Therefore let us choose life,
that we and our seed may live,
by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him,
for He is our life and our prosperity.
Sometimes a small notion indicates issues of larger moment. In the discussion of a previous post, a commenter delivers a vest pocket critique of America seen from abroad. The salient part reads:
As for the last paragraph - well, personally, I don't give a damn whether Americans kill themselves through gross overeating and under-exercising, filling their food with chemicals for short-term profit or turning their cities' air into poison gas - not to mention handing terrorists billions of dollars to kill Americans (and others) with.What I do mind is that Americans are setting a bad example for everyone else; as a small example the streets of Britain are filled with grotesquely large 4x4s. I am quite sure the fashion comes from across the pond. As another, the Chinese might well ask why they should restrict their economic growth when America already uses many times more fuel than they do - and they'd be right.
What I do mind is various American corporations not only trying to foist their Frankenstein food on us, but trying to make it impossible for us to tell that they are doing it - did you know that Monsanto are claiming in various court cases that labelling of food containing GM soya is against free trade treaties?
I could go on - but I won't, except to say two things. Americans' bad habits are a poor example for everyone else - and America's gluttony for oil in particular, and their actions to make sure it gets fed, and the money transfers resulting from it, make the rest of the world much more dangerous.
The "My country wrong or wrong" crowd
Some of this man's observations strike me as fair, others as dubious. Most strike me as those an otherwise reasonable man might form if feeding on a daily diet of the American media melange. The American major media serves from a self-poisoned menu. It is a dangerous diet; a diet rich in junk and toxins. In large doses it might make your thoughts fill with harmful fat.
Just as it was when the Soviet Union lived -- and is still to be found on the islands of socialist utopias still extant -- once the propaganda mills are relentlessly anti-American, a real picture is hard to come by. One is pretty much a slave to one's choices of input. Not much can be done to change a mind fed a constant drip-feed of plaint from the current America-based "My country wrong or wrong" crowd.
I can see how the commenter comes by his impressions. I grant that he comes to them fairly by using what he is given to draw his conclusions. They simply don't map well to my experience of ordinary life in America in 2007. As American life, or a simple driveabout will teach you, "the map is not the territory."
It is not my purpose here to flense his critique point-by-point, only to note that his point of view is, of necessity, limited by what he is fed. You are what you eat.
By way of example, my day-to-day experience tells me that while the lumbering results of having "way too much food" are more than visible in America, so is the cult of "way too much exercise." They are the opposite ends of the bell-curve. In the middle I see that most Americans are mindful of what they eat because they can afford to be. Making this possible is a system of food production and distribution that delivers daily across vast distances a wide-spectrum of food choice at cheap prices (organic, non-organic, and junk) to every niche of the landscape. Indeed, the American food supply system is so advanced and sophisticated that we have achieved a society in which one of the major problems among the poor that remain is obesity.
The impression that Americans are "turning their cities' air into poison gas" is likewise well-meant but ill-informed. It is demonstrably not true. It is not true from a look at the steadily declining levels of emission in a steadily increasing and mobile population over the decades. It is can be seen to be obviously untrue from the simple fact of living in America for six decades -- decades that have seen more deep and lasting social change than at any other time in the history of the country, perhaps the world.
I was, as constant readers may know, born in Los Angeles six decades ago. I remember the poison air of the 1950s. I remember the smog alerts, the soot that would settle on the windowsills and grind its way into the clothes, and the black smudge that would be visible within a block of my front yard. I saw it again some three decades later, but not in Los Angeles, but in London.
Today there is still a haze over Los Angeles on most days, but you have to stand back some to see it. You also have to stand back in your mind and know that Los Angeles, depending on how you define it, is now home to between 10 and 18 million people (Up a tad from the 4 million of my childhood when only every family and not every individual had a car). The only way that air in Los Angeles today could become perfect would be if you gave every resident a unicycle for transportation, a mandated vegan diet, a Federally-funded fundament-plug, and forbid flatulence under pain of death.
In short, the air in American cities is today more than acceptable and is not, by any stretch of an imagination not twisted by false impressions, "poison." And it improves daily. Could it be improved more? Certainly it could and inevitably it will.
Even our poor are filthy rich.
The same observations hold true for our rivers, our reservoirs, our parks, our homes, our communities, and for all other nation-wide measures by which one might discover the true quality of life. We tolerate high gasoline prices in large measure because we will not drill and pump our vast reserves nor will we build new refineries. When we, as a nation, decide enough is enough then drilling and pumping and refining will return. Depend upon it.
