. You ever been anywhere in this big wide wonderful world besides the USA?
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wolfvorkian wrote:
"Well, why don't you bring it on ? I'd love to have dibs on you."
I'm curious, what arms do you plan on using? After all, it would be a revolution against those that would deny Americans the right to bear arms.
Or are you like one of those leftist celebrities or politicians that criticizes the right of Americans to bear arms but makes an exception for themselves? :)
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James P wrote:
"Given the current state of politics in America, the level of extremism rising on the left and right and the worsening US economy, is it too late to petition her majesty to let us rejoin the Empire?"
Oh geez. The "her majesty" part is enough to make one want to throw up. No offense.
No one is stopping you from leaving the country.
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AllenT2 said:
I'm curious, what arms do you plan on using? After all, it would be a revolution against those that would deny Americans the right to bear arms.
Easy Allen, I'd still have my guns because your revolution based on the taking of guns is nothing but paranoia. It is delusional. I'm a lefty liberal but I've got a lot of guns. A lot of liberals got a lot of guns. We're just not obsessed with them and don't have the need to play key board bad guy by constantly making impotent threats. You ought to be careful what you pray for pal.
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wolfvorkian wrote:
"Easy Allen,"
You have the nerve to tell someone to take it "easy" after you make a direct threat to them? Is that some kind of sick joke?
"I'd still have my guns because your revolution based on the taking of guns is nothing but paranoia. It is delusional."
A revolution that would uphold the rights of Americans based on the Constitution would be the opposite of "paranoia" and "delusional." I'm sure our founding fathers would agree.
"I'm a lefty liberal but I've got a lot of guns. A lot of liberals got a lot of guns."
Oh really? What for?
After all, the "liberal" view towards guns would not even have you owning them. So I ask again, for what reason do you own not just one gun but "a lot of guns?" :)
"We're just not obsessed with them"
Considering I only own one gun and you say you have "a lot of guns" are you sure you want to go around claiming that other people are "obsessed" with their guns?
"and don't have the need to play key board bad guy by constantly making impotent threats. You ought to be careful what you pray for pal."
Come again?? I have threatened no one in this forum! YOU are the one that threatened me! Would you like me to quote your exact words!
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wolfvorkian wrote:
LucyJ said:
I can't think of anywhere else I would want to be.
Really Lucy. You ever been anywhere in this big wide wonderful world besides the USA?
______________________________________________________________________
Are you now going to try and convince her that her country is not a place where she should be so happy while assuming she has not traveled the world?
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I think this thread has gone off topic a bit. However I would like to comment on two points that seem wrong to me.
1. At 00:46am on 06 Jul 2010, LucyJ wrote:
Abraham Lincoln was also very religious.
He read his Bible all the time.
This does not seem to be true - I did a little search and found rather different. He sure read his Bible (though I doubt all the time) but he read it as a freethinker not as a Christian. He may have been religious but not in the usual meaning - Supreme Court Justice (Contemporary of Lincoln) David Davis: "He [Lincoln] had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term-- he had faith in laws, principles, causes and effects."
2. “They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”
in fact are not Thomas Jefferson's words, they were altered by congress - his wording regarding equal rights was: "All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable." Congress changed that phrase, increasing its religious overtones.
The US of A was not founded on Christian principles - but on religous freedom and general tolerence - the thing that was lacking in Britain then and now is being killed in USA.
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MM: "It was a lot less impressive than the federal government's show but lasted longer."
Just like United States will last longer than any of its central governments. Let alone its enemmies: foreign AND domestic.
Make no mistake about it.
[something having to do with our 2nd Amendment]
[And no, Lord Browne (of BP notoriety) shall not rule over Louisiana ever again.]
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"if a saint tells you there is no elephant in the drawing room" you can, like the northern states, ignore the elephant, or, like the southern ones, "call the elephant something else".
Democratic donkeys usually call elephants - Republicans.
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22. At 06:09am on 06 Jul 2010, AllenT2 wrote:
ukwales wrote:
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
The guy who penned the above T.Jefferson, how can one take what he said & not think hypocrite... "
His hypocrisy doesn't impact in any way those truths.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No, & I will agree with you.
John Adams,defended the red coats in court accused of the Boston Massacre calling the folk taunting them a "Mob".A truly great man.
Thomas Jefferson,if he had married Sally Hemings against the prejudges
of the time,he would have a truly,truly great man.Any way,as some one who
courted the favor of the French proves he can not have been all good..;).
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Re hypocrisy...
American women (???) claiming that we should not try to build schools in Afghanistan and protect Afghan girls who want to get an education better than the one those American women (???) ever got, from being blown to smithereens or having acid thrown in their faces by progressive Afghans whose "culture", we, primitive American males, don't fully appreciate.
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"is it too late to petition her majesty to let us rejoin the Empire?"
Are you referring to this German Coburg-Gotha family ruling over UK?
[And getting a pretty penny for it]
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"I'm a lefty liberal but I've got a lot of guns. A lot of liberals got a lot of guns."
Show me your guns, and I'll show you mine.
[Who'll manage to draw first is for me to know, and for you to guess. :)]
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17. At 03:40am on 06 Jul 2010, Andresmalo wrote:
I often read this blog and never dare post anything.
You pitch right in, your views are yours & valid as anyones...
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At 00:45am on 06 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII
As per usual your blinkered zenophobic views make your posts laughable. Its currently not very wise to describe the US as "better off than Canada" Anyone with a remote understanding of world economic affairs can surely recognise that the Canadian economy is probably the strongest in the world. Their currency is the strongest, their banks have the soundest capital base and they have oil and raw materials in abundance.
Also where do you get the belief that the US is better than the rest of Europe in every way. There are good and bad points to every country. I suggest you get out from behind your keyboard and try travelling, it broadens the mind. Oh, and by-the-way, I do not count visiting Disney's Epcot as having seen the world. From Northern Europe to the Med there is beauty, history and culture that you would not believe possible.
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ChrisP wrote:
"The US of A was not founded on Christian principles - but on religous freedom and general tolerence - the thing that was lacking in Britain then and now is being killed in USA."
In addition to other principles it most certainly was. You don't know much about the history of early American life in the colonies if you believe that.
In the end though both of those great Americans believed in God and often referred to the supremacy and power of God. That is all that matters against the rabid anti-Christian left.
The only attacks on "religous freedom" and a lack of "general tolerance" regarding the same that I see comes from the leftest so-called liberals and it is squarely directed at Christians and Jews.
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Here are the words of the American Declaration of Independence. I would suggest you read it outloud to yourself to catch the full meaning and magesty of this magnificant document:
The Declaration of Independence
07/04/1776
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of governments. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative Houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasion on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to ren-der it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliance, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Signers of the Declaration of Independence
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
MASSACHUSETTS: John Hancock, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine
RHODE ISLAND: Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
CONNECTICUT: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
NEW YORK: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
NEW JERSEY: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
PENNSYLVANIA: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
DELAWARE: Ceasar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
MARYLAND: Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, William Paca, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
VIRGINIA: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
NORTH CAROLINA: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
SOUTH CAROLINA: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Authur Middleton
GEORGIA: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
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wolfvorkian wrote:
LucyJ said:
I can't think of anywhere else I would want to be.
Really Lucy. You ever been anywhere in this big wide wonderful world besides the USA?
-----------------------------------------
I keep getting the feeling that certain types of people live in a Truman Show world, but in any case most people in the world will believe that their country is the best and others should be more like them. This is as it should be.
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"He says Jefferson is the American saint ..."
That Jefferson?
One of the slave-owning forefathers?
The one who was having a (sort of) relationship with an underage slave girl?
He who would now be legally classed as a pedophile?
No, no, i mean they can believe anything they want, but it wasn't God that created America (his opposite number maybe).
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This comment has been referred for further consideration. Explain
"nature’s God" not Man's god
"their Creator" not their god.
I am sure many worthy academics must have discussed these words and come to many conclusions.
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The American revolution ended in Virginia when the Colonists made a trade agreement on tobacco with Charles Cornwallis. The American civil war stopped when the Union offered a trade agreement on cotton to the Confederacy. If the Americans would import medicinal poppies from Afghanistan, then this conflict finished.
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redwards36 wrote:
"As per usual your blinkered zenophobic views make your posts laughable. Its currently not very wise to describe the US as "better off than Canada" Anyone with a remote understanding of world economic affairs can surely recognise that the Canadian economy is probably the strongest in the world. Their currency is the strongest, their banks have the soundest capital base and they have oil and raw materials in abundance."
Why would you feel that a person that sees their country as "better off than Canada" is limited to "views" that only have to do with the current state of the economy in determining that?
And how does that logically make someone "xenophobic??"
America has "oil and raw materials in abundance" that are simply, as of yet, untapped, just like Canada.
"Also where do you get the belief that the US is better than the rest of Europe in every way. There are good and bad points to every country."
So a person can't weigh the "good and bad points" and come to the opinion that their country is overall better?
"I suggest you get out from behind your keyboard and try travelling, it broadens the mind."
How do you know how much he travels? Did it ever occur to you that he may have seen more of the world than you have?
"Oh, and by-the-way, I do not count visiting Disney's Epcot as having seen the world."
Apparently many Brits do. :)
"From Northern Europe to the Med there is beauty, history and culture that you would not believe possible."
So?
Has that "beauty, history and culture" contributed to any wisdom you may have that would prevent you from presuming to know someone when you in fact do not?
And did it ever occur to you that he may simply prefer the "beauty, history and culture" of America over the "beauty, history and culture" of other countries?
After all, when it comes to just natural beauty alone it is impossible to find another country in the world that has within its boundaries all of the world's climates and geography and with such unique landscapes.
A preference for your own country doesn't mean a lack of appreciation and respect for how others choose to freely live and for what their countries have to offer.
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ukwales wrote:
17. At 03:40am on 06 Jul 2010, Andresmalo wrote:
I often read this blog and never dare post anything.
You pitch right in, your views are yours & valid as anyones...
______________________________________________________________________
That is unless you criticize the author of this blog for what he has written, and why. In that case you get six similar posts deleted. :)
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This comment has been referred for further consideration. Explain
#17. Andresmalo wrote:
"I often read this blog and never dare post anything. I feel that what ever I might have to offer pales in comparison to all the witty post others offer. As a son of LEGAL Mexican immigrant, and a very proud American. I have often agreed and have enjoyed Mr MarcusAureliusIIs posts. Bluesberry is one who easily rubs me very much the wrong way. His one singular endevor no matter what the topic is about. Is to slander America. He enjoys using many facts and long posts to try and make his worped point. We are far from a perfect people. We American are at times are loud, impeteous, and hardheaded. But we are a good people, hardworking and noble. As a country we pulled ourself up by our bootstrap. We believe in ourself and the worth and value of our country. So on this latter part of my beloved country birthday I would like to say to Bluesberry to take a long walk on a short pier. God bless America and the United States Marine Corp (former Marine here)"
You should write more often.
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53. At 10:40am on 06 Jul 2010, Burzie01 wrote:
"Here are the words of the American Declaration of Independence. I would suggest you read it outloud to yourself to catch the full meaning and magesty of this magnificant document:"
Er. It's very nice. Your point ?
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Re "some claiming that U.S. is better than Canada".
I hate to tell you that, but due to poor geography teaching in American public schools many Americans believe that a territory between Detroit and Aleutians is part of the U.S. as well.
And perhaps not only due to that poor teaching.
And re who created U.S - God or Devil...
One thing is certain: it wasn't chairmain Mao.
For otherwise dozens of millions of Americans would have been slaughtered by other Americans during our own Cultural Revolution.
Or starved to death.
Or have their newborns' skulls crushed with forcepts. :-(((
[A barbarian is a barbarian is a barbarian]
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At 11:31am on 06 Jul 2010, AllenT2
My belief he is "Xenophobic" (excuse my poor spelling earlier) is based upon the numerous posts that MAII posts that continually put down Britain and Europe quite often without base.
I have been fortunate enough to have travelled around America, when I was 21 I bought an Amtrak pass that took me round the length and breadth of America, I enjoyed the hospitality of many Americans, I like the US and still go back there quite often. I have also travelled through most of Europe and appreciate that part of the world. I just find it childish and slightly tiring when blogs continually rant on along the lines of "my place is better than yours" with the sole purpose seemingly of winding people up.
"America has "oil and raw materials in abundance" that are simply, as of yet, untapped, just like Canada." I'll agree with that point, however your economy and banks currently are not in as strong a position as those in Canada !!
"A preference for your own country doesn't mean a lack of appreciation and respect for how others choose to freely live and for what their countries have to offer." - I agree with you however MAII shows no respect for anyone or anywhere outside of the US.
Your response was well written and appreciated though !!
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59. At 11:31am on 06 Jul 2010, AllenT2 wrote:
So. Let me get this straight. You claim that the US is superior to everybody else, in every way - re. your last posting ...
"when it comes to just natural beauty alone it is impossible to find another country in the world that has within its boundaries all of the world's climates and geography and with such unique landscapes."
... apparently the US even has the most beautiful landscape too. But when challenged - you backtrack and claim it is only your opinion.
But if it is only your opinion - then you should state it as so.
Most of those here are interested only in facts.
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AllenT2 wrote: "A preference for your own country doesn't mean a lack of appreciation and respect for how others choose to freely live and for what their countries have to offer"
Have I read this correctly? This person passes the time abusing, insulting and sneering at anything non-American, especially Britain. A person with different politics to this person is not tolerated, they are insulted and labelled. He has never shown any appreciation or respect for anything European only contempt and resentment.
Now it suits him he starts to moralise and take the role of the tolerant, reasonable person? We have all heard what he has to say about utopia and how perfect it is, but dare we express an differing opinion? We could but we know a shower of abuse is heading our way should we express doubt on his almost psychotically optimistic views of his homeland.
At no point has he shown any acceptance of anyone with a positive view of their own country. Any such expression has been greeted with a written assault of propaganda about America while simultaneously doing down the nations of others.
Spare me the anti-American-nonsense reply, T2, I spent 6 months in the US and saw a lot of it, and I've been a number of times since. It's a fantastic place with a lot of wonderful people yet I still prefer coming home to the rolling green hills, small historical villages, facinating cities and the wit and sense of humour of the English.
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To the moderator ...
After pointing out some of the words from MarcusAureliusII (#15)
"we are not only far better off than we would have been under them"
"we exist in a society that is far superior to theirs in every way ..."
"... and far superior to all of the rest of Europe as well."
"they still haven't gotten over the fact that they don't own us"
etc. etc. etc.
... I wrote a posting intended to highlight how similar these words are to certain historical figures. Perhaps I went too far ? If so, I apologise for doing so.
And yet I find my own posting censured - whilst this US supremacist nonsense is allowed to stand. Strange.
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Post 8. At 11:10pm on 05 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII .
For me that was a beautiful post,the BBC would be much the poorer if you
were not here,they should be paying you,Hmmmm! I wonder ....
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60. At 11:33am on 06 Jul 2010, AllenT2 wrote:
ukwales wrote:
17. At 03:40am on 06 Jul 2010, Andresmalo wrote:
I often read this blog and never dare post anything.
You pitch right in, your views are yours & valid as anyones...
______________________________________________________________________
That is unless you criticize the author of this blog for what he has written, and why. In that case you get six similar posts deleted. :)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------They have zapped one of mine also,so I am in good company...;)
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Regarding Spanish being spoken in the US:
I find it to be a very strange concept indeed that so many people think that the introduction of a second language, officially or unofficially, would in any way threaten this country. Does anyone think the US is really that weak?
AllenT2:
Try being a non-Christian in this country and see if you think only Christians are being persecuted.
There are three Christian churches on one street corner within view of my house. Within a 15-mile radius of my parents' house there are 700 listings (seven hundred, not a typo) for Christian churches and one for a Jewish temple. Nothing for Muslims or any other faith.
The Christian religion, and especially its influence in politics, is being questioned. And rightfully so! But don't confuse that with persecution. You're still allowed to wear your religious symbol and read your religious texts where ever you want (this was not the case for me when I attended my PUBLIC high school, nor even in some of my jobs). It is still incredibly difficult, even in 2010, for anyone not of the Christian faith to hold any sort of serious public office. So please stop whining about persecution. Pray you never see it for real.
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AT2;
"His hypocrisy doesn't impact in any way those truths."
It also doesn't seem to have impacted the British even 234 years later. Their head of state is still a hereditary Monarch, they still have a recognized aristocricy, their upper legislative chamber is sill the House of Lords, judges in a court are still referred to as "My Lord", in short they still have an elitist society with its clear class distinctions. And in some unspoken way they still see themselves as better than anyone else. They have not really evolved at all in the sense of how they relate to each other, to society, and the role of government. Clearly we have far surpassed them a long time ago.
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A belated happy 234th(?) birthday.
The US is almost unique in the length of time it has survived as a constitutional democracy. Usually within two or three decades someone assumes control who would rather tell other people what to do rather than having everyone abide by agreed laws.
It is testament to those who framed the US constitution that it is still in force today, albeit with a few amendments.
The safeguards put in place at the time have occasionally bent quite a lot, but seem to be able to mend themselves before breaking beyond the point of repair.
Church and State remain separate(ish) despite the occassional cynical efforts of politicians on both sides to paint opposing political viewpoints as being religiously wrong .
The judiciary remains nominally independant and although this probably results in inferior justices being appointed simply because of their politics, politicians follow the judgements handed down without questioning their validity.
The rather unique "Federal" form of government that has developed from this alliance of independant states has also acted as a stopgap to any attempt to significantly modify the form of government, whether it be by force, or by temporary popular movement.
That is not to say America is perfect. The civil war, was clearly unconstitutional, even though from a point of view of ending slavery, the north were morally justified. Even today, the US seems to have forgotten that "all men" are created equal, and treats non-US citizens as being of less worth than its own. Protesant christianity is a little less separate from the state than any other religion.
