Tag: EUtopia
You’re American If You Think You’re American
One of the advantages of having a ten-year backlog of posts is pulling up stuff from the past and linking it with current web content. Several years ago when Steven Den Beste was still doing regular blogging, he wrote a post, Non-European Country that discussed some of the differences between Americans and non-Americans and why America really is different from all other nations. I’ve quoted from it several times, but this is the excerpt for today’s post:
European “nations” are based on ethnicity, language or geography. The American nation is based on an idea, and those who voluntarily came here to join the American experiment were dedicated to that idea. They came from every possible geographic location, speaking every possible language, deriving from every possible ethnicity, but most of them think of themselves as Americans anyway, because that idea is more important than ethnicity or language or geographical origin. That idea was more important to them than the things which tried to bind them to their original nation, and in order to become part of that idea they left their geographical origin. Most of them learned a new language. They mixed with people of a wide variety of ethnicities, and a lot of them cross-married. And yet we consider ourselves one people, because we share that idea. It is the only thing which binds us together, but it binds us as strongly as any nation.
Indeed, it seems to bind us much more strongly than most nations. If I were to move to the UK, and became a citizen there, I would forever be thought of by the British as being “American”. Even if I lived there fifty years, I would never be viewed as British. But Brits who come here and naturalize are thought of as American by those of us who were born here. They embrace that idea, and that’s all that matters. If they do, they’re one of us. And so are the Persians who naturalize, and the Chinese, and the Bengalis, and the Estonians, and the Russians. (I know that because I’ve worked with all of those, all naturalized, and all of them as American as I am.)
You’re French if you’re born in France, of French parents. You’re English if you’re born to English parents (and Welsh if your parents were Welsh). But you’re American if you think you’re American, and are willing to give up what you used to be in order to be one of us. That’s all it takes. But that’s a lot, because “thinking you’re American” requires you to comprehend that idea we all share. But even the French can do it, and a lot of them have.
That is a difference so profound as to render all similarities between Europe and the US unimportant by comparison. But it is a difference that most Europeans are blind to, and it is that difference which causes America’s attitudes and actions to be mystifying to Europeans. It is not just that they don’t understand that idea; most of them don’t even realize it exists, because Europeans have no equivalent, and some who have an inkling of it dismiss it contemptuously.
It is that idea that explains why we think being called “cowboys” is a compliment, even when Europeans think it’s an epithet. It is that idea that explains why we don’t care what Europeans think of us, and why European disapproval of our actions has had no effect on us. It is that idea which explains why, in fact, we’re willing to do what we think is right even if the entire rest of the world disapproves.
It is that idea which convinces us that if by our actions we “lose all our friends in the world” then they weren’t really friends to begin with, and that we’re better off without them.
And it is that difference that continues to mystify and frustrate Europeans, who incorrectly assume that America is a European country, and who try to explain our behavior on that basis. And because our behavior is inexplicable for a European nation, they conclude that it is the result of foolishness and immaturity and lack of sophistication.
They come to those conclusions because that’s the only way one can explain how a European country could act the way America has acted. What they miss is that America is not European, not at its deepest levels. It derives from European roots, and the majority of us are derived genetically from European stock, but it is utterly unlike Europe in the ways which matter most.
I get occasional emails from the Quora.com website with interesting questions answered by the membership. Today’s included this question: What facts about the United States do foreigners not believe until they come to America? The answers are fascinating, because as much as other cultures do not grok Americans, the reverse is equally (if not more) true. I will only excerpt one answer that I found particularly insightful, but I do recommend you read the whole thread, comments and all:
Convenience is rather pleasant.
Everything one knows about American convenience culture: 24 hour shops, fast food, “have a nice day” etc. appears tawdry and degraded when you only know it exported elsewhere in the world. At best it looks sad and desperate to be copying the US, and at worst, like a bad case of cultural imperialism as US companies come in and try to impose their models on your society.
But actually *in* the US, there’s something rather charming about it. A McDonalds in a mall in Beijing or Brasilia is a horror. But go to one for breakfast in Los Angeles and it all kind of works: the design and appearance, the food, the behaviour of the staff. Not a wooden formula but a living culture.
Americana travels badly but is surprising comfortable in its native environment.
Canaries in Coal Mines
Bill Whittle:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L5EEPiN4O8?rel=0]
Demoralization
In the comments to a post at Say Uncle on massive failures from police crime labs in Massachusetts and Texas, Lyle said:
Part of the overthrow of the U.S. is demoralizing the population. Part of demoralizing the population is having incompetent buffoons in critical positions, such that we lose trust in the system. Eventually, so the idea goes, we’ll be so fed up and disgusted that we’ll cry out for a “strong man” who will “do something” by getting past all the politics and red tape, i.e. a dictator.