At the same time, as it would be in any imperfect human society of 300 million souls, it is perfectly possible to find the pockets of poison and the ghettos of despair in this protean country. Viewed over time you would note they are shrinking, but you could still stand on a street corner in South Central or Harlem and focus a camera in such a direction and frame the images in such a manner you could deliver the impression of a vile and selfish society in which the poverty-striken obese were crushed under some corporate oppressor's boot.
You could do such a thing and many still do, but it is only shaped propaganda spun by the self-loathing media mavens, and those looking to extract political power from the poor once again. It does not represent anything close to the truth of the American experiment and environment in 2008. Here even our poor are filthy rich measured against the world's poor.
As is often the case in the envious world today, we encounter -- in the commenter's plaint and elsewhere at home and abroad -- a mindset in which "the perfect is the enemy of the good." This is a mindset that views anything less than some imagined perfect state as somehow failing and worthy of excoriation. It is a mindset in which, if the real world falls short of the imagined perfection, it is the real world that is ill rather than the mind of the imaginer. It is a mindset which finds nothing is impossible as long as others do the work and pay the price. It is a mindset forever doomed to disappointment; a doom in which it takes a strange, almost masochistic, pleasure.
Faced with such a deeply-rooted but deeply wrong mindset, we find ourselves eavesdropping on Macbeth as he discusses his wife's madness with a doctor:
Macbeth
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
Doctor
Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
The American experiment
The reality is that the American experiment continues its pursuit of the good and its flirtation with perfection. And through this ceaseless pursuit of happiness the American experiment continues to demonstrate to the world what a real egalitarian and free society actually looks like. America does not deal in what such a society could be, but what one actually is here, now, today. Here the concept of freedom is proved and renewed daily. And we prove it by our constant political argument about "the perfect" vs. "the good;" a utopia now via government intervention in all aspects of life vs. individual liberty and the best "possible" world now. It is an argument that seeks balance rather than predominance.
The commenter seems to feel that there is some bizarre and implicit global responsibility of America to set a "good" example rather than, as he feels, its current "bad" example. He seems to feel that as America goes, so goes the world; that the Brits drive big cars in Britain not because they make that choice as free people but because 'American mind waves' force them to do so against their will; that the Chinese, if impressed by some future America's return to some eco-idyllic state, will shrug off the materialist desires that the increasing wealth and semi-liberty of their situation affords them and return to the days of the ox-cart, the rickshaw, and famine. In short he places too much power in the hands of America and too little in the hands of the human individuals in the rest of the world. To this way of thinking the example is all, and that only if the example is a "good" example can the world be perfected.
To a minor extent he is correct. The global reach of our media is a force in the world, but a deeply confusing one. Our media's main export is a mixed message wrapped around a muddled metaphor. It constantly tells the world about our shortcomings ("Alas, we have not yet perfected our country. Here's how..."), but at the same time shows the world our achievements ("Check out the good life, the very good life, and get some for yourself. Here's how..." ). What he fails to note, or perhaps perceive, is that the American Story rises out not out of the American Agreement but out of the American Argument, an argument that we've been having here in the land where men have been able to freely speak and vote their minds for well over two centuries. It is an argument we're not finished with yet.
The American Argument
There are many ways of stating the America's argument with itself -- indeed, it is many arguments -- but one of the most straightforward is
"How shall men be free and how shall a society of free men then be structured?"
From time to time the passions that animate the American Argument run to blood, such as the era that led to the Civil War and, to a much lesser extent, our current era. At other times, the American Argument is pitched at a much lower level of intensity. But the Argument is ever present, never resolved, and any number can play. If you can get here and become a citizen you can participate as well. Hell, we'll let you participate even if you are here and not a citizen. We might even allow millions of you to become citizens overnight in order to join the Argument. You don't even have to learn English any longer. Just press 2 to continue in Spanish.
We just had a big argument over that last concept and, even though it's over for now, it's not over yet. Indeed, the great thing about the American Argument is that it is never over. The Argument will go on and on prompting every generation to add to it and shape it as that generation wills -- for good or ill -- and that it will self-correct over time as the Argument endures.