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"On Monday, an explosion at a power facility in Toronto reportedly disrupted the Queen's state dinner when it plunged the city into darkness." [BBC]
"Oh, Canada" :(
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I stick to my guns, the US is a superior civilization to Canada's and I for one would not trade places. I've been to Canada many times and it is not a bad place at all. If the US didn't exist, Canada would be a good choice to consider if one had a choice of places to live. Its culture is strongly influenced by its proximity to its culturally far more powerful neighbor to the South. But it is not the USA. It more resembles Europe. When Canada looked like it might break up in the 1980s many Provinces had drawn up petitions for American Statehood. How ironic it would have been that the incorporation into the US it fought off in the war of 1812 would have become the desired goal less than two centuries later. Frankly I think both nations are better off for things being the way they are. If Canadians in some Provinces don't like being ruled by about a dozen others in far off Ottawa, they'd like it even less being governed by about sixty others in further off Washington DC. And they would have to get rid of their currency with the image of the Queen of England on it. All we'd hear would be complaints and how they'd made a mistake and how much better things were for them before. Yes better off for both as two countries instead of one.
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@ 64 powermeerkat -- But America had its revolution too -- when it broke from the British Empire.
It was a revolution and one which involved breaking the oath given to the English King -- one of the greatest evils in God's view by the way -- oath-breaking.
And George Washington was a revolutionary (some would even say, a terrorist, the Osama Bin Laden of the 18th century).
By the way, this is about George Washington by Anna Seward.
Oh Washington! I thought thee great and good,
Nor knew thy Nero-thirst of guiltless blood!
Severe to use the power that fortune gave,
Thou cool determin’d murderer of the brave!
Lost to each fairer virtue, that inspires
The genuine fervour of the patriot fires!
(…)
Remorseless Washington! the day shall come
Of deep repentance for this barb’rous doom!
(…)
Then, when each hope of thine shall set in night,
When dubious dread, and unavailing flight
Impel your host, thy guilt-upbraided soul
Shall wish untouch’d the sacred life you stole!
And when thy heart appall’d, and vanquish’d pride
Shall vainly ask the mercy they deny’d,
With horror shalt thou meet the fate thou gave,
Nor pity gild the darkness of thy grave!
For infamy, with livid hand, shall shed
Eternal mildew on the ruthless head!
By Anna Seward
America the beautiful also had a vicious civil war (i won't go into the causes here) in which they apparently enjoyed killing each other both on the field and off it -- in numerous concentration camps.
That war resulted in about 3 million dead (combined military and civilian) and that is about 10% of the total population (every tenth person) which would now be equivalent to 40 million in the US or to over 100 million in China which means it was far worse the Cultural Revolution.
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To AllenT2, MarcusAureliusII
You are passionate defenders of what you imagine America to be.
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Hilary Clinton discusses human rights and democracy with Saakashvilli and American women don't even make the same salary as men for equal work.
Why does the world accept this unjust rhetoric?
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24. At 06:37am on 06 Jul 2010, Gavrielle_LaPoste wrote:
You're point? That because Sally was somehow related to his late wife that there was something wrong there? I would think the fact that she was a slave at the time and not really free to choose would be of more concern then her lineage.
____________
No, opposite direction.
My vague recollection (guess there's yet another biography I'm going to have to re-read) was that he took her as his second wife in all but name, and it seems doubly ridiculous to me that people would find this somehow scandalous - it was fine to marry the one sister, but not to marry the other.
Just another of the absurdities of slavery.
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50. At 10:27am on 06 Jul 2010, redwards36 wrote:
"As per usual your blinkered zenophobic views make your posts laughable. Its currently not very wise to describe the US as "better off than Canada" Anyone with a remote understanding of world economic affairs can surely recognise that the Canadian economy is probably the strongest in the world. Their currency is the strongest, their banks have the soundest capital base and they have oil and raw materials in abundance."
_____________
Did you really have to write that, and give such a hostage to fortune?
As my mother used to say: "Pride cometh before a fall."
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64. At 12:14pm on 06 Jul 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
"I hate to tell you that, but due to poor geography teaching in American public schools many Americans believe that a territory between Detroit and Aleutians is part of the U.S. as well."
____________
Not to worry. It works both ways.
Lots of Canadians think of I-75, I-95, and everything south of Jacksonville and east of Pensacola as being a southern extension of Canada, particularly between December 1 and March 31.
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41. At 10:00am on 06 Jul 2010, ChrisP wrote:
"... I would like to comment on two points that seem wrong to me.
1. At 00:46am on 06 Jul 2010, LucyJ wrote:
""Abraham Lincoln was also very religious.""
""He read his Bible all the time.""
"This does not seem to be true - I did a little search and found rather different. He sure read his Bible (though I doubt all the time) but he read it as a freethinker not as a Christian. ..."
"He may have been religious but not in the usual meaning - Supreme Court Justice (Contemporary of Lincoln) David Davis: "He [Lincoln] had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term-- he had faith in laws, principles, causes and effects."
____________
I was going to comment on this, too, because it didn't ring true, but I was going to check in some Lincoln biographies first to make sure my recollection was correct. I think ChrisP has it pretty much correct.
It is true that Lincoln had read the bible many times, and had memorized long passages that he could recite by heart. But so, too, he had memorized long passages of Shakespeare and other works.
Lincoln was a voracious reader at a time and in a place where he had extremely limited access to reading materials. He was bone crushingly poor, books were prohibitively expensive, and he lived in a society in which he was mocked for his bookishness - including by his father who considered it indolence. So he devoured every book that came into his hands. It was his step-mother who saw the goodness in it and encouraged him.
Unfortunately, disdain for learning and academic excellence is a recurrent theme in American political history, notwithstanding that technological innovation in industry and philosophical innovation in government are the twin pillars of America's rise to greatness.
In any case, while Lincoln clearly had strong spiritual beliefs, he did not believe in resurrection. To give the impression that he was a bible-toting born-again Christian would be quite misleading.
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72. At 1:38pm on 06 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"Their head of state is still a hereditary Monarch, they still have a recognized aristocricy,"
A purely symbolic role. This is no power with the monarch.
"their upper legislative chamber is sill the House of Lords,"
And the problem is exactly - what ? The US has a senate and congress, after all.
"judges in a court are still referred to as "My Lord","
Nope. They are referred to as "Your Honour". And it makes no difference anyway.
"they still have an elitist society with its clear class distinctions."
Every culture does - even the US.
"in some unspoken way they still see themselves as better than anyone else"
Bizarre. Just bizarre.
"They have not really evolved at all in the sense of how they relate to each other"
Say this to my mother and she'll fall over laughing. You really have no idea have you ?
"we have far surpassed them a long time ago"
You have taken a different route. That's all.
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72. At 1:38pm on 06 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII (and others)
Jingoism never earns respect or friendship.
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Fellow BBC Bloggers.
The U.S. State Department website is so boring. I think there's about 3 bloggers who consistently blog. Can you please also blog on their website so that the discussions improve. Let get some real verbal fireworks started! Thank You.
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15. At 00:45am on 06 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
I think that we are smug in our knowledge that we are not only far better off than we would have been under them, than Canada is for example but that we exist in a society that is far superior to theirs in every way including those which can't be measured and far superior to all of the rest of Europe as well...
------------------------------
You forgot to mention how humble and level headed you people are...
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75. At 1:46pm on 06 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"the US is a superior civilization to Canada's"
You hear that noise in the distance ? That's Canada - laughing ...
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At 2:09pm on 06 Jul 2010, Interestedforeigner
You are quite correct.. I bit and regret it now... As the quote goes "Regardless to how wise you are, when you argue with a fool you always look foolish."
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It is ironic that America's Declaration of Independence was to free itself of a government that placed itself above the laws it imposed on the people and burdened the people with endless taxes.
Here we are with a government that places itself above the laws it imposed on the people and burdens the people with endless taxes.
The tarnishing of the "Founding Fathers" is this decade's ploy to undermine the principles on which this country was founded.
With regard to "Professor Nicholas Boyle", it is evident that any man who takes an initiative and contributes or enables the success of a cause will have their motives second guessed and thus tainted to suit the needs of the examiner. I am interested in the motives and agenda of the professor.
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THvT;
"Seward was the elder daughter of Thomas Seward (1708-1790), prebendary of Lichfield and Salisbury, and author. Born at Eyam in Derbyshire, she passed nearly all her life in Lichfield"
Having been born on the wrong side of history and living a relatively privileged life, it is small wonder Seward would use her talents to attack those who revolted against the authority which conferred her privilege.
The founders of the American nation who revolted against the tyrant King George III and the equally tryannical British Parliament knew that if they were caught they'd be executed. They even joked about it pledging that they would all hang together or they would all surely hang separately.
George Washington is considered by Americans as among the most revered men in our history. A great general who led a ragtag army against the mightiest military force of its day and won (albeit with help from the French) and who was the first President of the United States of America. It was and is said of him that he was; "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
Upon becoming President Washinton was offered a crown as was the custom for rulers of his day to wear but he rejected it. His sage council in his farewell address to avoid entangling alliances with European powers was followed to much benefit to the American nation until that contemptable man Woodrow Wilson engaged America in World War I. Wilson was by far the worst President and curse this nation has ever seen having begun that European entanglement, having helped set the stage for World War II in Europe by participating in the Treaty of Versailles, having created the League of Nations which Congress wisely rejected but which a generation later led a much more foolish Congress to naively adopt the United Nations, a clone of the league, and of having participated in the amendment to prohibit the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages which presented an opportunity for the Sicilian mafia to establish a permanent foothold in American society. No other President made so many terrible blunders with so many egregious consequences for the American nation. It remains to be seen if President Obama will outdo him in that regard. He's definitely on the path of it.
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Re: 74, Part Time Don,
"The US is almost unique in the length of time it has survived as a constitutional democracy. "
That is, "Constitutional Republic". A "democracy" form of government was explicitly avoided because of the historic failings of democracies and the tendency to "vote themselves the monies from the treasury". Unfortunately, the people elected representatives that promise (and now deliver) to the same effect.
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_marko;
"You are passionate defenders of what you imagine America to be."
I can only speak for myself but I merely state the facts about America based on what I know it to be...and what I know of the world beyond America's shores and borders to be...and not to be. There is no question.
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At the moment Canada may be as a whole relatively in better economic condition than the US. Yet it is a fact that many Canadians migrate to the US to live and work there sometimes permantly because the opportunities in the US are far greater and salaries generally better. I was not referring to that when I said that the USA was superior to Canada. There are much more important things than that. For example, like other nations, Canada cannot point to even one Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or countless others who have changed the world the way they did yet there are so many of them who were either born in America or came to America to produce their finest work where they found far more fertile ground than they had where they were born. Nicolai Tesla is one of many examples. Alexander Graham Bell who was I think born Canadian was another. There are many other vast differences as well. Still I'll concede that compared to the rest of the world, Canada's shortcomings are relatively benign.
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America's Independence Spirit is a symbol of FREEDOM. This year was very special, because we celebrate our grand-daughter's birthday. She is three years old. We invited a family in our neighborhood from Iraq. The mother speaks English better then the father. They have two daughters age 10 & 12. The Taliban came to their village and lined up all the men in the street and killed all the brothers except one. The parents and their daughters witness the killings. I saw through her eyes the horror they faced each day. Then on that day, I saw her eyes lit up with the beauty of the environment she was in. I looked over and said, "this is what Freedom means." She knew exactly what I meant. As an American, my heart was filled with sadness, but gratitude that they were here. Her brother went back to Iraq and became very sick due to the air quality in Iraq.
America is the land of the free and home of the brave. Our forefathers were not religious men. They were logical men trying to crave out a new country. I am so thankful to be here. We are the land of immigrants from other nations.
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P417 #71
"Regarding Spanish being spoken in the US:
I find it to be a very strange concept indeed that so many people think that the introduction of a second language, officially or unofficially, would in any way threaten this country. Does anyone think the US is really that weak?"
Look at Canada. Two seperate people's disunited by two different languages, that difference separating their cultures that nearly broke up the country. To unite them English speaking Canada had to learn French. Will English speaking Americans have to learn Spanish just to function in their own suddenly bilingual country? We'd have another revolution here if someone sugested that they would. And then look at Belgium. It is hardly a united country at all, it can barely even pretend that it is a single country these days. American English becoming the official language of the US would help further unite the country and assure the continued assimilation of immigrants. Our own ancestry did it no matter where they came from. Spanish speaking people who come here can do exactly the same and will if we don't make it easy for them to avoid it and still function as full participants in our society. Even President Obama spoke of requiring illegal aliens to learn English before they could qualify to become citizens. Learning English as we speak it seems a reasonable requirement for citizenship to me. It will also prevent alienated enclaves from developing where English speaking Americans feel that they are no longer in their own country. This is not Britain here.
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IF: " Lots of Canadians think of I-75, I-95, and everything south of Jacksonville and east of Pensacola as being a southern extension of Canada, particularly between December 1 and March 31."
And who could possibly blame frozen stiff Canadians for that?
Certainly not us (US). [Thy're more than welcome]
Although I somehow doubt many Canadians are going to visit Louisiana beaches this summer. [shrimp gumbo or no shrimp gumbo]
P.S. Many Cubans seem to think that any territory 90 miles north of their dwellings is a Paradise Lost.
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'My eyes lit on a passage claiming that America's conception of itself can be understood in the desire to disguise what he calls "the darkness beneath Jefferson's cloak". I haven't yet read the whole thing but, as far as I can see, he argues that the defining event in US history was not the American War of Independence but the Civil War and that the darkness was that the American state (like all others) was based on force, not consent.'
I think most people would agree that the Civil War had more to do with shaping modern America than the Revolution. Before the war it was The United States of America are..., after, The United States of America is....
Jefferson is but one of the founding fathers. I admire him, too, but like all the others, if we were to have followed his ideas exclusively, I doubt we'd be here today.
We're a country based on grudging compromise, not force nor consent. The horrors of the Civil War taught us that that is the only way for this country to survive.
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No 72 - MA2 wrote:
'It also doesn't seem to have impacted the British even 234 years later. Their head of state is still a hereditary Monarch, they still have a recognized aristocricy, their upper legislative chamber is sill the House of Lords, judges in a court are still referred to as "My Lord", in short they still have an elitist society with its clear class distinctions. And in some unspoken way they still see themselves as better than anyone else. They have not really evolved at all in the sense of how they relate to each other, to society, and the role of government. Clearly we have far surpassed them a long time ago.'
1) The British Head of State / Monarch has no power - and a fairly consistent 80% of the electorate are happy with retaining a link to their past. If the British wished to remove the Monarch, then there are at least two political parties operating in the UK who would do so if elected. What, then, is the problem with a hereditary monarch, if that is the wish of the population?
2)The recognised aristocracy also has no power, with the exception of the very small number of hereditary peers who still sit in the Lords (which is a chamber with very few powers compared to the Commons, where the democratically elected MPs sit - and the Commons has the power to overrule the Lords at any point). As most of the aristocracy have no money or little power, why does it matter if they retain a title?
3)Your belief that Britain retains clear class distinctions is a myth. There are certainly social distinctions, but these are based on money, not class. In this, Britain is no different to the US.
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I recall hearing on BookTV (C-Span2 on Weekends) that there have been more biographies of Lincoln and more books about Lincoln than of any other American. He provokes endless fascination. While the American Revolution might have been somewhat different were it not for any one of the major participants, Lincoln may have been on the whole the single most important influence on American society in our history. He simply cannot be overestimated in that regard. Evidently there was knowledge of him in his own time in every corner of the world. Even in remote Russia they knew of him and held him in high regard.
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IF: "In any case, while Lincoln clearly had strong spiritual beliefs, he did not believe in resurrection.":
He didn't even believe that Liberia could liberate us.
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KG #84;
"Jingoism never earns respect or friendship."
Call my postings whatever you like, I don't write them to win either. I write them to express a point of view that is seldom heard especially by those outside the United States.
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toothbrush man;
"You hear that noise in the distance ? That's Canada - laughing ..."
And then they get in their cars and head south. They wouldn't even bother to stop at the border if they weren't forced to.
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...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness....
"...T.Jefferson, how can one...not think hypocrite..."
I shall not guess at the rewards you get belittling Jefferson with easy snide comments in a forum like this. I am sure it is gratifying. But as the Prince of Denmark put it, "...use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?" By which I mean, I doubt there is a human being past or present without some taint of hypocrisy, and it does not mean that their various pragmatic accomplishments need be dismissed or devalued. Even hypocrites can accomplish great things. Even dead white guys can be admired for their deeds if not their characters.
Remember Mother Theresa, who intelligently said something to this effect: "Not all of us can do great things, but we cal all do small things with great love." IMHO it were better to contribute some constructive commentary than to take cheap shots from the comfort and safety of the World Wide Web.
Whatever the fate or future of the USA it shall be the fate, future or finish to the world's greatest, most successful experiment in Of/By/For.
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Why does Mark accentuate the negative? Here in the states we just celebrated independence, freedom, liberation and what does Mark talk about: the dark side.
This article is disjointed. He starts off as if he is going to do what his column is supposed to do - tell of his experience in the United States - yet he veers toward the Civil War and Thomas Jefferson. Two things that happened in the distance past.
What is it Mark? Can't stand the thought of a people audacious enough to take on the redcoat machine and win. Becoming the premiere power in the world, surpassing the long gone British Empire, and doing it with intellect, bravery and style.
Your disdain for America is obvious.
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re. #3. At 10:30pm on 05 Jul 2010, ukwales wrote:
"'We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'
The guy who penned the above T.Jefferson, how can one take what he said & not think hypocrite..."
And yet Jefferson's words still have the power to inspire us today as the ideal to which we as a nation should aspire.