In the comments to a post at BoingBoing that Uncle linked wherein a Brit berated a man for “taking the law into his own hands” and taking a gun to check on the welfare of his daughter instead of calling the cops to do it, another commenter responded:
Call the police and they might just kill you
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50…Police escalate car chase to deadly conclusion
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a…Even the mayor isn’t safe
http://www.seattlepi.com/natio…Police helping the mentally-challenged
“With his dying words, he… never understood why the defendant had beat him. He said ‘All I wanted was a Snickers bar.'”
http://digitaljournal.com/arti…Newly-Released Surveillance Video Shows Police Officers Brutally Beating, Suffocating, and Tasing Kelly Thomas to Death
http://www.wjla.com/articles/2…Sure, a lot of cops, maybe most, are there to help. I’ve met some of them. But in this country, it really is a crapshoot. You don’t want to call the cops unless you absolutely have to.
There are a lot more of those, too.
Where have I heard the term “demoralization” before?
UPDATE: The Kelly Thomas link goes to a different homicide-by-cop. The video of Kelly Thomas getting beaten (not tased) to death is here: Full, unedited video.
What Piers Morgan Doesn’t Get
Generally while I’m at work in the office I like to have something running in the background that is interesting to listen to. Today, for example, I fired up Bill Whittle’s “virtual inaugural address” followed by a few different Uncommon Knowledge interviews of various people. I don’t recall which person said it, but in one discussion, Peter Robinson asked his guest what primary difference he could say there was between Americans and Europeans. His respondent said (I paraphrase) that one major difference was our attitude towards government. When the housing bubble burst and the economy both here and abroad cratered, he said, Europeans were out in the streets protesting for their governments to DO SOMETHING! (I distinctly remember seeing articles about Greek “anarchists” protesting against cutting government.) Only here in America did people spontaneously organize to tell the government to get the hell out of our lives and leave us alone.
I was reminded of a piece written by Steven Den Beste a few years ago, Non-European Country, wherein he said:
It’s true that America is more like Europe than anywhere else on the planet, but it would perhaps be more accurate to say that the US is less unlike Europe than anywhere else on the planet.
Someone pointed out a critical difference: European “nations” are based on ethnicity, language or geography. The American nation is based on an idea, and those who voluntarily came here to join the American experiment were dedicated to that idea. They came from every possible geographic location, speaking every possible language, deriving from every possible ethnicity, but most of them think of themselves as Americans anyway, because that idea is more important than ethnicity or language or geographical origin. That idea was more important to them than the things which tried to bind them to their original nation, and in order to become part of that idea they left their geographical origin. Most of them learned a new language. They mixed with people of a wide variety of ethnicities, and a lot of them cross-married. And yet we consider ourselves one people, because we share that idea. It is the only thing which binds us together, but it binds us as strongly as any nation.
Indeed, it seems to bind us much more strongly than most nations. If I were to move to the UK, and became a citizen there, I would forever be thought of by the British as being “American”. Even if I lived there fifty years, I would never be viewed as British. But Brits who come here and naturalize are thought of as American by those of us who were born here. They embrace that idea, and that’s all that matters. If they do, they’re one of us. And so are the Persians who naturalize, and the Chinese, and the Bengalis, and the Estonians, and the Russians. (I know that because I’ve worked with all of those, all naturalized, and all of them as American as I am.)
You’re French if you’re born in France, of French parents. You’re English if you’re born to English parents (and Welsh if your parents were Welsh). But you’re American if you think you’re American, and are willing to give up what you used to be in order to be one of us. That’s all it takes. But that’s a lot, because “thinking you’re American” requires you to comprehend that idea we all share. But even the French can do it, and a lot of them have.
That is a difference so profound as to render all similarities between Europe and the US unimportant by comparison. But it is a difference that most Europeans are blind to, and it is that difference which causes America’s attitudes and actions to be mystifying to Europeans. It is not just that they don’t understand that idea; most of them don’t even realize it exists, because Europeans have no equivalent, and some who have an inkling of it dismiss it contemptuously.
And that made me think of something else.