Indeed, for all intents and purposes, the Argument is the American Revolution today. The Argument is an artifact of the American Revolution. It endures because the American Revolution endures, 230 years later, as the most successful revolution in the history of the world. The American Revolution did not start in 1776 -- that was just the shooting phase. The Revolution began when men from the Old World first came to make a life in the New World and decided to make it a new life for all.
The American Argument emerged from the impact of American landscape on the men of Old World. These were men of the spirit brought face to face with, for the last time in history, a new and protean land. As Robert Frost reminded us at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy:
The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.
This was what lay before us before the beginning. The impact of that time upon the men of that moment was mystical. It is chronicled in those first visions the idea that the New World could be more than the extension of the Old; that it could be truly New. It was not so much an "idea" as a vision.
That vision of a world made new is now an ancient one in this land. It predates the Revolution and the formal founding of the United States. The fading echoes of that vision can be found in such documents as "The Mayflower Compact" and most clearly in John Winthrop's 1630 sermon "City Upon a Hill."
"City Upon a Hill."
Many consider the Declaration of Independence to be the key document in the creation of the American experiment, but the seeds of the Declaration are to be found in many earlier expressions of what it was like to be new in the New World. Of these, the closing words of Winthrop's "City on a Hill" stand for most of the others:
For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God's sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.
And to shut this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful servant of the Lord, in his last farewell to Israel, Deut. 30. "Beloved, there is now set before us life and death, good and evil," in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments and his ordinance and his laws, and the articles of our Covenant with Him, that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it. But if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worship other Gods, our pleasure and profits, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it.
Therefore let us choose life,
that we and our seed may live,
by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him,
for He is our life and our prosperity.
"Therefore let us choose life...." That's pretty much what we try to do here in America some 232 years out. We try in our halting, shambling, faltering way to always choose life. Life with all its flaws and complexities and victories and defeats.
We don't try to be perfect -- although there are many among us who urge it upon us and expect it from us in order to feel more perfect in themselves.
We don't try to force our example on the world. If we did want to do that we could force it easily enough by becoming a real imperial power, but that would mean building the military to a level that would not make for a good society. (Something discussed extensively in The Federalist Papers, and since, and always discarded.) Some of course will rise to object that our current war of intervention is proof at last of our imperial ambitions, but this is only because they have little insight and understanding of exactly how gently and carefully we are moving in Iraq; that they do not comprehend just how great a power we hold in reserve and still abjure to use. Iraq is not a war of conquest. It is a war of patty-cake.
"The last best hope of Earth."
At the same time I would not deny that we are by default an example to the world -- if not the perfect example so many would prefer. Instead we are simply, warts and all, the best society in all its multifoliate aspects that currently exists -- or has ever existed -- upon the Earth. In this it is well that "The eyes of all people are upon us."
We are instead a nation that has never been perfect but always, if you could walk the land and know the lay of it, the warp and the woof and the thought dreams of it, much better than we have any right to be. This is why, if you could look at the world from orbit and see the people of the world flowing over its surface in some sort of schematic, you would see, when you came to gaze at the borders of America, many footprints going in and few coming out.
That's why I am always amused by the exhortations from within and without to "get perfect or get gone." They always seems to me to be filled with spleen on the surface but with an poignant yearning on the inside; a yearning that acknowledges in its spleen that this country of all the others is still "the last best hope of Earth." It is a place where, as the new slogan states it: Our Worst Critics Prefer to Stay.
Today's off-the-rack America-loathing is that of a trained parrot. A parrot that knows in its bones that, no matter how much it dislikes the world with America in it, it would be a much less perfect and much more dangerous world with America out of it. Then again, given the shape of the world and the nature of the American argument, perhaps this wish may some day be granted and the world can again sink back into the tyranny of individuals, faction, and state-control.
Perhaps. But that day is not yet. With all the rancor now on display, I still think that we've got about two to five more centuries left to continue setting our "bad example" to the rest of the world.
Hell, give us one century more to argue and our "bad example" might even get you your "perfect world."
Posted by Vanderleun at July 4, 2008 10:47 AM | TrackBackI find it particularly poignant that a Brit would agonize that the U.S. is not a stellar role model for him or the rest of the world.
I would simply suggest that Brits, or anyone else, have a choice in the vehicles they drive. A choice in the food they eat (note: I always had trouble getting a table at TGIF when I had to go over there to work. I ate at TGIF frequently because my work schedule did not agree with the serving times of most Brit eating establishments. They seemed to eat there because they loved it. Big sign in front stated "Full American Menu".) It is not the American influence that causes the rate of teen smoking over there to be shockingly high.