No doubt Jefferson knew it was hypocritcal to write that all men were created equal while allowing slavery to continue but the founders needed the the southern colonies or there would have been no independence. Like politicians before and since they effected a compromise to achieve their immediate goal and left the fight for the other issues for another day.
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Nice one Toothbrush man.
"they still have an elitist society with its clear class distinctions."
Whereas George W. and his pappy both just happened to be the best man for the job. I wish I lived in a faultless meritocracy...
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75. At 1:46pm on 06 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"... I've been to Canada many times and it is not a bad place at all. If the US didn't exist, Canada would be a good choice to consider if one had a choice of places to live."
[[There's a left-handed compliment in there somewhere.]]
"When Canada looked like it might break up in the 1980s many Provinces had drawn up petitions for American Statehood."
[[ I think I follow Canadian politics fairly closely, and certainly did at that time, but have never heard of such a thing. Got a citation for that? ]]
"And they would have to get rid of their currency with the image of the Queen of England on it."
[[ By a funny coincidence, some of our currency also has the Queen of Canada on it.
Queen Elizabeth II is the head of state of Canada as of right, quite independently of her status as the head of state of some fifteen other realms and territories.
And a darn good, sturdy, and reliable head of state she is, too.
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What's more, she gave our unctuous, smarmy Prime Minister an ever-so-subtle and diplomatic dressing-down yesterday. She remarked upon how proud she is to be Queen of a country, Canada, with a long history of the protection of civil liberties and social justice.
This is, of course, conspicuously not Stephen Harper's strong suit, and after the security over-kill of the G20 summit, that gently delivered remark had a secondary meaning of admonition in it.
The government must have approved the speech beforehand, but what else could they do? Edit out a compliment on the protection of civil rights? The Harper government has a nasty streak a mile wide, but one thing Stephen Harper will not do is to be disrespectful of the Queen.
God bless and save our good old Queen.]]
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Thomas Jefferson was no doubt an interesting man, but he has been so idealized, and is so far removed from the present time, that it is impossible, I believe, to know what one would think of the actual man, were one to meet him. He was a man of contridictions: primary author of the Declaration of Independence, who owned slaves to the end of his life, and champion of the Bill of Rights, who despised newspapers and refused to read them. Those who worship him invariably cherry-pick from his writings in order to promote their pet cause, without understanding the whole man in the context of his times.
I wonder what Jefferson (and others) would think of how the United States has turned out.
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Elagabalus: "Alexander Graham Bell who was I think born Canadian was another."
Ummmm.... This is getting a bit awkward now. I'm starting to feel pity.
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Burzie01 (#53), you should learn how to make a link to a document instead of posting the whole thing inline.
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36. At 08:55am on 06 Jul 2010, AllenT2 wrote re: gun ownership by liberals:
Oh really? What for?
Same as you. Fun and self-protection. Everywhere we go we hear some crazy conservative screaming about violent revolution and civil war. Besides, I love the smell of cordite in the morning.
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re. #76. At 1:48pm on 06 Jul 2010, Sung Hui v Tsai wrote:
@ 64 powermeerkat -- But America had its revolution too -- when it broke from the British Empire.
"It was a revolution and one which involved breaking the oath given to the English King -- one of the greatest evils in God's view by the way -- oath-breaking.
And George Washington was a revolutionary (some would even say, a terrorist, the Osama Bin Laden of the 18th century)."
1. I have read nothing in history books that suggests all people were forced to take an oath acknowledging George as king, holders of public office perhaps but not ordinary people, so most would not have been guilty of oath breaking. It could also be argued that King George broke his coronation oath by the shabby treatment afforded his subjects in the colonies.
2. Washington was a revolutionary but to call him a terrorist is a gross distortion of the word and the facts. Washington led armies on the battlefield in open combat against the British. His troops did not resort to roadside bombs, asassinations, and snipers hiding amongst the civilian populace. If you want to imply American guerillas were terrorists then you should refer not to Washington but to leaders like Francis Marion, and you probably don't want to look too closely at the methods used by some of His Majesty's forces to attempt to fight the guerillas and suppress the rebellion.
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102. At 4:02pm on 06 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"And then they get in their cars and head south. They wouldn't even bother to stop at the border if they weren't forced to."
And yet Canada is still full of Canadians. Obviously they like living in Canada.
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re. #73. At 1:41pm on 06 Jul 2010, PartTimeDon wrote:
"Even today, the US seems to have forgotten that "all men" are created equal, and treats non-US citizens as being of less worth than its own."
U.S. courts have ruled that the Constitutional rights and protections apply to all persons within the United Stated, not just to U.S. citizens. It has not said the same of the priviliges of citizenship.
Most American don't object to non-citizens; they object to illegal immigration and the policy of self-seeking politicians in our Federal government not to enforce our borders.
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55. At 10:45am on 06 Jul 2010, Sung Hui v Tsai wrote:
"No, no, i mean they can believe anything they want, but it wasn't God that created America (his opposite number maybe)."
It amazes me the hubris of many worshiping at the altar of China's recent "ascent". Essentially all the Chinese government did to achieve this was accept bribes from US and other Western corporations seeking to abuse the Chinese populace for cheap labour, dreadful work conditions and the utter and complete destruction of their environment. The fact that so few of the Chinese people have actually benefitted from this ascent speaks volumes to its sustainability as does the rampant fraud and corruption that has become the hallmark of this "economic miracle" benefitting exclusively the politically connected.
Nonetheless, the point remains that should the US and other Western corporations pull out of China or "just" governments come into power in the West placing appropriate tarrifs on Chinese goods, China would collapse as the house of cards it really is. It is Fortunate for them the greed of our political and corporate leaders in the West is boundless such that the engine of subsistence job creation continues to churn in China, a billows to their bubble. Funny thing is, even now the corporations have determined that the Chinese contribution to their production is not even worth the $1,50/hr in FULLY loaded wages and are rushing to replace their slave labourers with automation wherever possible and with all due haste. How the Chinese are going to deal with rampant unemployment is going to be interesting as subsistence job creation is the only control the government has over the masses of labourers who are sure to revolt. Even more amusing will be the Western corporations who will find their factory tooling and intellectual patents useless as the Chinese have no intention of ever allowing them to claim and relocate their massive investments to the next slave labour host country.
I strongly suggest we are witnessing the early stages of an international collapse of the scope and effect of Rome's fall on Western culture, only this time on a truely global scale.
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79. At 2:05pm on 06 Jul 2010, Interestedforeigner wrote:
My vague recollection (guess there's yet another biography I'm going to have to re-read) was that he took her as his second wife in all but name, and it seems doubly ridiculous to me that people would find this somehow scandalous - it was fine to marry the one sister, but not to marry the other.
Just another of the absurdities of slavery.
And there you have it, he took her. As far as we know she didn't really have a choice in the matter. Assuming she wanted to be with him is the real absurdity. I'm sure in his own way he was a kind and gentle master - to her. Maybe he even tried to please her in bed. But he didn't free her and give her the choice remain as his mistress, so I'm guessing he probably had doubts about how willing she might be to stay. And if he'd wanted to marry her, he certainly could have. There were no laws against marrying a freed slave in most states at that time. Nor against intermarriage. It was only later, when slavery began to be justified in terms of racism by white slave owners in the South to combat the abolitionist movement, that the pernicious poison of racial inequality seeped into the American consciousness and then around the world.
Jefferson's problem, when it came to Sally, was not seeing her as Human. If he'd had the slightest bit of empathy for her as a person, he'd have set her free. But then, in order to have slaves, he couldn't see his victims as human beings. If he had, he wouldn't have been able to live with what he was doing to them.
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The retaining of a monarchy as the head of state and as the head of an official religion, of institutionalized aristocricy, and of a house of Lords as the upper chamber of the British Parliament has more than symbolic signifigance in British society. It is a psychological ediface that confronts every British subject in childhood that serves as a constant reminder of his or her place in society throught their lives. This is what I would find unacceptable. This is where Britain has not evolved. This is what shapes a Brit's view of himself or herself, of the world, of government and the structure of society, and of how things "ought" to be. In this regard it is little changed since Thomas Jefferson penned the words "all men are created equal" which means as we interpret it in the eyes of the law.
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As to this Nicholas Boyle, does anybody really have confidence in a man with a history of penning poets' biographies, seriously has the world gone mad?!
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No 104 - Barbara:
'What is it Mark? Can't stand the thought of a people audacious enough to take on the redcoat machine and win. Becoming the premiere power in the world, surpassing the long gone British Empire, and doing it with intellect, bravery and style.'
I have spent many years in Britain and no British person I have ever met was even slightly bitter about the US Revolution. The vast majority considered it a turning point in the history of the world and the birth of modern democracy.
The writer of this blog has to provide something for people to discuss. That is the point of the BBC's blogs. Why blame Mark for bringing up discussion points, just because you do not like their implications?
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Barbara;
"Why does Mark accentuate the negative? Here in the states we just celebrated independence, freedom, liberation and what does Mark talk about: the dark side."
There is deep in the heart of every European a seething rage at the United States for having evolved so far beyond their societies in every meaningful way that it is undeniable even by them. The more firmly they believe that America has robbed their society of its rightful place at the pinnacle of human civilization the more intense that rage is. It has been long obvious among the French who think they've created paradise on earth. Less clear until recently for the British. I don't think you'll get much similar squawk from those smaller countries such as Slovakia or Bulgaria. They never saw themselves as the rightfully predominant society anyway, not even in a European context.
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Wow - this blog takes a good long while to moderate posts. What on earth are they checking for? Surely swear words could be picked up automatically?
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105. At 4:22pm on 06 Jul 2010, Scott0962 wrote:
No doubt Jefferson knew it was hypocritcal to write that all men were created equal while allowing slavery to continue but the founders needed the the southern colonies or there would have been no independence. Like politicians before and since they effected a compromise to achieve their immediate goal and left the fight for the other issues for another day.
Actually, Jefferson had, supposedly, determined to give up his slaves if, as he expected, slavery were abolished in the creation of the new nation. He was not, according to some sources, being hypocritical when he wrote those words. That slavery remained the law of the land and allowed him to keep his slaves is a different story.
Personally, I have problems with this theory, given a number of comments Jefferson made during his lifetime that sound very racist, but that does not mean that he wasn't willing to deal with the problems freeing all the slaves at one time might have created. Which is why calling someone a hypocrite 200 years after their death without having a personal journal, extensive correspondence or a memoir to refer to, is incredibly problematic. Unfortunately, the custom of the time was to burn personal papers at or around the time of death.
What we do know, is that he freed only five slaves at the time of his death. All Sally Hemings children. Whether or not they were his, I have no idea. And quite frankly don't care. That he waited to free them until after he was dead, rather than allowing them to be free and independent while he was alive is telling enough for me. He considered them property, regardless of their parentage or how well he treated them, and refused to be deprived of their services to him.
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107. At 4:34pm on 06 Jul 2010, Interestedforeigner wrote:
I think I follow Canadian politics fairly closely, and certainly did at that time, but have never heard of such a thing. Got a citation for that?
Actually, I heard something about that too a number of years ago. It concerned Nova Scotia having very quietly approached the US State Department about the possibility of statehood should Quebec secede. I don't know if documents were ever drawn up, but I do trust my source, who worked at State during the time. I think there was a reasonable fear there that secession would lead to more violence, as in a civil war, and American citizenship/protection would be preferable to what might happen given their relative size and proximity to Quebec. As I understand it, Nova Scotia was told that the US would be happy to have them join the fold, if worse came to worst.
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102. At 4:02pm on 06 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"They wouldn't even bother to stop at the border if they weren't forced to."
____________
Quite true.
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Scott0962 (#112): "If you want to imply American guerillas were terrorists then you should refer not to Washington but to leaders like Francis Marion, ..."
I wouldn't apply the term "terrorist" to Marion, either. His guerilla attacks were directed against British armed forces. A terrorist is one who attempts to create terror in the general population by acts of violence which injure or kill random members of the population, without regard to whether they are combatants or not. Marion did not do this.
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re. 111. Gavrielle_LaPoste:
Besides, I love the smell of cordite in the morning.
Pop off a few rounds with the morning coffee, do you?
Personally I think the whole right wing obsession with firearms is ridiculous. At one point after the Kent State shootings I took up target shooting because I figured if the government was going to shoot at students, the students should learn how to shoot back. After a while I realized that there was no way a bunch of loony college radicals was ever going to defeat the US military. So I never actually bought a firearm and eventually gave up target shooting. But the same is true for the right wing. Do any of them seriously think they can take on the 101st Airborne with their deer rifles? They're just as delusional as the 60s radicals.
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IF;
"What's more, she gave our unctuous, smarmy Prime Minister an ever-so-subtle and diplomatic dressing-down yesterday. She remarked upon how proud she is to be Queen of a country, Canada, with a long history of the protection of civil liberties and social justice."
Can you imagine what the reply to the Queen would have been had the PM been a French Quebecois? I'll bet that would have made the evening news...if it wasn't censored for profanity :-) That alone would be reason enough for Quebec to secede. Even I'd support them on that. Queen of Canada. Unbelievable.
No, I have no articles about what happened in the early 1980s regarding the possible secession of Quebec and the talk of it in two other Provinces when those Canadians call aborigines were also very angry. But I did take note and was surprised at talk of petition for statehood. If Canada ever broke up, I'm afraid eventually we'd be stuck with all of them. Kind of like relatives who've become homeless waifs needing someone to take them in :-)
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Dan Law (#118): "As to this Nicholas Boyle, does anybody really have confidence in a man with a history of penning poets' biographies, ..."
Why should an interest in Goethe detract from someone's credibility as a writer? As for his futurist writing, Mr. Mardell wrote that "it promises to be provocative stuff." Boyle is a professor. Professors are paid to provoke thought. It need not be assumed that he is gifted with clairvoyance, merely that he has some worthwhile insights from a lifetime of study of history. You don't need to believe that every word he writes is gospel in order to think his book worth reading.
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103. At 4:06pm on 06 Jul 2010, The_McCann wrote:
...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness....
"...T.Jefferson, how can one...not think hypocrite..."
I shall not guess at the rewards you get belittling Jefferson with easy snide comments in a forum like this. I am sure it is gratifying. But as the Prince of Denmark put it, "...use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?" By which I mean, I doubt there is a human being past or present without some taint of hypocrisy, and it does not mean that their various pragmatic accomplishments need be dismissed or devalued. Even hypocrites can accomplish great things. Even dead white guys can be admired for their deeds if not their characters.
Remember Mother Theresa, who intelligently said something to this effect: "Not all of us can do great things, but we cal all do small things with great love." IMHO it were better to contribute some constructive commentary than to take cheap shots from the comfort and safety of the World Wide Web.
Whatever the fate or future of the USA it shall be the fate, future or finish to the world's greatest, most successful experiment in Of/By/For.
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John Adams was of such a caliber & integrity that I can under stand why
Americans joined the revolution under his honesty & for-site.A great man.
Like wise,Washington,he lost most battles yet won the war.A great man.
Jefferson,was Machiavellian, duplicitous even treacherous toward Adams,
Its not gratifying to take a pop at such a hypocrite its so easy.
B.T.W,I wonder what kind of a hold Jefferson had on poor Sally, seemingly
quite a good one!!& what on earth did he have against her??,I think I better stop...
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IF, I think about 90% of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of their Southern border. I guess they like to huddle there in the winter to absorb some of the warmth :0)
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#127 IF and MAII:
While vacationing on Vancouver Island in the early 90's (a fishing trip), I met a couple from Calgary who were staying at the same B&B who said they belonged to a group that wanted Alberta to petition the US for statehood. It sounded like a fair number of people belonged, but I don't know how many. Obviously, nothing ever came of it.
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129. At 7:15pm on 06 Jul 2010, ukwales
That ending was funny. Like vaudeville ...
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I think that readers should understand the Declaration of Independence was a setting of goals and not a reality. "Wouldn't it be nice if." Certainly, like all nations, the founding ideals have become corrupted by wealth and power. It is historical cycles that reinforce the basic greed of human beings and their ability to rationalize poltical corruption. All nations die from within first and the US is certainly corrupt and probably beyond salvation. It is not about the people as most people everywhere are decent folks trying to make it in the world. It is about consolidated power and wealth and the uncaring nature of those who have it. They are always the last to realize that the revolution is brewing. The polticians work for the bankers and investors and that is the formula for for social unrest. The nation state is already dead and the reality is the corporate state. Things will change, as they always do.
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UKWALES
You are definitely not a nice person, but you're not alone. You are the kind of person I would have nothing to do with.
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127. At 6:47pm on 06 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"Can you imagine what the reply to the Queen would have been had the PM been a French Quebecois?"
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Well, interestingly the last two Francophone Prime Ministers seem to have gotten on rather well with the Queen. (Her French, by the way, is meticulous.) In 2009 the Queen named the last one, Jean Chretien, to the Order of Merit, which is a very special gift, and one of the few still within the personal prerogative of the Sovereign. She must be very fond of him, indeed.
This is a guy, by the way, well known for his endearing ability to be incomprehensible in both official languages.
I might also point out that the Queen enjoys rather significantly higher popularity than any of our current political leaders.
_______________
"Queen of Canada. Unbelievable."
Envy does not become you, Marcus.
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#129 ukwales wrote:
"Jefferson,was Machiavellian, duplicitous even treacherous toward Adams,
Its not gratifying to take a pop at such a hypocrite its so easy.
B.T.W,I wonder what kind of a hold Jefferson had on poor Sally, seemingly
quite a good one!!& what on earth did he have against her??,I think I better stop... "
Yes, Jefferson was a complex man. Like so many southern planters, he was perpetually in debt to english merchants, and routinely spent beyond his means. I won't argue the hypocrite comment except to say people, including englishmen, felt differently about race 230 years ago.
As to the hold he had on Sally Hemmings, he owned her. I believe he was good for her and provided for her as best he could after his death.