After the 1996 school shooting in Dunblane, Scotland, the British Parliament rushed through legislation banning handguns above .22 rimfire caliber, and it wasn’t a ban saying “You can’t have any more,” it was a “Mr. & Mrs. Law-abiding British Subject, we know who you are and we know what you own – turn them all in.” From this 1998 British Home Office report, Firearm Certificate Statistics, England and Wales, 1997 (PDF):
Following the shooting incident in Dunblane, Scotland, in March 1996, changes to the existing firearms legislation were introduced to increase public safety. The resulting Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 banned all handguns over .22 calibre with effect from 1 October 1997. A hand-in exercise took place between 1 July and 30 September 1997 which resulted in 110,382 of these larger calibre handguns being surrendered in England and Wales, while 24,620 smaller calibre handguns were handed in voluntarily in anticipation of further legislation. The remaining large calibre handguns held on certificate include muzzle-loading guns, signalling apparatus, firearms used for the humane killing of animals, war trophies etc. (All handguns were subsequently prohibited from 1 February 1998).
(My emphasis. And how did that “increase public safety” thing work out? Oh, right.)
In the UK, they surrendered guns that were not banned. Here in America when we think something is about to be banned, we buy every one we can get our hands on, and everything we think might get banned along with it.
Steven was absolutely correct – Europeans like Piers Morgan can’t comprehend it. It baffles them completely. And contemptuous dismissal? It’s Piers’ trademark, but he doesn’t hold a patent on it.
But THAT Would Be RAAAAAACIST™!
I’ve got nothin’ for you right now, but US Citizen pointed to this excellent video that repeats some of what I’ve been saying for years here:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooa98FHuaU0?rel=0]
They don’t care about violent crime. They care about disarming the citizenry.
A Canadian’s Perspective on the Economic Cliff
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWkUaJId7pM?rel=0]
Interesting that he doesn’t blame the housing bubble on corporate greed.
German Gun Control
Seems to work over there as well as it does everywhere else:
Perverted gynaecologist who kept sick photos of his patients also owned nearly 1,000 guns
Police have discovered a gynaecologist was storing nearly 1,000 guns as well as keeping photos of his patients’ private parts.
The medic, Dr Christian Koller, stored the pictures in hidden cupboards and safes in his Munich office and apartment, alongside machine guns, rifles, pistols and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
The officers were conducting a raid on the surgery after former patients made a complaint of malpractice against him and were not expecting to find over 700 guns.
Police say the doctor – who has surrendered his medical license – told them he was an ‘obsessed collector.’
‘He has a collector’s licence to keep some of the weapons as historic firearms but nothing on this scale,’ said a police spokesman.
His junk-on-the-bunk picture actually qualifies as an “arsenal” for a change!
There look to be several select-fire and full-auto weapons in there, too. I see only sixty or so guns in that shot, so there has to be 10x that many we haven’t seen. Obviously enough to get the Daily Mail editor’s knickers in a twist, since “over 700” and “nearly 1,000” are separated by, oh, about 300.
Quote of the Day – Inevitable Fascism Edition
Before Fascism can arise, the people have to first believe in socialism – i.e. they have to believe in a total state that can solve all problems. By savaging the ideas of free-economics and democracy, the notionally international socialists pave the way for the national socialist.
All international socialist regimes eventually evolve into national socialist for the simple reason that while international class identity is utterly mythical, ethnic and cultural identity is not.
It’s not just the ideological indoctrination that lays the groundwork, it’s the active disruption of society and the economy by the international socialist. The history of Fascism clearly shows that all national socialist states arise after a protracted and significant attack on the society by international socialists. Mussolini rose to power only after his nationalist socialist thugs put an end to a crippling internationalist combo of strikes, riots and terrorism so bad that people in the cities were beginning to starve. Hitler rose to power thanks to the SA street brawlers protecting the urban lower-middle class from vicious attacks by ruthless gangs of (mostly) Stalinists.
Once you’ve decided to have some ice cream and enter the ice cream shop, it’s then just a question of what flavor you want. Once the pseudo-intellectuals have destroyed the widespread acceptance of individual freedom in economic matters, it then just becomes a matter of choosing which flavor of socialism people will choose.
— Shannon Love, in a comment to the World Affairs Journal post A Whiff of Weimar.
RTWT. EUtopia is ugly, and getting uglier.
And I have to add this, courtesy of Rachel – EU Parliament member Nigel Farage of the UK from a couple of days ago:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSoCZs8WlDg?rel=0]
Societal Collapse
Watch this 14-minute documentary on the situation in Greece:
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/50028620 w=500&h=281](Athens: Social Meltdown from Ross Domoney on Vimeo.)
Then go look at what’s going on in Greece right now.
And then read what the Greek Prime Minister is warning.
And this can’t happen here… why, exactly?
h/t to Bayou Renaissance Man for the link to the video. And by all means, read his entire piece, since he discusses also Spain, Italy, South Africa and Iran.
There are a bunch of international dominoes all lining up for what could be a spectacular fall.
What was it that Mostly Cajun said a while back? “Retire? I will probably get killed in the early battles of the coming revolution.”