Well, not to belabor the point further. It is pathetic when citizens of a presumably free society resort to blaming others for their perceived short-comings.
Here is what I say to the Brits, Euros, and others who don't like the culture that America allegedly exports: "'Cowboy Up' and develop your society the way you want it to be.
Posted by: Edward Gilkison at July 13, 2007 12:22 PMThank you for another on-target essay. I had an e-mail just yesterday from friends in the UK who spent a day with me while they were in New York two weeks ago (where they stayed with other American friends). They said that the trip really opened their eyes to the distorted view of the United States presented by the British media.
And thank you for quoting Winthrop-- that sermon is a keeper.
Posted by: Connecticut Yankee at July 13, 2007 1:56 PMI quit agree with Fletcher on how addicted we in the US are to oil. For my entire adult life we have known this was a national security problem and we have done nothing about it.
But I refuse to take the blame for the 4x4s all over the land that invented the Range Rover.
Posted by: andrewdb at July 13, 2007 3:15 PMBig, ugly, four wheel drives. I guess he's never seen a Land Rover. Maybe it doesn't count if they're hugely overpriced and and don't function much of the time.
But that does seem to be the european business model. I sometimes find it (ironic, infuriating, disorienting...pick one) the the US generally gets the most venomous damns for what is essentially picking up after the european colonial powers. Certainly the middle east wouldn't be quite the dog's breakfast it is without two centuries of enlightened choices made in London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome.
To say the US is "addicted" to oil is a commonplace. But it is not so. It is true that oil is now, and for the immediate future will be, the thing on which our nation's standard of living depends, but that is generational. Even now it would be a blind person indeed who cannot see that that is changing as alternative ways are both sought and brought online. It is, however, an evolutionary process and not -- as many of the perfect worlders would have it -- a revolutionary process. The revolution is in the process of moving away, not in the instant nature of change. It simply won't happen. It takes around 15 years to cycle the current private vehicle stock out of the society. And this does not even begin to address the importance and the essential infrastructure element of trucks. Everything in modern life in America is in place because of trucking. To redo that will not only require the slow replacement of the entire trucking fleet but a vast upgrade to the national rail system. The reopening and extending of railroad right of way plus the upgrading of the tracks and the railbed is a 20 year process at the very least.
As for bio fuels and ethanol, they cannot as of now be pipelined. Therefore any delivery will have to be via.... truck or rail... which means at least for the last few miles... truck.
You want to make a real dent in dependance on oil? Figure out the truck problem.
Posted by: Gerard Van der Leun at July 13, 2007 5:48 PMReally wonderful essay, Gerard!
I saw it again some three decades later, but not in Los Angeles, but in London.
London's bad, but Milan can get as bad, too.
As far as gas guzzlers... let me think... Jaguar, Bentley... Land Rover... Aston Martin... Rolls Royce...
Posted by: Fausta at July 13, 2007 6:27 PMIf people of the past (pick a century} could see us now they would laugh themselves back to death. Humans, what a bunch of morons as bugs bunny would say
Posted by: jeffersonranch at July 14, 2007 6:03 AMHitting the nail squarely. Nothing to add to a perfect essay.
Posted by: kreiz at July 14, 2007 6:28 AMAnd now for some good old fashioned arrogant American exceptionalism.
EU grade 4x4s wouldn't make a pimple on the bumper of a respectable American SUV.
Posted by: Old Dad at July 14, 2007 7:55 AMPoor European, can't think for themselves, still completely under the control of AmeriKa. must be a hypnotic ray beamed from JW Bush!
non-responsible little Children, under control of big bad Sam.
Pathetic.
Posted by: John at July 14, 2007 8:50 AMGVdL: "I can see how the commenter comes by his impressions."
Aye, Fletcher, did you see on the Beeb how the Queen strafed Annie Leibovitz?
What?
Rigged footage?
"Feral Beasts?"
Nevermind.