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130. At 7:31pm on 06 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"IF, I think about 90% of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of their Southern border. I guess they like to huddle there in the winter to absorb some of the warmth :0)"
____________
True.
But we've been slowly buying up Florida for decades, and recently we have started buying up Arizona, so maybe eventually more than 10% of us will live more than 100 miles from the border.
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"128. At 6:59pm on 06 Jul 2010, GH1618 wrote:
Dan Law (#118): "As to this Nicholas Boyle, does anybody really have confidence in a man with a history of penning poets' biographies, ..."
Why should an interest in Goethe detract from someone's credibility as a writer?"
I love Goethe as I do many of the great German authors. Moreover, I do not dismiss his expertise in the arena of literature. However, using one's legitimacy in penning biographies to promote a treatise on governments and the economy are specious at best. Frankly, employing his logic, I should publish an apocalyptic book on string theory and have the "intelligentsia" promoting it in an otherwise respected international forum - especially if the work was intended to insight public panic at impending doom. The point being Mr. Boyle needs to address his moral compass and allow those with expertise to address this subject matter. Shame on you Mr. Mandell for ever raising this ugly spectre; especially with other sources of far greater merit available to reinforce whatever view you are espousing.
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#137 IF:
You own fair portions of Washington state, just south of Vancouver, as well.
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lochraven (#134): "... You (ukWales) are the kind of person I would have nothing to do with."
Don't you see the contradiction? By posting this to him, you have already had something to do with him.
I think ukWales would be good company to drink UK ales with, myself.
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So who should decide whether an author has sufficient expertise to publish a book on a particular subject? (See post #138.) Should they all be submitted to Dan Law for approval? Does he have sufficient time (and expertise!) to process all these proposed books?
I don't know where Dan Law is from, but in the U. S. we do not believe in prior restraints on publishing, we believe the marketplace of ideas will sort out the good from the bad.
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MA2 writes:
"The retaining of a monarchy as the head of state and as the head of an official religion, of institutionalized aristocricy, and of a house of Lords as the upper chamber of the British Parliament has more than symbolic signifigance in British society. It is a psychological ediface that confronts every British subject in childhood that serves as a constant reminder of his or her place in society throught their lives. This is what I would find unacceptable. This is where Britain has not evolved. This is what shapes a Brit's view of himself or herself, of the world, of government and the structure of society, and of how things "ought" to be. In this regard it is little changed since Thomas Jefferson penned the words "all men are created equal" which means as we interpret it in the eyes of the law."
I disagree entirely. The British view their Queen and nobility as historical curiosities, nothing more. That much is obvious from discussing the matter with them. They are a people who love their freedom and equality as much as any in the US.
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IF, the joke is on you Canadians. When you own all of Florida...it's going under water. You can probably get the entire population of Canada to fit in Arizona, all 30 million of them if developers have a free hand. Would the last one to leave Canada please turn out the lights.
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ghost, you seem to have completely missed the point of the Declaration of Independence. It is exactly what its title says it is, a justification for political separation of the American colonies from the British crown through armed rebellion. Nothing more and nothing less.
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This is Jefferson:
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
All still relevant today.
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139. At 9:13pm on 06 Jul 2010, d_m wrote:
#137 IF:
You own fair portions of Washington state, just south of Vancouver, as well.
____________
But most of those purchases are still within 100 miles of the border.
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This is Jefferson too:
* "I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." Thomas Jefferson
* "Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies." Thomas Jefferson.
***
“One passage in the paper you enclosed me must be corrected. It is the following, “And all say it was yourself more than any other individual that planned and established it, “i.e., the Constitution. I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned, and never saw it till after it was established.”
–Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Joseph Priestly on June 19, 1802.
And this was said by Lincoln:
THE WORDS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
IN A SPEECH IN CINCINNATI OHIO SEPT 17, 1859
There is a physical difference between the white and black races which, I believe, will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality! And, inasmuch as they cannot so live while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position, the Negroes should be denied everything!
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No 104 - Barbara:
'What is it Mark? Can't stand the thought of a people audacious enough to take on the redcoat machine and win. Becoming the premiere power in the world, surpassing the long gone British Empire, and doing it with intellect, bravery and style.'
Why is the empire only ever mentioned by Americans and Australians? The empire never occupies my thoughts until some 'outraged from Alabama' tries to use it to make some fatuous point.
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123. At 6:08pm on 06 Jul 2010, Gavrielle_LaPoste wrote:
"Actually, I heard something about that too a number of years ago. It concerned Nova Scotia having very quietly approached the US State Department about the possibility of statehood should Quebec secede. I don't know if documents were ever drawn up, but I do trust my source, who worked at State during the time. ... As I understand it, Nova Scotia was told that the US would be happy to have them join the fold, if worse came to worst."
____________
Well, if news of that kind of feckless mewling had come out in the press it would have ended the careers of the politicians involved.
How is it that so many invertebrates manage to win election?
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Post #145 is an excellent example of the "cherry-picking" of Jefferson's quotations (mostly from his early years) to which I referred in my post #108 in this thread.
Jefferson also wrote such things as this, late in life:
"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the Ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead."
(from: http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/biog/lj34.htm)
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Jefferson also wrote this:
"Each generation is as independent as the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before. It has, then, like them a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness; consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances in which it finds itself that received from its predecessors; ..."
(from the same document linked in post #150)
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re.123. Gavrielle_LaPoste:
107. At 4:34pm on 06 Jul 2010, Interestedforeigner wrote:
I think I follow Canadian politics fairly closely, and certainly did at that time, but have never heard of such a thing. Got a citation for that?
Actually, I heard something about that too a number of years ago.
I have a vague memory of that, too, but it might have only been speculation in the US about it. The Maritime Provinces would have been in an untenable position if an independent Quebec separated them from the rest of Canada.
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re. 141. GH1618:
I don't know where Dan Law is from, but in the U. S. we do not believe in prior restraints on publishing, we believe the marketplace of ideas will sort out the good from the bad.
That's what remainder tables on the sidewalks in front of bookstores are for.
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126. At 6:21pm on 06 Jul 2010, timohio wrote:
Pop off a few rounds with the morning coffee, do you?
With my second cup. Not the first. That one's sacred and deserves my complete attention, and a cigarette.
Joking aside, I really do like the smell of cordite. I expect I was a soldier in a previous life. Probably accounts for my side interest in military history.
Do any of them seriously think they can take on the 101st Airborne with their deer rifles? They're just as delusional as the 60s radicals.
An excellent point, though I think some of them are packing heavier fire power than a 30-30.
I actually had a similar conversation with some family and friends who are in the military. We were discussing the Civil War and someone wondered how Southern military officers could switch sides to fight for their "country" rather than remain with their comrades in the Union. Someone else mentioned that a sufficient number average Americans, not the wacko militias or their conservative supporters, would have to rise up in arms first, before the military would ever join a popular insurrection in this day and age. Being the only civilian in the room, I pointed out that no sane American, I don't care how well armed, is going to "rise up" if they don't have military backing in the first place. Sane means knowing that we long ago lost the ability to go up against our own military and win more than a skirmish. And then we'd have to catch them off guard, asleep, or watching South Park, and have them totally outnumbered.
Interestingly enough, they'd never considered that we, the (sane) people, would ever believe that the military could be turned against us. Until I reminded them that some people in favor of a unitary executive believe the President has unlimited powers in war time, and that there was a push to authorize the Army, as opposed to local law enforcement, to arrest suspected terrorists in a Buffalo suburb back in 2001. Thankfully, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was not violated, but several years later, about a year before the last presidential election, at least one unit (in Michigan, I believe) was tasked with the duty of putting down civil insurrections if they should arise. Would they have done it? I don't know. I hope not.
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#149 Interestedforeigner:
Yes, within commuting distance of Vancouver in fact. Great for our local tax base. Except for a few farms, the very northwest corner of the state is pretty much Canadian.
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re. 140. GH1618:
I think ukWales would be good company to drink UK ales with, myself.
Actually, there are quite a number of people here who would be good company to share a drink with, and not just the ones with whom I agree. A friendly argument over a beer on a summer evening is time well spent.
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#151 GH1618:
He also said something about not being ruled by the dead hand of the past. His similar views are often used as arguments to support the notion of a living constitution.
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149. At 10:48pm on 06 Jul 2010, Interestedforeigner wrote:
Well, if news of that kind of feckless mewling had come out in the press it would have ended the careers of the politicians involved.
Maybe. Or maybe not. Things were very tense back then, and not everyone believed there would be a positive outcome. It would have been up to the people of Nova Scotia to vote for statehood, anyway, if it was proposed as a last resort. Given their close relationship and economic ties with Maine, it's possible they might have voted Yes. On the other hand, descendants of the Acadians might have voted No in hopes of being joined with Quebec.
How is it that so many invertebrates manage to win election?
Because they can twist any way to currents move them.
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134. At 8:48pm on 06 Jul 2010, lochraven wrote:
UKWALES
You are definitely not a nice person, but you're not alone. You are the kind of person I would have nothing to do with.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Dear lochraven,I apologize if I have offended,this is a forum in witch topics are aired & some times go against what we hold dear.My impression
of Jefferson has been formed by reading many different accounts by many
different authors mostly American authors.I will concede that he,like all
the founding farther`s were very brave men to have set out on that course of action.If my humor is slightly on the bawdy & that has offended please forgive me,I am British after all,but will willingly tone it down.I do hope that in the event of me posting,some thing that may be of interest, you will have some thing to say back,so that I can ponder & may be change my position in the light of.Andy Post on 145 is a very good way to change one with fixed positions,but its not what Jefferson said,its what he did.
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150 & 151, GH1618:
Ok, so what? I don't see any inherent contradiction.
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154. At 11:05pm on 06 Jul 2010, Gavrielle_LaPoste wrote:
"Thankfully, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was not violated, but several years later, about a year before the last presidential election, at least one unit (in Michigan, I believe) was tasked with the duty of putting down civil insurrections if they should arise. Would they have done it? I don't know. I hope not."
A U.S. Army unit? Highly doubtful.
If the unit were under the command of the Governor, though, very likely and, yes, they would have put down an insurrection if so ordered. It's happened many times in our history. I've actually been present for one (L.A. '92).
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Ref. 159 ukwales:
"[I]t's not what Jefferson said,its what he did."
Excellent! That is the issue, and that was my point. It's all about what he said, and not about his actions. I've noticed that misconception from a number of Brits on this board. They tend to see the founding fathers as role models. Americans celebrate them as people who did one particular job and did it really well.
While we all know about Washington admitting to the cherry tree crime, his fabulous arm (the Potomac must be half a mile wide), and that he looked great on the prow of a boat, there are very few anecdotes surrounding the rest of the framers. The U.S. is not the product of a personality cult. They never led by example. A good thing, too, because some of them couldn't have if they had wanted to.
As people, they were an enigmatic bunch, inconsistent for sure (they routinely changed their minds on major issues), but that doesn't matter. The founding fathers made the first arguments in a debate that continues to this day -- even on a British blog for heavens sake! The arguments they made stand on their own. We celebrate them for their ideas, not for who they were.*
Now, do you disagree with Jefferson? I'm game to take up the debate!
___________________________
* Nor for what they did or said after the fact.
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152 Tim
158 Gavrielle
Oh, there was a lot of over-excited crazy talk in those days. A fair bit of it was taken far too seriously. When people calmed down, they all sort of tended to find it convenient to forget how much silliness had gone on.
Even at the time, though, for any politician here to have been found to have been so wishy-washy as seriously to have considered throwing in the towel, let alone applying for entry into the Union (are ye panicked so easily as that?), would have had him (or much less likely, her) laughed out of office in disgrace.
The second referendum, though, was a pretty near run thing, with the Pequistes trying to have valid ballots excluded and so on.
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We do love our freedom and most of us do not share Boyle's desire for a one-world order which would allow some court assembled in another continent thousands of miles away to take away the rights which have been bought with American blood. As for Jefferson, I can't think of anyone (with the exception of full-blown liberals)who would consider him to have been a "saint." Until the last 50 or so years, we were taught that George Washington was the father of our country--not Jefferson. We were also required to memorize Jefferson's preamble to the Declaration of Independence and still consider it stirring. Each of our founding fathers played an important part and as they so rightly put it, "Providence" (the Almighty God)was the hand that put them all together. That's why most of us love and know by heart the lyrics of "God Bless America."
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I stand by my statement that Abraham Lincoln was a religious man and he took many of his morals and values from the Bible, as he often turned to it in times of despair. Yes, he grew up poor, but that was what made him so wise and so humble. Yes, he read many other books as well and loved Shakespeare. He also loved to debate and debate and debate. The Lincoln Museum in Springfield is awesome. One of the craziest things are all the cartoons that people drew of Lincoln during his years as President. Let's just say, they weren't all so friendly. People were hard-core back in the day. They really let you know how they felt.
Being from Illinois, we learned about Lincoln from Kindergarden through Senior Year. There is no bigger hero in Illinois than Lincoln.
To the person who asked if I have been anywhere else, yes, as a child, I have traveled to Canada and Mexico on family vacations. Canada was great fun and Mexico was also fun, although you have to be careful about what you consume there. I have traveled all across USA, although I have not been in every state. The most beautiful place I have ever been to is Hawaii. I have never seen anything so breathtaking. Hawaii truly is amazing and phenomenal. To this day, Hawaii still is my favorite place in the world, besides Illinois. Someday I may travel to foreign places, but as of now, I am not too worried. Everyone is different. What matters to one person may not matter to another person. For me, there is no greater place on Earth than Illinois.
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I read the review of professor Boyle’s book from the Telegraph, and BluesBerry’s description at number 1. Each time I got closer to the professor’s text I felt a little better about his suggestion that we need more international cooperation and more international organizations. I feel better, but still fearful.
It seems to me that the financial collapse of the last three years is as much a result of our connectedness around the world as it is of the lack of regulation of local irresponsibility. No one in authority foresaw it, and no one knew how to make an adequate, preventative response. The nations of the world are generally still struggling to deal with it – and the voices of authority seem to be saying that policies that will work in one place will be ruinous somewhere else.
From my perch on the outside, Europe ’s attempts at unification have had very mixed results – Politically the EU struggles to demonstrate it represents the interests of the smaller states and the many citizens. The Eurozone seems to be surprised that rich and poor states find themselves on very different economic playing fields, and hasn’t yet found a plan to preserve the balance.
Here in the United States our recent efforts to centralize health care, educational standards, control over petroleum drilling and environmental policy, for example, show that is nearly impossible to reach a consensus let alone apply a policy ‘universally’. Special interests dominate discussions, local interests are either abused in one place or are imposed where they not wanted, regulations are watered down by weak enforcement or controlled by the subject industries, and the interests of many individuals are overruled for the sake of goals that seem to have neither relevance nor benefit to the people on whom they are imposed.
A friend who was a procurator under the old Soviet system gave me the following illustration of this principle. He was very proud of the six-story block he lived in, one of many strung a cross the center of his city. He told me that the whole building was heated as a unit – but that the decision of the dates on which the heat was turned on in the fall, and off in the spring, was made for them in Moscow 2000 km away – on the basis of the availability of heating oil and independent of actual weather conditions. He had several other examples of the failure of central planning to address or even acknowledge realities on the local level (which, at least here, is where the people live).
I explained to him that if a million people here have a problem, a thousand clever people are trying to work out a solution. A hundred of them get patents, and a dozen products reach the market. These are tried by the people with the problem, each in their own local situation, and those solutions that work in one locality or another become available to meet local needs.
Centralized systems cannot possibly manage all the data needed to understand and address conditions in every place. But local people who recognize a need or an opportunity can also find the solution or solutions that will work for their conditions, economics, abilities, even their culture. They have direct access to the facts. This works for any social unit, from the individual to the family, to the block, neighborhood, city, state, nation, even region.
Cooperation is a necessity to meet common needs. Access to new ideas and proven processes enhances all these efforts, as does assistance from outside where there is a larger interest at play. Nations should relate to and cooperate with nations, industries should have standards by which they are judged which reflect the understanding that good performance means better outcomes for everyone effected. But top-down control and administration have been shown again and again to be more or less blind to their consequences for many of those affected.
More and more here we are saying “All solutions are local”, as we have said for decades “All politics are local".
KScurmudgeon
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Has anyone asked what, specifically, was the intended role of Thos. Jefferson in this discussion?
Might help.
KScurmudgeon
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My father was in the military in the 70's, stationed in Germany, so he and my mother lived there for several years and traveled around Europe.
They loved it. Absolutely loved it. There are gazillions of pictures they took all across Europe, each with their own stories. Of course, this was also when they were young and going wild. So that could have to do with it, too, but they really did love the experience of Europe in the 70's. This is one of the reasons why I like Europe.
Europe is likely very different now, so I know those pictures are frozen in the time period and that the new Europe is made up of more immigrants.
My parents absolutely loved Germany, though. Germany was, by far, their favorite. The Germans treated them very well, including making them rabbit stew and sausage soups and such. My parents still send Christmas cards to their German friends and they send cards back, all in German, which are sometimes translated by foreign exchange students.
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@#12 “…But could an American Civil War happen again?
Absolutely.”
I reluctantly and sadly agree with this statement, but I disagree with the reasons given.
It is the work of the zealots, tearing the country apart socially and politically. There are zealots on both sides, but the worst and most intolerant are the right wingers.
They promote distrust, or even hatred of other Americans [non-white, non-Christian, non-American English speaking, non-heterosexual, liberal (i.e. non-conservative) and non-GOP].
I did not particularly favour gay marriage, but when red state zealots descended on Boston to propagandise and proselytise against it and interfere in OUR laws and culture, not a few Bay Staters were offended by THEM. I now support it, their propaganda against it having been so wrong.