Posted by: stevesh at July 14, 2007 11:00 AMGerard:
Diverting high volumes of US truck loads to rail is a tough one – in part because so much of the freight that is easily transferred to rail has already made the move. The domestic intermodal industry has grown considerably over the last several decades, mainly in long haul corridors like LA – Chicago, where it may have a 70 percent market share with respect to highway. It is in the shorter haul markets where it becomes hard for rail to make a dent, no matter how much the infrastructure is improved and the service subsidized. This is particularly true in Europe, where governments have tried over many years to divert truck freight to rail without much success. It would be much the same on the US East Coast. The point to point distance at which intermodal becomes competitive is usually considered to be between 600 and 1,000 miles. This is due to terminal costs and trucking at both ends. These costs must be countered by lower linehaul costs on the rail segment. So the margin between direct truck and rail is often very thin – at times less than $50 for even an LA – Chicago move. If larger trucks were allowed in more states, the economics would shift back to truck for even the long haul moves. However, if we experience much higher fuel costs, the scales could tip in favor of rail, perhaps for shorter moves also, provided rail can keep service levels high. Some links:
BTS- Table 4-5: Fuel Consumption by Mode of Transportation in Physical Units: http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_05.html
Freight Facts and Figures 2006 - Table 5-7 and 5-7M: Fuel Consumption by Transportation Mode - FHWA Freight Management and Operations:
http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/freight_analysis/nat_freight_stats/docs/06factsfigures/table5_7.htm
Overview of U.S. Freight Railroads:
http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/transportation/a_freightrr.html
Railfax Report - 2006 Summary of North American Rail Freight Traffic:
http://railfax.transmatch.com/rfax06/index.html#IndTable
Intermodal Freight Transportation
http://www.scag.ca.gov/goodsmove/pdf/truckrail/ch5.pdf
I have already commented, and possibly ought to have included this in the previous effort; but the general tone of the original post (ah diddums, little boy; never, mind, Daddy knows best and you don't understand) is an illustration of the problem. Americans - any Americans - are too close to the problem to see it.
And I do know just how great a power you haven't used yet. Evidence of this is the fact that Tehran isn't a solidified lake of Trinitite - yet. How many Americans, and (from my point of view) more importantly how many Brits are going to die before it is?
But if you do that, of course, there won't be anything left to steal.
The British Empire was a much greater force for good, in its time, than is the American Imperium. Which is probably one of the reasons why America has seen us off. You can't stand competition.
Posted by: Fletcher Christian at July 14, 2007 7:27 PMWeak Fletcher............Very Weak........
Posted by: Alexander James at July 15, 2007 7:20 PMI know I'm a little late to the parade, but I can't resist making a comment on the entry by andrewdb: "how addicted we in the US are to oil." Call me an old fuddy duddy, but I like to make a point by using language that makes sense. Here is the American Heritage Dictionary definition of the word addicted: "1. To cause to become physiologically or psychologically dependent on a habit-forming substance: The thief was addicted to cocaine. 2. To occupy (oneself) with or involve (oneself) in something habitually or compulsively: The child was addicted to video games." How does that have anything to do with oil? I have never felt the desire either to get a high with oil or to hop in my auto and drive around the Beltway for six straight hours.
Do we use oil as efficiently as we could? For every argument that we do not - automobile size, public transportation use, community planning, and alternative energy production - there are equally valid arguments that our use of oil is appropriate. With the price of oil going up, and staying up, the economic incentives will drive the development and the roll out of alternatives to our current oil consumption patterns. If the "addicted to oil" crowd would like to make a point, they need to present evidence that we are using oil inefficiently, i.e. that better technology and/or consumption patterns exist to accomplish the same result using less oil. And don't for example say our cars are too big, because they are also safer and more responsive to the longer driving distances in the U.S.
Posted by: JohnSal at July 16, 2007 2:23 PMWe had to see Britain off as a competitor...would be farrrr toooo humiliating to see a country with 1/5 the population of the U.S. better us.
Based on the evidence of Iran's failing economy under the great mullahs, not sure there's anything of value left to steal. All the good rugs have probably already been stolen, er, I mean purchased.
Posted by: phil g at July 16, 2007 2:51 PMThe mutineer above appears to blame the demise of the British Empire on America. But that assertion is absurd, if one has even the most casual aquaintance with European History of the last 100 years.
I rather think that the Great War of 1914-1918 had more to do with the demise of the British Empire, (and frankly, the origin of most of the political problems the world is facing today), than anything the USA has managed to do in the last 100 years.
And the British did that to themselves, with no help from the US.
(Unless of course, one believes that all those war loans, and eventually the intervention of the US in WWI and WWII was all some sort of plot to destroy the British Empire. Seems to to be a roundabout way of doing it, eh?)