The poisonous atmosphere and mutual intolerance is very similar to that preceding the Civil War. Once again it is the Grey/Red states on the wrong side of history, seeking to discriminate against non-straight WASPS and enslave the minds of those without the same narrow prejudices.
God save the United States of America!
21. At 06:07am on 06 Jul 2010, AllenT2 wrote:
“…The UN selects countries like Cuba to be in its Human Rights Council. I think that is all that needs to be said about that joke of an organization.”
I agree that that is a disgrace, and how anybody can trust an organization so corrupt or so warped as to do that is beyond me.
I would like to believe that the UN is a good idea gone bad because flawed in its conception. That could be said about the US, too, the proof being the Civil War resulting from the flaw.
Perhaps new Governing Organization of Democratic States, would be the answer. Countries wanting to join would have to be democracies and remain so or be suspended [and no “social promotions” for friendly but non-democratic regimes].
45. At 10:16am on 06 Jul 2010, ukwales wrote:
“John Adams,defended the red coats in court accused of the Boston Massacre calling the folk taunting them a "Mob".A truly great man.
Thomas Jefferson,if he had married Sally Hemings against the prejudges
of the time,he would have a truly,truly great man.Any way,as some one who
courted the favor of the French proves he can not have been all good..;).”
Agreed. Moreover, some of the people here who idolize Jefferson and try to prove that the founding fathers intended to make a “Christian Nation,” would be utterly horrified if they read the “Jefferson Bible.”
His editorial idea was to remove the superstitions and nonsense. It is quite a bit shorter than the unexpurgated versions.
58. At 11:27am on 06 Jul 2010, sean56z wrote
an alternative history from another dimension. I like SciFi and alternate histories myself, but I would not post them as reality. Make it longer, have the Red army received by cheering Poles, Czechs and others as they bring liberal democracy and human rights to oppressed Europe. You might be able to sell it.
76. At 1:48pm on 06 Jul 2010, Sung Hui v Tsai wrote:
“That war resulted in about 3 million dead (combined military and civilian) and that is about 10% of the total population (every tenth person) which would now be equivalent to 40 million in the US or to over 100 million in China which means it was far worse the Cultural Revolution.”
This is an interesting comparison, but it was a civil war between opposed claims to national sovereignty, so you really should add the casualties, death and destruction of the “Kong san dang vs Guo min dang” civil war to the purely political one you mentioned.
Jai jen.
90. At 3:28pm on 06 Jul 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
“George Washington is considered by Americans as among the most revered men in our history. A great general who led a ragtag army against the mightiest military force of its day and won (albeit with help from the French) and who was the first President of the United States of America. It was and is said of him that he was; ‘first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.’"
However, he is remembered by Hotinosoni [the Iroquois] as “the Burner of Villages.” And his reputation has had its ups and downs; during his first term he was criticized for his monarchical ways.
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re. 161. Andy Post:
154. At 11:05pm on 06 Jul 2010, Gavrielle_LaPoste wrote:
...at least one unit (in Michigan, I believe) was tasked with the duty of putting down civil insurrections if they should arise. Would they have done it? I don't know. I hope not."
A U.S. Army unit? Highly doubtful.
I grew up in Detroit where, in 1967, a detachment from (I believe) the 82nd Airborne was given the task of putting down an armed insurrection. The Michigan National Guard had been called in earlier but they couldn't stop it. By the time it was over, I believe 40 people had been killed. I was 15 at the time and could smell the smoke from the burning buildings when I went outside my house. There were flights of Hueys overhead taking troops from the air base north of Detroit into the city. I don't think Detroit ever really recovered from that.
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165. At 01:24am on 07 Jul 2010, LucyJ wrote:
"I stand by my statement that Abraham Lincoln was a religious man and he took many of his morals and values from the Bible, as he often turned to it in times of despair. Yes, he grew up poor, but that was what made him so wise and so humble. Yes, he read many other books as well and loved Shakespeare."
___________
All of this is true.
He was a profoundly moral man.
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163 Interestedforeigner
It was a strange time, even here, watching from the sidelines. Luckily, it all worked out for the best. It wouldn't have been quite the same taking the ferry to Nova Scotia from Bar Harbor for a day of shopping and fun, if it were just another state in the union. Sad to say though, that ferry no longer runs. Cost cutting on the Canadian side, you know.
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166. At 01:32am on 07 Jul 2010, KScurmudgeon wrote:
"I explained to him that if a million people here have a problem, a thousand clever people are trying to work out a solution. A hundred of them get patents, and a dozen products reach the market. These are tried by the people with the problem, each in their own local situation, and those solutions that work in one locality or another become available to meet local needs."
___________
Ain't that the truth.
That is the great and wonderful genius of America.
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re. 154. Gavrielle_LaPoste:
We were discussing the Civil War and someone wondered how Southern military officers could switch sides to fight for their "country" rather than remain with their comrades in the Union.
As your quotation marks indicate you already know, the Southern officer class had a very different concept of their country that most Americans, even Southerners, have today. Robert E. Lee really did think of Virginia as his country. And in a time before the Interstate and air travel, even in the North the average person's experience of the US would have been essentially local. Even military units were raised locally throughout the Civil War. If you look at the casualty lists from Iraq and Afghanistan on PBS, you see soldiers from all over the US, serving together and not in separate units. And remember that for an army to be an effective fighting force, it has to operate in units that have trained together. You can't throw a bunch of people together ad hoc and expect them to be as effective as if they were a cohesive unit. I think it would be very hard to convince any unit of the US military to go against their civilian government in sufficient numbers to actually make it work.
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#167 KScurmudgeon:
"Has anyone asked what, specifically, was the intended role of Thos. Jefferson in this discussion?"
I think it all started after the following post (3) and just sort of grew organically.
3. At 10:30pm on 05 Jul 2010, ukwales wrote:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
The guy who penned the above T.Jefferson, how can one take what he said & not think hypocrite...
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Ignorance, intolerance and bigotry are unlovely separately, but are most unbecoming when exhibited by the same person. And when such persons join together and rage against the educated and civilized members of the community [whether or not while wearing brown shirts] it bodes ill for everyone.
God save the United States of America [from them]!
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re. 163. Interestedforeigner:
If I'm remembering the US commentary on the situation correctly, independence would in the short run have been a disaster for Quebec. I don't think they had much of an industrial base at that time. Do they now? I think the predictions were that they would quickly have become an impoverished new country. Ontario on the other hand, could probably do nicely on its own.
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KScurmudgeon (#167): "Has anyone asked what, specifically, was the intended role of Thos. Jefferson in this discussion?"
I don't know what you mean by "role," but Mr. Mardell introduced Thomas Jefferson into the discussion at the very top of this thread.
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Andresmalo
Best post ever. Keep it going.
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re. 162. Andy Post:
Ref. 159 ukwales:
Jefferson lived a long life spent largely in politics and government, wrote extensively, and his ideas changed as he moved through life. And because he wrote so well he is eminently quotable, no matter what he wrote. So on any issue, no matter what your point of view you can probably find a quote by Thomas Jefferson to support it. And that quote will be as beautifully written as the Declaration of Independence.
I'm a gardener and I love his statement that he was an old man but a young gardener. I love it in spite of knowing that he probably never stuck a shovel in the dirt himself; he had slaves for that sort of thing. It's still a beautiful statement that sums up gardening.
And I don't think you can ignore that the most important things in Thomas Jefferson's life were probably Thomas Jefferson and his comforts. That explains a lot of his inconsistencies.
As Walt Whitman wrote much later, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
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169. At 02:27am on 07 Jul 2010, JMM wrote:
'However, he [Washington] is remembered by Hotinosoni [the Iroquois] as “the Burner of Villages.” And his reputation has had its ups and downs; during his first term he was criticized for his monarchical ways.'
It was inevitable that our first president would be accused of monarchical ways. Even though he refused a crown, wore a plain brown suit for his inauguration, resolutely left office after two terms, and refused any title beyond 'Mr. President'. People who did not understand the office, and many who had an axe to grind against the man, would naturally accuse him of the thing that was most loathed by the public.
Just as our first Black president is being accused of racism, of socialism, communism, of not being a real American citizen, of intending to make America into another European state, of selling out our pride and dignity by actually talking to our enemies and calling a spade just what it is.
Bad form is easy to spot. Discourtesy is its first evidence.
KScurmudgeon
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The ultraliberals are out of control! Ultraliberal, yet they desire big govt. to take away all the states' rights and have total domination over the people.
God please save us from the ultraliberals!!!
There is no greater destruction than people with no morals or values.
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174. At 02:45am on 07 Jul 2010, timohio wrote:
As your quotation marks indicate you already know, the Southern officer class had a very different concept of their country that most Americans, even Southerners, have today. Robert E. Lee really did think of Virginia as his country. And in a time before the Interstate and air travel, even in the North the average person's experience of the US would have been essentially local. Even military units were raised locally throughout the Civil War. If you look at the casualty lists from Iraq and Afghanistan on PBS, you see soldiers from all over the US, serving together and not in separate units. And remember that for an army to be an effective fighting force, it has to operate in units that have trained together. You can't throw a bunch of people together ad hoc and expect them to be as effective as if they were a cohesive unit.
Yes, I do know all of that. But before the war between the states our professional military, officers and soldiers alike from the various states, did indeed serve together in many places around the country that would have been foreign to most of them. It's true there was no interstate highway system, but Grant met Lee when they both served in California, having arrived by ship. Tecumseh Sherman, who was, as you will know, from Ohio just as Grant was, also spent time in California and during his military career traveled extensively in the South, including serving in Florida. Their careers prior to the war were not very different from most military men of the time. Northerners often served in the South, Southerners served in the North, and both served in the territories out West.
So we can't really assume that a lack of modern travel conveniences led to a skewered sense of loyalty in the military class. Especially since there were many other Southern officers who stayed and served in the Union ranks for the duration. I think we really need to look, not merely at the character and personal experiences of the men who decided to go over to the Confederate side, but at their economic status as well as their views on slavery. As a slave owner, Lee had a lot to lose if he stayed with the Union. And I don't doubt that he foresaw that a protracted war with the North would result in economic disaster for the South. Of course, his own economic disaster was assured when his plantation became our most important national cemetery. But I suspect he thought he could run Lincoln and the rest of the Federal government out of Washington and up to New York or Philadelphia, where most of the South figured it belonged.
When it came to enlistees and draftees on both sides at the start of the war and later during it, well that is indeed a different story. But the subject of the discussion that I mentioned was the officer class. Who, for the most part, had all trained, at one time or another, at West Point. And were therefore more inclined to see their nation as more than just a group of loosely connected nation-states. It was the breaking of that comradeship, created by the shared bond of serving together, that the modern officers found hard to accept.
I think it would be very hard to convince any unit of the US military to go against their civilian government in sufficient numbers to actually make it work.
I tend to agree. Unless a very large majority, which included most military families, were suddenly in rebellion. I imagine the slow whittling away of our rights and the creep of a fascist oligarchy is more likely to win the day without a single shot being fired by anybody.
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@ LucyJ
Glen Beck is calling for you. Your meds are ready.
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178. At 03:05am on 07 Jul 2010, GH1618 wrote:
KScurmudgeon (#167): "Has anyone asked what, specifically, was the intended role of Thos. Jefferson in this discussion?"
I don't know what you mean by "role," but Mr. Mardell introduced Thomas Jefferson into the discussion at the very top of this thread.
___________________________
Since you kindly directed me back to the lead of this thread, I will answer your question as I am now able to answer mine -
What is hidden under Mr. Jefferson's cloak?
The answer is, the essential contradictions of the early republic:
- the inalienable rights of all versus the slavery he was dependent on
- the agrarian South versus the mercantilist (and later industrialist) North
- Jeffersonian democracy (in theory based on free yeoman farmers) versus the elitist plutocratic Yankees
- The limited future of the Southern system (lower population growth, lower productivity of the slave system) versus the rapid population growth and higher wealth-production in the north.
- Banking as an agent of the planters interests vs. banking for its own sake in the North. - etc.
All of these conflicts, which were the substance of Jefferson's political career, were resolved in one way or another by the Civil War as professor Boyle points out.
Yes, Mark, it is who we are. I wonder - are their any more Cavaliers in England?
KScurmudgeon
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IF (a Canadian) wrote:
"we've been slowly buying up Florida for decades, and recently we have started buying up Arizona"
Good. Perhaps Mr. Harper and Royal Mounties will do a better job of protecting Arizona's border than Mr. Obama and understaffed and underpowered (let alone - underpaid) U.S. Border Patrol .
BTW. Are you planning on starting buying any land in New Mexico and Texas? And protecting those states' southern borders as well?
And how 'bout San Diego (a nice place)?
[U.S. Navy is not qualified to protect and defend its southern border.]
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182. At 04:30am on 07 Jul 2010, LucyJ wrote:
The ultraliberals are out of control! Ultraliberal, yet they desire big govt. to take away all the states' rights and have total domination over the people.
God please save us from the ultraliberals!!!
There is no greater destruction than people with no morals or values.
----------------------------------------
To an outsider your country appears to be ruled by Wall Street and a variety of quack churches. They have no real morals and many false values.
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1. At 9:32pm on 05 Jul 2010, BluesBerry wrote:
"Personally I think this increased authority for the IMF and WHO will only lead the world down a path of additional suffering and economic collapse; in fact, I would rather see them completely overhauled, or allowed to die a quiet death.
What nations think of themselves, Dr. Boyle, espouses has simply lost touch with reality. We need world order.
“And where”, I would like to ask Dr. Boyle, “is that new order to come from, the United States, IMF and WHO?” If yes, I fear that the earth and everyone on it are damned.
I feel the new order must come from a revamped United Nations, especially the Security Counsel, and especially the elimination of VETO power. The votes of the Security Counsel should be straight up, no veto. Americans simply have too much power for their own good and surely for that of the world, especially the Middle East."
I agree with you entirely. You didn't offer any solutions however. I have been thinking a lot about our present situation and have arrived at what this Author did too. Aside from the obvious: that our Government has too much power in the Middle East, I would also like to add that we have too much power period. We have become bullies and that is not acceptable.
My idea, as a solution, is this:
#1). Eliminate the Federal Reserve Bank and the Central Reserve Bank.
We don't need them and they only cause inflation that is IMPOSSIBLE to EVER repay.
#3). Eliminate the fractional lending policies of the banks as they are unsustainable and will eventually lead to total economic collapse as has been predicted by all leading economists and mathematicians.
#3). Move the United Nations to a well fortified island with a standing army of its own that lives on that island. Give them the only nuclear weapons allowed on Earth. Eliminate all other nuclear war heads and individual armed forces. Of course, this idea will mean that all nations around the globe will lose sovereignty but, it will mean that no one country will act on important matters (e.g. war, trade, energy) without international approval.
#4). The United Nations should be the only organization responsible for the distribution of money to all of the nations on Earth in much the same way the early American colonists structured their monetary system. It worked out great with little inflation and without any depressions or recessions. The depression of the 30s, here in the U.S., had been rigged for the acceptance of the Federal Reserve and little more. It has been a disaster. There is NO way to EVER pay back the Federal Reserve as the money that is within the system currently is only the principle thus, the only way to pay back the interest on the money that our Government purchases is to purchase more money, at interest, with creates MORE debt.
People NEED to watch the 4 hour movie: Zeitgeist, to understand how our monetary system works and they will come to the same conclusion that the Federal Reserve Bank must GO! If it is allowed to continue, it WILL own every single piece of property around the globe. It is not a question of IF it will happen. It is a question of WHEN it will happen.
By the way, I was in New York to view the 4th. of July fireworks. Had I known that Hew Majesty was going to be there the next day, I would have stayed. We, in the United States, don't get to see her as often as we would like. She is NEVER booed and is always treated with the utmost of respect. We hope she stays longer the next time.
She is always welcome here.
Honi soit qui mal y pence.
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Re 135 IF
I seem to recall certain Canadian Prime Minister by the name of Trudeau.
He wouldn't have been worth remembering but for his lovely wife who used to sing songs of love at assorted political gatherings, including intern ational ones, although those songs not necessarily having been relevant to their character and objectives.
And not necessarily sung at right moments.
[reminds me of a certain recent premier of Ireland and his sexy wife]
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" As a slave owner, Lee had a lot to lose if he stayed with the Union."
When he chose Confederacy he lost much for more though, when Unionists unable to take away his his land from him legally started, out of pure vengeance, to bury their fallen soldiers on his private property in Arlington.
That property, which gen. Lee was never able to reclaim for an obvious reason, is now the Arlington National Cemetery.
Today Lee is remembered by many Virginians (and not only them) as an honorable Southern gentleman, while Grant as a crooked drunkard he was, and Sherman as an inventor of total war and scorch earth policy.
[who today would have been likely hauled to Hague as a war criminal]
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"The United Nations should be the only organization responsible for the distribution of money to all of the nations on Earth".
Having seen how a supranational unelected commissars in Brussels distribute money within EUSSR and take care of its respective member state interests, I have some doubts that UN (of a crooked Food for Oil scheme fame, with its Food for Sex fame Blue Helmets) would be a success story.
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Marcus' comment about Washington being "a burner of villages" reminded me that Lincoln waited until after the second term election to send Sherman on his march through Georgia with his slash and burn campaign to bring the South to its knees. Lincoln knew full well that Sherman would leave a smoking trail of death and devastation in that ruthless campaign. Washington was indeed a leader of men and he also, contrary to some of the opinions written here, led by example. He had no desire to be a king as was confirmed when he refused a third term as president. I can't think of any politician anywhere who would have made that decision.
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162. At 00:16am on 07 Jul 2010, Andy Post wrote:
Now, do you disagree with Jefferson? I'm game to take up the debate!
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Some how I think,I will forgo a direct assault on Jefferson with you.I have a feeling I would regret it & be blown out of the water some what like USS Chesapeake vs HMS Shannon. So its Marion the swamp fox tactics for me.I do not claim to be or am,an authority on Jefferson,indeed not
having the chance to study any thing formally,all my info has been obtained by reading interdependently.A good name for my old secondary
school would be The Banastre Tarleton Academy of hard knocks,to quote
that great Canadian, Niel Young "the punches came fast & hard lying on my
back in the school yard"but I digress..
Here is an extract from David Mcullough`s John Adams that has helped shape my opinion of Jefferson.
"There were,as well,striking ironies.Jefferson,the Virginia aristocrat and slave master who lived in a style fit for a prince,as removed from his fellow citizens and their lives as it was possible to be,was hailed as the apostle of liberty,the"Man of the People".Adams,the farmer`s son
who despised slavery and practiced the kind of personal economy and plain
living commonly upheld as the American way,was scorned as an aristocrat who ,if he could ,would enslave the common people."My country-men!"
exclaimed William Duane in the Aurora in his crusade for Jefferson,"If you have not virtue enough to steam the current,determine to be slaves at once"For Adams,abuse from the Jefferson Republicans was an old story...
With Jeffersons input the Declaration of Independence was constructed.
His, for me,glaring inconsistency was the reason for that quip of mine in
post 3,this seemingly has rankled with some,right through this thread.
But by far Jeffersons harshest critics,his fellow Americans.
The Boston Gazette ran to the words to a song of several stanzas,to be sung to the tune of,
"Yankee Doodle",
Of all the damsels on the green
On mountain,or in valley
A lass so luscious ne`er was seen,
As Monticellian Sally.
Yankee Doodle,whos` the noodle?
What wife were half so handy?
To breed a flock of slaves for stock,
A blackamoors` a dandy,
I hope after that, on my next trip to New England they let me in....
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To MarcusAureliusII
I haven't got time right now to go into some of the nonsense you've written about the UK and British people, other than to question: have you ever been to the UK? You don't seem to know very much about the actual country, character, or culture at all.
I just want to quickly mention to quote you: "...Alexander Graham Bell who was I think born Canadian was another" would have the entirety of Scotland falling off their chairs with laughter...
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"164. At 00:41am on 07 Jul 2010, DixieNana wrote:
...As for Jefferson, I can't think of anyone (with the exception of full-blown liberals)who would consider him to have been a "saint."...."
Which always amazes me how an unrepentant slave owner who admits it was a wrong (far worse than pure ignorance in my view), could ever be considered as an intellectual great by the modern progressives. Reminds me of a man who held an Ivy League degree and high ranking US Govt position and who's children were enrolled in Ivy League institutions who would proudly display his family's memorabilia of their slave owning past - same could be stated of Katie Couric and others despite their "public" stances. Of course these people also love Robert E. Lee (who should have been hung for treason) and all the other racist heroes who have led to our current Balkenized America. Bottom line is Progressives have wrested and bought control of the US government to ensure their wealth whilst feeding crumbs to the minorities who's votes they need to maintain power; the remaining poor are slated for sacrifice which has already begun. Is a second US Civil War possible? I think inevitable!
As to Canada, I had the pleasure of living there in the midst of PLQ crisis II. My perspective is that Quebec was illequipped to survive then or now as an independent entity. There were rumours of talks at joining the US by some of the provinces had Quebec secured independence but NEVER substantiated. My knowledge of Canada is limited, even having lived there and undertaken some coursework at McGill, but allow me to state that in my opinion the only things holding Canada back from being the preemminant global superpower are: the Quebec question that divides ALL and the lack of desire on the PEOPLE'S part to take a leading position in the world. The former is a great fault on both parties' part, the latter a testament to the character of its people. In Canada, the Government still feels itself beholden to the people and not special interests. View their recovery plan versus the US for proof: it placed people before all else, even corrupt bankers with handfuls of cash to dispense.
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177. At 02:57am on 07 Jul 2010, timohio wrote:
"If I'm remembering the US commentary on the situation correctly, independence would in the short run have been a disaster for Quebec. I don't think they had much of an industrial base at that time. Do they now? I think the predictions were that they would quickly have become an impoverished new country. Ontario on the other hand, could probably do nicely on its own."
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I don't know.
At the time, Quebec had about 25 % of Canada's manufacturing base, and Ontario had about 70 % (doesn't leave much for everybody else, right?)
Quebec has always had a strong forestry and mining base, and a large presence in aluminum smelting. Quebec is a huge exporter of electricity.
If Quebec had gone on its own, it would have managed, one way or another. Quebecers are proud. It might not have gone well, but at least it would have been their own.
One of the things that is sometimes hard to explain to foreigners, Quebec separatists want their own separate country, sure enough. But in the meantime they work as hard as anybody else to make Canada the best country it can be. That's one of the reasons I like and respect Gilles Duceppe, even though he is trying to tear my country apart.
You might think that is inherently self-contradictory, but their view is oddly like the view Marcus expressed yesterday: They may not want to be in Canada, but they might be here for quite a while yet. There are a lot worse second choices than Canada, and why not be comfortable in the meantime?
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Ontario alone? It would, in essence, be another Ohio, north of the Lakes.
But nah. Until recently Ontario saw itself as the keystone of Canada, and played rather much the role of Germany in the EU - Ontario (and Alberta) paid equalization to keep everybody else happy. With manufacturing in sharp decline, however, that shoe is starting to pinch.
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I'm glad Quebec didn't pick up and go. We've had some real battles over language and culture in this country, but, on the whole, we have had to compromise with each other to get along, and that has made the country stronger, and a lot fairer.
It's how a nation matures. I'm thankful for my francophone compatriots - even the ones who still want a separate country. After all, they may change their minds and decide to stay. It's not such a bad place.
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188. At 10:24am on 07 Jul 2010, Worldcitizen1 wrote:
"By the way, I was in New York to view the 4th. of July fireworks. Had I known that Hew Majesty was going to be there the next day, I would have stayed. We, in the United States, don't get to see her as often as we would like. She is NEVER booed and is always treated with the utmost of respect. We hope she stays longer the next time."
"She is always welcome here."
"Honi soit qui mal y pence."
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On this much we are agreed.
[[p.s., it is "Honi soit qui mal y pense", the verb being "penser" = to think. "y penser" means to think about something.
The motto means, literally, "Shamed be he who thinks evil of it." More commonly I believe it is translated as "Evil be unto him who thinks evil."]]
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189. At 1:28pm on 07 Jul 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
"I seem to recall certain Canadian Prime Minister by the name of Trudeau.
He wouldn't have been worth remembering but for his lovely wife ..."
____________
Please, I beg of you: no more of this torture. It is cruel and inhuman. Speak of her no more. Cease this torment.
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190. At 1:47pm on 07 Jul 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
Today Lee is remembered by many Virginians (and not only them) as an honorable Southern gentleman, while Grant as a crooked drunkard he was, and Sherman as an inventor of total war and scorch earth policy.
It is what it is. Our ancestors were no better, nor worse than we were. Vengeance is eternally with us, just as violence and jealousy are. Accepting the fact that human nature is often just as petty, mean-spirited and contradictory as it is noble, generous and forthright, is part of the journey towards wisdom.
Personally, I think Sherman was hot! Very dashing. Interesting memoir, too. I'd have gone out with him. But then I only ever date combat veterans. You know, real men, who've actually experienced life, death and the world beyond their doors.
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What is now Arlington National Cemetery actually belonged to Gen. Lee's wife, Mary Anna Custis Lee. Eventually, the property was returned to an heir of Mary Lee through court action, whereupon it was purchased by the federal government.
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/historical_information/arlington_house.html
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re. 183. Gavrielle_LaPoste:
All good and valid points. I would like to think, though, that for an honorable man like Lee it would have to be more than economic self-interest that would cause him to take up arms against the national government. In addition to military service in California you point out, many of the prominent Civil War officers served together (in combat) as junior officers during the Mexican War. You would think that would forge an unbreakable bond.
A quick check on Google shows that several of the Southern generals wrote memoirs. I should try to find copies and read what they say about their motives, which are hard for me to grasp. These were not men on the political fringe, and today the only people who would contemplate an armed insurrection against their government are.
Some summer reading, perhaps--an improvement over my consumption of mysteries. My wife, who is a social historian working on the Civil War period in Missouri, will be startled. The only other time I read a history of the Civil War was when I was recovering from influenza. There was nothing else to read in our apartment at the time.
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re. 195. Dan Law:
Not every nation wants to be the preemminant global superpower. Some are content being themselves. It's not like the World Cup, where the nations that participate all want to come out on top. Not everyone sees the world as a series of winners and losers.
Actually, the US sort of backed into becoming a superpower. It had the same resources before the Second World War as after, and although it flirted with being a colonial power along European lines at the beginning of the 20th century, but it wasn't until the end of World War II that, faced with a rising Soviet Union and its Eastern European vassal states, it decided to become a superpower. If it hadn't been for a fear of communism, the US might have gone back to being what it was before the war. Certainly by 1945 the population was sick of conflict.
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re. 192. DixieNana:
I can't think of any politician anywhere who would have made that decision.
Actually, all of the presidents from Washington through Truman who hadn't died in office made that decision. The 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two terms wasn't ratified until 1951. Before that it was merely custom that kept a president from running for a third term.
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190. powermeerkat:
Today Lee is remembered by many Virginians (and not only them) as an honorable Southern gentleman, while Grant as a crooked drunkard he was...
Regarding Grant's supposed drinking, here is a website from a faculty member at the College of St. Scholastica that quotes and footnotes copiously from contemporary sources that Grant was not a drunkard:
http://faculty.css.edu/mkelsey/usgrant/alcohol.html
And although the Grant administration was riddled with crooks, there has never been any suggestion that he was crooked himself. If he was, he wasn't very good at it. As he was dying of cancer he was desperately finishing his memoirs so his family would get the income from their publication and not end up in poverty.
...and Sherman as an inventor of total war and scorch earth policy.
[who today would have been likely hauled to Hague as a war criminal]
No, it's only the losers who end up being tried as war criminals by the victors. Looting and burning your enemy's territory was not, unfortunately, uncommon in wars up to that point. You should read up on Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas in 1863. It reads like an episode from the Kosovo conflict.
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201. At 5:16pm on 07 Jul 2010, timohio wrote:
I would like to think, though, that for an honorable man like Lee it would have to be more than economic self-interest that would cause him to take up arms against the national government.
That would be nice, but fullfilling our basic human needs often plays a very large part in the choices everyone makes, even if we don't recognize those decisions as being rooted in our reptilian brain. We often justify the things we do, foolish and otherwise, by saying they were bad decisions, but well meant. Or good decisions that had unintended consequences. Consequences we might have foreseen if we'd only been a bit more self-aware, or enlightened as to our motivations. I do not doubt that Lee was a virtuous and honorable man. At least as far as men were expected to be in those days. But saying he went over to the Confederates because he could not bring himself to fight against his own countrymen, Virginians, is something of a half-truth. Surely, he must have known there were many Virginians who remained with the Union Army and yet he fought against them in battle without a qualm.
Sadly, as we read in many Civil War era memoirs, we find that money, or rather I should say an extreme fear of poverty, played an enormous role in the choices made by men like Grant and Sherman. The latter took work as a banker in both New York and California, and when that didn't pan out he found a job running a military academy in Louisiana at what is now Louisiana State University in Pineville. The former stayed with the military until he could no longer bear being separated from his family, because he had no real prospects and always in his mind were the words "poverty, poverty, poverty." When Grant did eventually return to Ohio he hawked firewood on the streets, mended harnesses and once even pawned his gold watch to buy Christmas presents for his family.
Bear in mind, that like Sherman (orphan) and Grant (day dreamer), Lee was sent to West Point not merely to serve his country, but to gain a career and thus have an income. Lee's wealth, because he and his mother were abandoned by his father, General "Light Horse" Harry Lee, hero of the revolutionary war, came exclusively from his wife's plantation. He had no money of his own save for his pay as an officer. His wife's property, including all the slaves she owned, became his upon marriage. The fear of losing all of that and ending his life in poverty - while taking his wife down with him - must have been a powerful, if not consciously acknowledged incentive to hold fast to what he had.
A quick check on Google shows that several of the Southern generals wrote memoirs. I should try to find copies and read what they say about their motives, which are hard for me to grasp. These were not men on the political fringe, and today the only people who would contemplate an armed insurrection against their government are.
You might also try looking on the Project Gutenberg website. They have quite a few public domain books from every era available in various e-reader formats. I know for certain that they have the Sherman and Grant memoirs there.
Some summer reading, perhaps--an improvement over my consumption of mysteries. My wife, who is a social historian working on the Civil War period in Missouri, will be startled. The only other time I read a history of the Civil War was when I was recovering from influenza. There was nothing else to read in our apartment at the time.
Have fun! And I'm sure your wife will appreciate the interest. At the very least, it will open up new areas of interest and conversation for you to share.
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timohio (#203): "Actually, all of the presidents from Washington through Truman who hadn't died in office made that decision."
President Franklin Roosevelt died in office in his fourth term. It was his disregard for the custom (justified by the fact that the US was still at war) that led to the 22nd amendment. A lot of politicians who aspired to become president thought they would not get a chance otherwise, I suppose.
I think the limit should have been three terms. If we ever get another president who deserves three terms, why shouldn't we keep him (or her)?
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197. At 4:08pm on 07 Jul 2010, Interestedforeigner wrote:
"[[p.s., it is "Honi soit qui mal y pense", the verb being "penser" = to think. "y penser" means to think about something.
The motto means, literally, "Shamed be he who thinks evil of it." More commonly I believe it is translated as "Evil be unto him who thinks evil."]]"
Thank you for correcting that for me. I, being a French speaker too, should have known better. I believe that expression dates back to the 1300s and is associated with the Order of the Garder.
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re. 206. GH1618:
President Franklin Roosevelt died in office in his fourth term.
You're quite correct. I should have written "all of the presidents from Washington through Truman with the exception of Roosevelt".
I can't decide about presidential term limits. In general I'm against term limits; the voters have a chance at the end of every politician's term of office to throw them out. If their constituents are happy with their job performance, shouldn't they be the ones to decide? But I understand that a president without term limits could become a dictator. Prior to the modern era it would have been a demagogue that could have taken over. Starting with the Nixon campaign in '68 we've seen the gradual encroachment of advertising methods into the election process, and more recently the effectiveness of well-funded smear campaigns. Unless there is a big upgrade in the level of education and critical thinking in the American electorate, there would be no way to stop a unscrupulous candidate backed by big money from effectively becoming president for life. So maybe term limits for the president are a good thing.
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7 Lucy Wrote,
It would be bizarre to think of living under British rule today or talking British. Too strange.
By talking British, I meant talking with a British accent.
===========================
Any particular British accent u had in mind, or just all of them?
I am not sure which is the more bizzare,those or the Californian one.
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88 Worldcitizen Wrote,
"they will come to the same conclusion that the Federal Reserve Bank must GO! If it is allowed to continue, it WILL own every single piece of property around the globe. It is not a question of IF it will happen. It is a question of WHEN it will happen"
======================
Not my little bit of Queensland they wont. We too have guns even if we have to hide em underground.
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I have never listened to Glenn Beck and I have never listened to Rush Limbaugh. Ever.
I avoid people who spew hate.
This includes some ultraliberals and some ultraconservatives.
They are the same people.
Bush and Obama are so similar it is eerie.
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Emps, If the British had won the Rev. War, we might be speaking with a British accent. If Hitler had taken over Europe and other parts of the world, we might be speaking German.
I have nothing against British or German. In fact, they are both in my blood. One of my grandfathers was German American who was a fighter pilot that fought against the Germans. There are also claims that one side of the family is related to the famous Englishman, John Rogers Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame.
Many Austrailians today are of British descent and have an accent that sounds to me half British and half Aussie.
Many Americans of British descent speak English with an American and not a British accent.
I actually think the accents are hot. But I like American guys the best.
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206. At 8:34pm on 07 Jul 2010, GH1618 wrote:
timohio (#203): "Actually, all of the presidents from Washington through Truman who hadn't died in office made that decision."
"President Franklin Roosevelt died in office in his fourth term. It was his disregard for the custom (justified by the fact that the US was still at war) that led to the 22nd amendment...
I think the limit should have been three terms. If we ever get another president who deserves three terms, why shouldn't we keep him (or her)?"
I used to think it was partially Republican spite. Having seen GOP hereditary monarchism with George I Bush and George II Bush [and more coming] and with the alarming possible alternative Clinton or Kennedy Dynasties, I now believe they didn't go far enough. Dynasty by blood or marriage should be banned! And after GWB, I wonder if two 4 year terms might not be excessive.
The peril of monarchy is that even a succession of good ones will finally throw up a disaster. We must be vigilant to preserve our democracy in a republic from the corruption of monarchism.
Britain has had a number of bad monarchs and one near miss [Heil Edward would have been even worse to bear than Queen Wally, nicht wahr?]
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199. At 4:44pm on 07 Jul 2010, Gavrielle_LaPoste wrote:
"Personally, I think Sherman was hot! Very dashing. ..."
___________
The things you don't learn on this blog.
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Austrailians are some of the most fit people in the world.
Great athletes and naturalists.
Must be something in the water...
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So much about a hypocrite Author that means nothing in the big scheme of things.
We do hold these truths to be self-evident. I am American, a daughter of these United States.
Arguments of the linage of Sally H. is not relevant today.
America is about the Rule of Law. Not Amnesty for the Illegal invader. We are a caring Nation but fiercely defend our rights as a native born. We want what our founding Fathers fought for. We believe in our Constitution. We the People will not lay down our arms nor allow our country to be invaded.
Our current elected officials who have forgotten the "will of the people" will be looking for new jobs. Obama and his Administration will be short lived. When they are gone, I say good reddens.
We fight to defend other Nations borders yet our Federal Government fails to defend ours.