Posted by: Eric Blair at July 17, 2007 6:43 AMThanks, and happy 4th of July!
Posted by: Andy at July 4, 2008 9:20 AMThanks, Gerard, this essay is a good addition to my 4th of July experience. I hope yours is a good one too.
"As far as gas guzzlers... let me think... Jaguar, Bentley... Land Rover... Aston Martin... Rolls Royce..." I couldn't let that one by without adding that none of them would probably still exist if it weren't for the American market. There aren't that many Saudi princes....
Posted by: pete at July 4, 2008 10:43 AMHow old is the original post of this? I don't remember. Each country, of course, has its good and bad points - and equally of course, its effect on the rest of the world depends on both the power that it wields (now, America is unmatched) and which of those dominates.
Some things about the USA, I am impressed with. I remember the two weeks (yes, that's all) I spent as a guest of an expatriate Brit, living in one of NYC's dormitory towns and working in NYC itself. I was less than impressed with some of what I saw, and very impressed indeed with some of the rest. One thing that struck me; one day I spent a day sampling some of the NYC tourist traps, including Trump Tower (so OTT it's almost classy). That one day out of two weeks, it rained. What really impressed me was that, within a few minutes of the rain starting, every street corner had its resident umbrella-seller. Notably, every one of them was black.
The lesson? Entrepreneurism is alive and well in the USA - at least in NYC. But everyone, and every nation, ought also to be aware of his or its bad points as well - and in my humble opinion, stupidity, ignorance and arrogance are some of the bad points of the USA. And the higher up the social scale one goes the more they are evident.
The United States of America started as essentially British. Some of the things that define the USA still are; the rule of law, fair play, tolerance for dissent. Some are not.
The USA, for good or ill, is now an empire - whether you choose to admit it or not. Imperial privileges come with responsibilities, as the UK well knows. We discharged ours; notably in the largest democracy in the world. Will the American Imperium do as well? Who knows?
I think that every American ought to read Kipling. Particularly one line; "send forth the best ye breed". It isn't needed in the UK any more; we were the Light of the West for two centuries at least, probably more, and we're tired. And worn out, and on the sidelines. The torch is passed. If you want to get literary, we were Gondor to the USA's Rohan.
Lastly, consider this. The USA is one of a very few countries that can have anything to do with the real hope of humanity - the frontier that starts a hundred miles from anywhere. And one of the USA's bad points comes to the fore here; that of CYA bureaucracy as a replacement for courage. NASA ought to be disbanded. Tomorrow.
Posted by: Fletcher Christian at July 4, 2008 2:26 PMOne year old. But still worthy of contemplation.
Posted by: vanderleun at July 4, 2008 3:47 PMWell, a year later and the entity which call itself Fletcher Christian is still with us.
Fletcher, old chap, if you spent any time in NYC you would notice immediately that the USA has moved far past its British heritage. Unfortunately, from what I read so has England; and not in a positive way.
I strongly suggest that you use your superior powers of observation and expression to clean up the problems at home. If you do that with due diligence you simply won't have the time to worry about ours. I was the first respondent to the original post and stated then, and repeat now, that it is rather sad if citzens of other countries must actually look to the U.S. for their cultural direction; and even sadder if they then use our alleged influence as the excuse for their shortcomings.
One final comment. As a former employee of British Aerospace I couldn't help noticing that many Brits who obtained job assignments in the U.S. contrived to stay here permanently. I know of no Americans who contrive to emmigrate to England. Actions speak much louder than blog posts.
Posted by: Bob Gilkison at July 4, 2008 5:42 PMI've been reading you site for a few weeks and have enjoyed it very much. Trenchant writing and fascinating links.
The amphi-oceanic contest about who has been the better mucker-upper or improver of global human affairs is just part of the continuous Argument. But how can one compare an Empire that annex'd huge swathes over centuries, subjecting their peoples to control by the Foreign Office, as against the United States, which has no real history of taking over foreign lands and later granting them an "imprinted" independence? When I think of "colonialism" or "imperialism" America is not the first country that springs to mind.