Support Arizona's SB 1070 and fight fearlessly to stop the lawsuit against Arizona. We are your first line of defense against invasion.
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214. At 03:37am on 08 Jul 2010, Interestedforeigner wrote re: General Sherman's extreme hotness:
The things you don't learn on this blog.
Amazing, isn't it?
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33 AllenT Wrote,
Oh geez. The "her majesty" part is enough to make one want to throw up. No offense.
Offence taken,.. GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
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215 Lucy Wrote,
Austrailians are some of the most fit people in the world.
Great athletes and naturalists.
Must be something in the water...(not sure about that)
But thank you, i/we love u too
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33. At 07:55am on 06 Jul 2010, AllenT2 wrote:
"Oh geez. The "her majesty" part is enough to make one want to throw up. No offense."
Perhaps you would like to be the pukatorium?
Long live the Queen!
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104. At 4:14pm on 06 Jul 2010, Barbara wrote:
"What is it Mark? Can't stand the thought of a people audacious enough to take on the redcoat machine and win. Becoming the premiere power in the world, surpassing the long gone British Empire, and doing it with intellect, bravery and style."
Your patriotism is commendable. I am also an American.
Long gone empire though?
Let me remind you that it is the country whose money is worth the most that is at the top of the food chain. Check your exchange rates. Also, the British own 40% of the business skyscrapers in Manhattan.
Long gone empire?
I think not.
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Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings is anything but news. George Washington spent lots of his own time and money attempting to track down and *kidnap* Oney Judge, a slave who escaped from him while in Philadelphia. But he set great examples as a general and president.
Historical figures are just that. We don't need to decide whether they were a) good or b) bad. History is full of people who did great and unspeakable things on different days of the same week. We take what we can from the (great) accomplishments of Jefferson and use them. If we feel like we need to ignore the bad because of the good OR ignore the good because of the bad, either way, we're lying to ourselves.
As an American, no, I didn't learn in grade school of Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings. But I heard about it pretty early on, and it didn't convince me that the Declaration of Independence was a lie.
Lewis Carroll is often said to have been some kind of pedophile. Would you discard Alice over that? Is it a big dark cloud over England?
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No. 222 - Sorry, this is a historical bug bear of mine!
There is - and never has been - any evidence that Lewis Carroll was a paedophile - and the suggestion has been widely discredited in recent years.
Lewis Carroll certainly had some strange tendencies - he seemed to prefer the company of children to adults - etc, but there is nothing to suggest that there was any sexual dimension.
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Lucy: "Austrailians are some of the most fit people in the world.
Great athletes and naturalists."
Doesn't Australia have the biggest obesity problem in the western world? Even worse than America's! Let's not use this platform to perpetuate stereotypes.
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No. 223 - It's anything but discredited. In recent years, yes, some have reinterpreted available documents and tried to show that there's no basis for the claim; but the idea is by no means vanquished, and anyway, my original point was that it doesn't affect the value of his work either way. Claiming that his fascination with nude young girls was simply a response to the aesthetic of the time is like Poe's claim that his fascination with macabre themes was only a response to the aesthetic of the time.
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No. 225
There is no evidence, ergo there is no reason for anyone to continue to make the accusation.
Any historical claim has to have some sort of evidence to justify it - had there been a scandal at the time, then that might have been different, but there was not. So my point stands. The idea is discredited and entirely refutable.
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80 Interestedforiegner Wrote,
"Anyone with a remote understanding of world economic affairs can surely recognise that the Canadian economy is probably the strongest in the world. Their currency is the strongest, their banks have the soundest capital base and they have oil and raw materials in abundance."
Would u like to qualify that statement against the sound economy of Australia. The major energy resource supplier to China,Japan and other Asian countries.
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Rum Fandango (#226): "The idea is discredited and entirely refutable."
I agree with you and would add that those who would make serious charges against another (Bad M. H.) have the burden of providing some documentation.
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224 Stirling222 Wrote,
Lucy: "Austrailians are some of the most fit people in the world.
Great athletes and naturalists."
Doesn't Australia have the biggest obesity problem in the western world? Even worse than America's! Let's not use this platform to perpetuate stereotypes.
===========
Lucy's statement is a true stereotype of Australians generally. Australians are very much actively into sports and healthy lifestyles.
Our environment is clean and unpolluted. Our homes are modern and recently described as the largest in the world.
There has been a tendency for obesity in a percentage of the population, unfortunately,which has grown throughout western civilsed countries ever since the insidious spread of hamburger joints and other US junk food "restaurants" has affected the current diet of some inhabitants.
The takeaway food shops prior to US junk food entering the market,sold largely good homecooked style meals,which where more healthy.
The demands of customers and the media here now has forced the junk food joints to provide better balanced ingredients and not the usual stuff found in the same "buns" in other countries.
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My favorite movies as a child were Ghostbusters I and II, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Rambo I and II. Probably because that was what my older brothers watched.
But I also absolutely loved BMX Bandits, Crocodile Dundee and Mad Max, edited, but still with Austrailian accents.
Those movies were my introduction to Austraila.
I always have felt Austraila was something special.
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Instead of was, I meant is.
Beacause I still feel that way.
Austraila is something special.
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227. At 10:11pm on 08 Jul 2010, Emps
No, you've got it backwards. At # 80 I was chiding
50. At 10:27am on 06 Jul 2010, redwards36
for having written those words.
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230 LucyJ wrote:
"But I also absolutely loved BMX Bandits, Crocodile Dundee and Mad Max, edited, but still with Austrailian accents.
Those movies were my introduction to Austraila."
___________________________
Lucy, Max Max is not actually a true depiction of the whole of Australia, only Sydney's western suburbs. Crocodile Dundee is actually a documentary initially shot in North Queensland (the original stars name was 'Mick Edinburgh' but the name wasn't catchy enough) and BMX Bandits was in reality an Australian road safety campaign, albeit with a low budget.
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What seems to scare Americans the most is that they are starting to view themselves adrift at sea. There isn't a distict direction which America sees itself fulfilling and that frightens all of us. The fact that we are adrift in a world that seems to be not only catching up but surpassing us makes the average American say to himself, or herself "What is it going to be like in ten or twenty years? Will we still have the same freedoms, and will we still have the same purpose?" Too many young and older Americans alike don't see the same future as our forefathers did. They don't see owning a home as we once did. They don't see space exploration as something to be proud of, and they in many ways don't see America as being the pride and joy that it once was. They see America adrift in a world of doubt, and adrift in a world that seems to be dictating the terms of a new world order without Americas say so or input.
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221 Worldcitizen Wrote,
Let me remind you that it is the country whose money is worth the most that is at the top of the food chain. Check your exchange rates. Also, the British own 40% of the business skyscrapers in Manhattan.
Long gone empire?
I think not.
------------------------
I would also add there is still such a thing as the British Commonwealth of Countries.
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59 AllenT2 Wrote,
After all, when it comes to just natural beauty alone it is impossible to find another country in the world that has within its boundaries all of the world's climates and geography and with such unique landscapes.
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Absolutely untrue.
Australia's ecology ranges from the tropical rainforests in the north to the snowy mountain alps further south..deserts to the greatest marine reef on the planet. Australia is truly unique.
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Emps #229: I see the Australian stereotype of seeing their country through rose-tinted specs is still alive and well! Don't worry, that's quite common here.
"Our environment is clean and unpolluted" Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't Australians among the worst polluters, per capita, on Earth? Don't you have a hole in your ozone layer killing sea-life and increasing rates of skin cancer? I notice in #236 you mention the 'greatest marine reef on the planet'. I see the water quality, among other factors, is threatening the very survival of the reef so I wouldn't be resting on my laurels about how clean your environment is, just yet.
I also believe Australia to have fewer restrictions on toxic waste dumping than apply in other countries, resulting in large quantities of e-waste and toxic waste going straight into landfill. In addition to this, dioxins from Union Carbide have forced Sydney Harbour officials to introduce a ban on fishing on health grounds.
On top of all the above we see Australia enjoying a mini boom by selling their carbon laden fossil fuels to China ensuring Asia's environmental problems continue for a long time yet! Of course all this mining brings its own problems, too. There have been lots of uranium leaks and spills in your mines, no? Doesn't sound too healthy for the soil.
Now, I'm sure Australia is lovely and a great place to live, but when you try to tell the blog that somehow Australian KFC and McDonalds are more healthy than anywhere else, I start to wonder what your agenda is.
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re. 234. David Gussie:
If all you say is true, then as an American I have to say that my countrymen need to grow up and look beyond their borders at the real world. And they need to get an attitude adjustment.
Americans' sense of exceptionalism has nothing to do with owning a home. Plenty of countries are quite proud of their achievements without feeling like they have to be better than anyone else, and plenty of countries enjoy a good standard of living.
Many Americans seem to regard their country's place in the world as a God-given right, and their prosperity as a God-given right. If we want other countries esteem, we have to earn it. If we want prosperity, we have to work for it. We have to reform our education system and fund it properly. We have to get religion out of the classroom. We need to raise the teaching profession and academic achievement back to the place they once had in this country. We should stop thinking that the way to get ahead in life is a reality TV show or a lottery ticket and realize that it takes hard work and persistence. We have to fund infrastructure repair and improvements.
You mention the space program. Do you realize that in the 60s and 70s we paid for the Vietnam War, ambitious social programs, and space exploration through deficit financing? No one wants to do that anymore, so we have to choose or we have to raise taxes. That's not a lack of ambition, that's coming to grips with reality. We can continue space exploration if we partner with other countries.
If other countries are catching up to us, it's because other countries are working smarter, not harder. American productivity is extremely high, but we are going about things the wrong way. We are the only industrialized country in the world without a national health care system. Our future prosperity is dependent on our educational system, but we fund our schools and universities in a haphazard fashion that's dependent on the dumbest citizen's willingness to pay local taxes. We regard taxes as a burden rather than an investment in the future.
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Whoops, I hit the post button when I meant to hit the preview button.
To finish, if Americans want to regain the place in the world we enjoyed in the 50s and 60s, we're going to have to rearrange our thinking. Greatness, like genius, it 90% perspiration.
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237. At 12:35pm on 09 Jul 2010, stirling222 wrote:
Emps #229: I see the Australian stereotype of seeing their country through rose-tinted specs is still alive and well! Don't worry, that's quite common here.
"Our environment is clean and unpolluted" Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't Australians among the worst polluters, per capita, on Earth?
Answer..NO
Don't you have a hole in your ozone layer killing sea-life and increasing rates of skin cancer?
Answer..The hole in the ozone layer over the southern skies is caused by GLOBAL polution.
I notice in #236 you mention the 'greatest marine reef on the planet'. I see the water quality, among other factors, is threatening the very survival of the reef so I wouldn't be resting on my laurels about how clean your environment is, just yet.
Answer..Wrong, the quality of water is pristine,natural occurances such as an overpopulation of crown of thorn starfish are the main threat to the great barrier reef. Occasinally ships discharge pollution,but are dealt with severely by the Qld govt.
I also believe Australia to have fewer restrictions on toxic waste dumping than apply in other countries, resulting in large quantities of e-waste and toxic waste going straight into landfill. In addition to this, dioxins from Union Carbide have forced Sydney Harbour officials to introduce a ban on fishing on health grounds.
Answer.. You wrongly believe the latter. There are no "large quantities" as such going into landfill,compared with other developed countries,plus there are large areas here far away from population.
As to the former statement.. there was a media beat up scare ages ago about fishing in the harbour,it amounted for nothing and only a few months ago i was fishing there off "the rocks" (if u know hwere that is), also Sydney rock oysters are still the favourite in seafood shops and restaurants.
On top of all the above we see Australia enjoying a mini boom by selling their carbon laden fossil fuels to China ensuring Asia's environmental problems continue for a long time yet! Of course all this mining brings its own problems, too. There have been lots of uranium leaks and spills in your mines, no? Doesn't sound too healthy for the soil.
Answer..You may describe our mineral exports as a mini boom as u call it.
It has been going on now for a couple of decades at least. We are enjoying tremendous terms of trade with top prices being paid by China, Japan, Singapore,Indo, etc, for our resources.
Uranium dosnt "leak" in the mines. In fact it is raw "yellowcake" produced there. It only becomes uranium when processed by the countries that import the material. I am not aware that coal spills. What a rediculous statement. There are no other materials mined either that may spill..LOL..LOL
Junk food is junk food, did i mention any brands?
On top of all the above we see Australia enjoying a mini boom by selling their carbon laden fossil fuels to China ensuring Asia's environmental problems continue for a long time yet! Of course all this mining brings its own problems, too. There have been lots of uranium leaks and spills in your mines, no? Doesn't sound too healthy for the soil.
Now, I'm sure Australia is lovely and a great place to live, but when you try to tell the blog that somehow Australian KFC and McDonalds are more healthy than anywhere else, I start to wonder what your agenda is.
I also believe Australia to have fewer restrictions on toxic waste dumping than apply in other countries, resulting in large quantities of e-waste and toxic waste going straight into landfill. In addition to this, dioxins from Union Carbide have forced Sydney Harbour officials to introduce a ban on fishing on health grounds.
On top of all the above we see Australia enjoying a mini boom by selling their carbon laden fossil fuels to China ensuring Asia's environmental problems continue for a long time yet! Of course all this mining brings its own problems, too. There have been lots of uranium leaks and spills in your mines, no? Doesn't sound too healthy for the soil.
Now, I'm sure Australia is lovely and a great place to live, but when you try to tell the blog that somehow Australian KFC and McDonalds are more healthy than anywhere else, I start to wonder what your agenda is.
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Moderators i'm surprised you dont edit posts like mine that contain duplicate content and para's in the wrong order. Granted its my mistake.
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241. At 01:17am on 10 Jul 2010, you wrote:
Moderators i'm surprised you dont edit posts like mine that contain duplicate content and para's in the wrong order. Granted its my mistake.
PS
What a mess! Must press preview, i will remember next time.
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231. At 11:34pm on 09 Jul 2010, Scott0962 wrote:
"It is true that the word liberal once had a very different connotation in american speech. Teddy Rooseveldt was proud to call himself a liberal back in his day."
[[Quite so.]]
"I think you'll find that today's American "liberals" largely brought it on themselves by switching to that term to describe their political philosphy ..."
[[Quite so.]]
"I think you'll find that today's American "liberals" largely brought it on themselves by switching to that term to describe their political philosophy ..."
____________
No, I don't think so. I have a different hypothesis.
It seems to me that the term "liberal" was used more or less correctly in America, much like everywhere else, in its various related meanings until perhaps 20 or 25 years ago, possibly even 30 years ago (where does the time go?)
And then somehow on the far right of the spectrum the term started to be used as an insult. I recall a columnist named "Lubor J. Zink". His columns tended to be a mix of anti-communist polemics with anti-Pierre Trudeau rants - which, for him, frequently amounted to the same thing.
I used to find his columns rather entertaining, though perhaps not in the manner intended. His writing style and content tended to be reminiscent of Horseradish up the nose. By his standards, Ronald Reagan was a wishy-washy left-winger. In some respects, such as the variety of his topics and their gently nuanced presentation, MK might be his literary heir.
I think it was in one of his columns that I first saw the word "liberal" used in a manner that in essence equated it with communist fellow travelers. I don't know if he had picked it up somewhere else.
Over time this became more frequent and more widespread.
At some point, I would guess in the mid 1990's, it spread from the hard right and began to be used much more often. If I had to guess, I would say that it got a big boost in the Gingrich era.
The spread of the term as some kind of epithet used by right wingers really took off with talk radio and on the blogosphere. Now it is commonplace. Given sufficient saturation through repetition, over a sufficient period of time, and now you see and hear it even from people who should know better.
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This, to my mind, is all part of the polarization of politics, where one's opponents are labeled and demonized. This constant demonization is one of the factors that squeezes moderates and compromisers out of political office.
Under the US system, which in former times did not have anything like the whipped discipline of party politics in a Parliamentary system, government doesn't work unless moderates on both sides of the aisle can find common ground and compromise. It is the constant and shifting exercises in coalition building that permits the wheels of US government to turn, and for things to get done.
But if you drive out all the moderates, and you refuse to find common ground on any terms other than that your opponents accept your position and only your position as a basis for anything, then US government doesn't function properly. It jams. It's like what happens when one kid says he's going to take his ball and go home. This is not a sign of the political maturity of a great nation. Rather it is political immaturity at its worst.
Both parties are prone to this, but I would say it is more of a problem in the Republican Party. I find it appalling that someone like John McCain, a senior statesman in the party, a former candidate for the Presidency, is deemed by members of his own party to merit so little respect that he can be seriously challenged for the nomination in his own state. That he then has to pander to these people in response is degrading. "Unseemly" does not even begin to describe it adequately. Have these people no sense of propriety or perspective at all?
It is mind boggling to me that the people in senior leadership positions in both parties, but particularly the Republican party, have failed to see the danger in this, and have failed to understand the damage it is doing to America. These are the John C. Calhouns, the Millard Fillmores, the Franklin Pierces and the James Buchanans of our days.
How is it possible to rise to positions of power and authority in either party, and not understand that you have a greater duty to your country? That you need to be able to put aside this partisan crap? America is in serious trouble, and it needs better government than it is going to get from this mindless name calling.
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And when you consider "liberal" economic and political thought, its origins, the great liberating and democratizing ideology that it was, (and is), the correspondingly great political battles of the 19th and 20th centuries, the giants in both politics and economics who stood as its leaders... These were men. Real men. Men of principle. Men of intellect, of determination, of principle. Of vision.
For the term "liberal" now to be a term of scorn and derision in the mouths of the intellectual pygmies who assail that legacy, who have neither knowledge of, nor appreciation for, the history of the times in which their own nation grew to greatness ...
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There is going to be a long and heavy price to pay for this polarization foolishness. It is immature. It is irresponsible. It is self-indulgent. It is destructive to the body politic of the nation.
America can't afford this "culture war" political polarization foolishness anymore. It should have stopped long ago.
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Oops. Posted that on the wrong thread.
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Many Americans and most foreigners do not see the big picture of the "United States of America." Yes, we have many faults - faults we are free to discuss without fear - faults that we eventually make right - faults that cannot be hidden because our social structure will not stand for it - faults that we always eventually fess up to and resolve. Why? - because we are a dynamic, free society that strives to live by the ideals so eloquently written by our founders - a society in constant flux and change - a society where those who would do evil are always eventually exposed - a society of people who really use their individual powers to make change for the better. The ideals of our constitution and our declaration are the ideals of all mankind - since America codefied and made these ideals law they can never again be quashed by tyranny - even would be internal tyrants cannot hide in our society for long. Oh yes, there will be tragedies and setbacks - that is the nature of a dynamic society and of life itself. However, in the end, America's ideals of freedom will prevail and America will be recognized by the world as the leading force that started, fueled and continues to fuel the flames of freedom for all mankind. Ultimately, I am confident that this experiment in freedom we started over 200 years ago will free all humanity.
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I was taught that the US was born of the 18th century Enlightenment, which was able to flourish in America free of European tyranny (Voltaire was not so lucky). Few would deny that, as a result of its natural resources and a belief in its own greatness, the US has been the most successful country of the 20th century.
But these debates are barren and merely alienate us. Two centuries on from American independence, but still locked in my WW2 formative years I keep wondering what has happened to us all who were once so united in our efforts to meet the Nazi threat. Why are we being so nationalistic? Having a common western civilization we have more to unite than divide us.
Admittedly it's hard to see that when you don't get out much.
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1st I too love this country, even if we are not perfect.
2nd I have traveled to almost 90 countries and have compared each on many levels.
3rd most will not understand my post, and some will bad mouth it, but I stand by it. Returning To Our Roots
What happens to a tree when it's root system is destroyed? The tree can no longer access the nutrients it needs, and it begins to
weaken. he leaves wilt, the branches droop, the fruit ceases to grow. Eventually, the tree dies. America was formed and developed
from biblical roots, but today our leaders chop away at our foundation. They deny the core of our purpose. They allow invasive roots to
choke out the Truth. Yet what do Christians do? We cling tightly to the rotting fruit on the drooping branches, while underneath us the
truth of our country's past and the hope for our present and future are being destroyed. Without the root system, there can be no fruit.
The secular thinkers of this country would like us to think our country was founded on humanistic values and ideals. They view our
country's birth as a philosophical and political event. However, the original words from the colony charters, the Declaration of
Independence, and early political speeches all point directly to our country's foundation upon the Christian faith and biblical Truth. Our
Founding Fathers believed that this is a nation with it's roots in the Bible.
The Mayflower Compact specifies that the colonies were established "for the glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian
faith." The Virginia Charter instructs the colonists to help "in the propagation of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in
ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God." The Delaware Charter defines one of the purposes for its settlements as the
"further propagation of the Holy Gospel." The Charter of Rhode Island commits to "the true Christian faith and worship of God." The
Charter of Maryland explained a "pious Zeal for extending the Christian Religion."
In the Declaration of Independence, our Founding Fathers acknowledged God as our country's Divine Protector. In an 1844 U.S.
Supreme Court case, the Court said, "Why may not the Bible and especially the New Testament be read and taught as a divine
revelation in the school? Where else can the puriest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New
Testament?"
The 1777 Congressional Thanksgiving proclamation called for the nation to offer "solemn thanksgiving and praise... and consecrate
themselves to the service of their divine benefactor; and that together with their sincere acknowledgements and offerings, penitent
confession of their manifold sins... and their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus
Christ...."
How horrendous that we have let those evangelical roots rot underneath us! The people of the prophet Jeremiah's day had also
departed from their godly roots. The prophet understood that only God could change their hearts and said, "Restore us to yourself, O
LORD, that we may return; renew our days as of old" (Lamentations 5:21).
The reason for our country's decay- our economic turmoil, our social ills, the church's coldness and apostasy from the Truth, pastors
in the pulpit without a backbone, citizens living in fear, the decline of our culture- is because we have departed from the one true God.
We have rejected the God of our Founding Fathers. We need to pray that God will restore us to Himself. We need to pray that America,
starting with ourselves, will turn back to God. Our Creator God cares deeply for us as individuals and as a nation. He wants to bless our
country in His Sovereignty and mercy, but we need to repent of our pride and willful independence. We need to start a revival of prayer
and thanksgiving and confession to God.
A great awakening in America is not beyond hope. Revival will happen when we repent. Real spiritual change will happen when we
call our nation to repentance. Real change will happen when we live according to biblical standards. Our almighty God can return this
nation to it's roots. He is waiting to offer His mercy and forgiveness. We need to join together in humility to pray for our own
repentance, for that of our nation, and for the souls that live in this great country. The time is short, the need of prayer is now. You
choose to bear fruit or die. Again the time is short, now what is your choice to be?
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Both the War of American Independence and the American Civil War are equally important historic events. One brought the fruits of independence, liberty and human rights to the Americans and the other brought home to the Americans the necessity of being united. America led the allied powers in the Second World War against the fascist axis powers led by Germany and achieved a conclusive victory for democracy and peace. And to-day it holds the key to the prevention of the Third World War.
America is unique in its socio-economic resilience. It survived the great depression of of 1930s; it survived the recent financial crisis.It is not for nothing that the American economy is the crucial factor in maintaining the equilibrium of the global economy.Of course, all said and done, America is God's gift.And here is God's plenty.
America is a "can I help you?" country to all. I love you, my "can I help you" country.
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The war between American Colonists and the UK led by Charles Cornwallis ended on a trade agreement for tobacco. The American Civil War ended a year and a half early when the Union offered the South a trade deal for cotton. The U.S. entered World War I late in the fighting. The Central Powers agreed to sign the armistice because America offered a good wheat deal for baking bread, cakes, and pies in post-war Germany.
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DeNalle, I'm afraid I'm one of the 'some', simply because I prefer to deal in facts and opinion, not superstition.
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249. At 12:41pm on 11 Jul 2010, sean56z wrote more fictional history.
This goes beyond the neo-Marxist and New Left interpretations of history; because even though their facts are interpreted through the very specific filter of ideology, they still use real facts not complete fantasy.
sean56z, you might consider a blog on the SciFi blog site where fantasy and alternate histories would be more appropriate. Otherwise, please read some real histories, and from different schools of thought but including the schools mentioned above.
I recommend to you and everyone "The Radicalism of the American Revolution" by Gordon S. Wood, which documents how and why America diverged from Britain before, during and after the revolution. It is not fiction, it is a university text level analysis with abundant citations. I found it to be a page turner.
For people like yourself, who have leanings toward Marxist interpretations, there is real evidence of the importance of trade and money, there is also evidence of the process of leveling on the social structure.
You are very creative, and interested in the malign influence of trade on government, which is possibly our biggest problem right now. I commend you for pursuing that interest. However, it is necessary to stay firmly grounded in reality, especially if you hope to be able to do something about real problems in the real world.
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InterestedForeigner,
I found a reference to a Canadian volunteer unit serving with the Americans at the seige of British occupied Boston. I lost the note-card and have been unable to locate the sources again.
If you have any information about it I would appreciate your sharing it with me. I am fairly sure Canadian history regards them in the same light as the Tories are regarded here.
Regards,
JMM/McJakome
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249. At 12:41pm on 11 Jul 2010, sean56z wrote:
"The war between American Colonists and the UK led by Charles Cornwallis ended on a trade agreement for tobacco. The American Civil War ended a year and a half early when the Union offered the South a trade deal for cotton. The U.S. entered World War I late in the fighting. The Central Powers agreed to sign the armistice because America offered a good wheat deal for baking bread, cakes, and pies in post-war Germany."
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This posting wins the prize of the week for historical revisionism - and on this blog, that's saying something.
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DeNalle,
Great post.
Good to hear from someone such as yourself. :)
May God Bless America and her Allies.
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252. At 3:00pm on 11 Jul 2010, JMM wrote:
"I found a reference to a Canadian volunteer unit serving with the Americans at the siege of British occupied Boston. I lost the note-card and have been unable to locate the sources again."
"If you have any information about it I would appreciate your sharing it with me. I am fairly sure Canadian history regards them in the same light as the Tories are regarded here."
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I like to think I am reasonably well informed when it comes to Canadian history, but this is something about which I have no knowledge.
If there were people of this inclination, they must have been very, very few in number. Keep in mind that the War of Independence started only 13 years after the end of the Seven Years' War.
At the time, there were fewer than 60,000 French in the former territories of New France, virtually all of them in the St. Lawrence lowlands. There would have been an even smaller number of English settlers and merchants.
There was very little interest in the American cause amongst the recently conquered French. At one point an American force under General Montgomery set off in mid-Winter to "liberate" Quebec so that French-Canadians could throw off the English yoke and join the American colonists in their quest for freedom. The mission was a disaster from start to finish. Then as now, the French had no desire to join a group foreign to their linguistic, religious, and cultural heritage, and in which they would be swamped. They saw in the opportunity not liberty, but rather domination. They were having none of it.
The population of the Maritimes was not particularly large, either, and what few settlements there were, were either implanted by the military or staunchly anchored to Britain. If I am not mistaken, Halifax was only founded in 1749, for example. And, very soon after the start of the Revolutionary War, the Maritimes and Upper Canada were about to get a big influx of United Empire Loyalists, (in due course, apparently some of my ancestors among them).
I might add that Benjamin Franklin's web of friends, acquaintances, correspondents and fellow post masters, which eventually seems to have formed the intellectual spinal cord of the Revolution, did not really include the Maritimes and Newfoundland very much.
No, I do not think there is any widespread historical knowledge of any such group, but I could be wrong.
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247. At 05:53am on 11 Jul 2010, DeNalle wrote:
[[with some alterations:]]
"Returning To Our Roots How horrendous that we have let those evangelical roots rot underneath us! The people of the prophet Mohammed's day had also departed from their godly roots. The prophet understood that only Allah could change their hearts and said, "Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may return; renew our days as of old" (Lamentations 5:21)."
"The reason for our country's decay- our economic turmoil, our social ills, and apostasy from the Truth, imams in the mosque without a backbone, citizens living in fear, the decline of our culture- is because we have departed from the one true God, Allah."
"We have rejected Allah. We need to pray that Allah will restore us to Himself. We need to pray that America, starting with ourselves, will turn back to Allah. Our Creator Allah cares deeply for us as individuals and as a nation. He wants to bless our country in His Sovereignty and mercy, but we need to repent of our pride and willful independence. We need to start a revival of prayer and thanksgiving and confession to Allah."
"A great awakening in America is not beyond hope. Revival will happen when we repent. Real spiritual change will happen when we call our nation to repentance. Real change will happen when we live according to biblical standards. All powerful Allah can return this nation to it's roots. Allah is waiting to offer His mercy and forgiveness. We need to join together in humility to pray for our own repentance, for that of our nation, and for the souls that live in this great country. The time is short, the need of prayer is now. You choose to bear fruit or die. Again the time is short, now what is your choice to be?"
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[[Is it not only the government of Iran, and not only our resident representative of the ISI/Taliban, who remind us on a daily basis that religion and government do not mix.]]
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[[There are some who post here on this blog of deep and well considered faith. Their thoughtfulness, and decency, and love for their fellow man shine through. They will always have my respect.
And then, occasionally, we get over-the-top postings like 247.
As can be seen from the posting, here we also have our own mullahs, our own imams, and our own ayatollahs who would return us the the medieval darkness, the age of the divine right of Kings, a millennium of pestilence, war, famine and death, between the fall of Rome and the Age of Enlightenment.
What a horrendous failure of our school system.]]
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All the world`s a mass of folly,
Youth is joy,Age melancholy:
Youth is spending,age is thrifty,
Mad at twenty,cold at fifty;
Man is naught but folly's slave,
From the cradle to the grave.
W.H.Ireland,Of the folly of all the world.
Right then,now that I have cheered every one up its time for a beer...
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257. At 9:57pm on 11 Jul 2010, ukwales wrote:
Right then,now that I have cheered every one up its time for a beer...
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... and no more vuvuzelas!
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255. At 6:23pm on 11 Jul 2010, Interestedforeigner wrote:
RE: 252
Not very well known here, either. In years of reading US history I had never encountered any reference to it. If true, and if not well-known in either country, it smacks of a curious mutual denial of an inconvenient truth.
For Canadians an organized if small participation in the colonial rebellion would seriously undermine the "First Invasion" element of the national myth.
The same would be true in reverse here. It would undermine the idea of continued Canadian vilainy culminating in the Benington raid [the Canadian connection to the Lincoln Assassination is considered completely disproven].
If I find it again, I'll make multimle copies and post the information to you.
Best regards,
JMM/McJakome
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
247. At 05:53am on 11 Jul 2010, DeNalle wrote:
The fundamental truth. If you read what they wrote, it is clear that the great majority of the founding fathers and their peers would have endorsed this openly.
DeNalle, most of the writers on this blog who object to what you wrote are still thoughtful enough to observe Christ's admonition to weigh the cost before deciding to follow Him. So they have at least taken the second path of wisdom.
And many others on this blog understand enough of our national torment to be actively searching for fundamental principles that will restore the nation's character, ans so our reputation and success. We can say, these are the blessings the nation's founders sought for us.
thank you,
KScurmudgeon
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About 60 members of my very large family was born in the USA and as good American citizens they believe they are the best but don’t know why!
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Re: timohio's rebuttal of my comment. You failed to understand that only George Washington had the "opportunity" to be considered irreplaceable. He was unanimously chosen. Many would have gladly anointed him king--he was revered by most Americans. All the others had no such beginning or the opportunity to be more than "just the president."
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After the U.S. Civil War, freed African Americans had a saying, "Masta Davis out, Masta Lincoln in." America suffers from the same problem. The Bush-Obama Administration spends money that it does not have. The real situation is national chapter bankruptcy.
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Remember that the Crown has many dependencies worldwide. It has a tendency to support Southern farming and Northern Industry. Of course when confronted with Revolution it promises to free the slaves it put in the South. The Crown then uses Northern manufacturers for weapons to suppress those fighting for Independence. Common tactic Divide, Conqueor, Neutralize, and oppress. Jefferson was a man of his times that wrought Independence from the Crown for millions not just U.S. citizens. Remember us liberals fought the monetarists before being transported or deployed to the various colonies. We are still for an open liberal free market that produces benefits for us commoners. Stalin took every thing the Russians earned also.
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265. At 3:41pm on 14 Jul 2010, Michael Mullarkey wrote malarkey.
What you wrote about the revolution was malarkey, however, the tactic of divide and conquer is a very good point as was what you wrote after that.
Please read up on the American Revolution so that you do not undermine reasonable statements with historical misperception.
Comparisons of the American and other revolutions is very difficult. The U.S. revolution was the only one that was completely successful, did not turn very ugly, and has survived in full force to this very day, 234 years later.
Comparing Stalin with anything in U.S. history [including Kings George III Hanover and George IV Bush] is very odd.
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AndreaNY the rug has been pulled on American Pessimism. My last two posts to you have not registered. It has been a distinct pleasure to have a mutually respectful and civil exchange with you.
McJakome
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The reason the US Revolution succeeded where others didn't is simple. Leadership and an ocean. In most countries a revolution is made up of the downtrodden people of that country, with a few intelligent leaders sometimes educated but sometimes not.
The leaders of the US revolution were the same leaders as before the revolution. In most instances, they were the elected leaders who had been elected under British rule. The people trusted them because they were the ones they had elected. They were the most intelligent and educated men of the country. After the war was over, the structure of government was already in place. It just continued under new management so to speak.
Also with a few exceptions, who mostly fled to Canada or England, the people the US revolted against were far away. There was no one to turn on to despoil the revolution.
And I also think the times were right for the "freedom" idea to take place and what better place than a brand new country on a brand new continent with plenty of room to grow? With an ocean between them and the old world.
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With the U.S. having achieved independence from England it is ironic that the U.S. now is trying to make the world over in its own image and to be subject to its own sort of economic and political imperialism, by force if necessary.
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269 Blogson – From the point of view of nearly everyone born before 1950, it was perfectly natural for a nation to expect to grow in influence and in power. Independence did not mean dependence – quite the opposite.
KScurmudgeon
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Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell readily agrees with Obama's socialist utopia. He envisions a commonwealth dominated with welfare programmes aligned with Medicare\Medicaid, UC benefits, and stimulus. Rendell funnels the money in large contracts to his patrons. So goes the great fleecing of America.
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so Euro-libs are telling us dumb americans how we should look at the world?
From what I remember about history you guys have NOTHING to emulate...
2 world wars, countless millions murdered in your name...
facism, nazism, communism....
economic slavery to the state...
-you guys are the worst thing to happen to human history for the last couple of centuries
...are you seriously going to lecture anybody about how run their own affairs?
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272. At 00:56am on 27 Jul 2010, CuriousAmerican
Actually we have almost the same problem. Some Americans are unwilling to consider that UK and EU people do some things better than we do and that it might be good for us to consider if not copy them.
On the other hand, European and UK people often seem to take it for granted that we could never teach them some lessons [just look at the miserable way they handled the "European Constitution," sneaking it in the back door as a treaty when the people of France, Holland and Ireland refused it].
Part of the supercilious attitude on both sides is a kind of repressed inferiority complex. Added to this, many Leftists/Marxists really do believe Europe would have been better if we hadn't stopped the Russians from imposing "Communism" on the whole continent.
They despise any form of capitalism [and frankly the over-the-top corporatism that brought on the world recession, made in D.C., does deserve to be despised].
As Rodney King said, "Why can't people just get along?"
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