Are Britain or Germany or Netherlands proportionately better stocked with intelligent and thoughtful souls than America? Less violent and more sensible? Perhaps the perception problem is that the European intellectual elite has realized their dream of post-modern liberalism in the EU program, without much resistance apparently, and they seem to be smartly united in their abandonment of most of the Bad Things that Americans are still arguing about. By contrast, the counterpart intellectual class in the US has not yet convinced all of us that bureaucratic socialism is the way to go and because our political lifeblood is not of one universal type or vision. To me it seems our friends have traded their independence and liberty, what measure of these they may have once enjoyed, and exchanged them for a more comforting, if temporary, sense of humanity.
Posted by: Hannon at July 4, 2008 5:43 PMTo add to what Gerard originally said a year ago, just yesterday I bought a printer, ink, and a usb cable. Along with a pair of headphones which I'm now using to listen to music with (The Moody Blues, Sitting at the Wheel). And I have money left over. Me a fellow on government disability.
Of course, my rent is supplemented by HUD, I don't drive, and my medical treatment and my medication is covered by the Feds, but still...
I live in a country prosperous enough to keep me in a standard of living monarchs of centuries past would be amazed by, and what I do with this largess? I use it to maintain Mythusmage Opines, a blog dedicated to blogging about subjects outre and obtuse, and commenting on innocent blogger's sites.
Currently listening to: John Denver Windsong (Probably his best song)
Posted by: Alan Kellogg at July 4, 2008 8:36 PMVanderleun; you haven't got five centuries left, you haven't got two, I much doubt you have more than fifty years. Why? Because in 2058, the shape of society will be unrecognisable one way or another. Some fates: despite the best efforts of NASA, humanity gets into space in a big way - and exponential growth takes over, and Earth never mind the USA starts to be irrelevant. Or the technological singularity has already arrived, and humans are no longer the dominant species on Earth. Or the jihadists do something truly unforgiveable, and what happens then could be nearly anything, none of it good. Or one of our toys (probably ill-designed nanotech) gets loose and nothing alive is left on Earth at all. Or any one of a number of things. The point is that the pace of history continues to accelerate, and it may not be all that much longer before we are not in control of it.
Hannon; oh, I thought the old "Imperialism" chestnut would be thrown in soon. Let's see, what is this evil imperialist power responsible for? Oh yes - habeas corpus; parliamentary democracy; modern science (remember a certain Mr. Newton?); the Industrial Revolution; the USA; Australia; Canada; the end of slavery; female emancipation; and fighting off one of the worst dictators in history twice and a large part of fighting off unquestionably the worst. And of course, turning a subcontinent full of warring mediaeval princelings into a modern democracy, the largest in the world. And when that country asked us to leave, we did. They even like us, most of the time.
As for taking over foreign lands and attempting to implant democracy; hmmm... Anyone here think that isn't what the USA is trying to do in Iraq?
The UK has a few things to be sorry about. The above aren't any of them. By the way, I agree completely about the ills of modern Britain - but there is only one of me, and I'm tired too, having survived two major life-threatening illnesses and having a struggling business to run. In an industry that the (largely American-controlled) pharmaceutical industry is trying to shut down, by the way.
Posted by: Fletcher Christian at July 5, 2008 2:21 PMMy wife is Scottish and she detests the way the inmates have taken over the asylum in Britain. The cities are crime ridden, the people have no respect for each other, the police are repressive and PC, the healthcare system does not work and the hard working are taxed to death to support the lazy and stupid.
And that's what favorable things she has to say about it. She'd never leave the USA, for all its faults, for the looney bin that is today's UK.
Anyone who wishes to see how liberties die need not go to the UK just visit Canada.
Posted by: Thomas Jackson at July 5, 2008 3:52 PMFletcher C.--
Why do you slip the "evil" next to my "imperialist", and then proceed to issue great dollops of hyperbolic irrelevancies on top of my poorly qualified yet straightforward message? You've said nothing to refute my basic premise which is that your Empire was the most avaricious and imperious [different word this time] in matters colonial and global for many a year.
You assume that I have no reverence for England/UK and there you would be very wrong. I recognize that many of the best developments in the Western world owe to her existence, and our sensibilities and outlook are overwhelmingly shared even today. But it so happens that *often* one of your countrymen or another will go off bashing the Americans all and sundry because our foreign or domestic policy appears to be underwritten by baboons. And then you hand us another lesson in what pillocks we are and how we would be nothing without y'all for political if not literal ancestors. Honestly, hearing it and mounting a defense against it gets tiresome after a while.
We are a nation of great things Good and Bad, just as yours, but you have been at it longer. In much of my reading I get the feeling that Europe generally fears and loathes us, and with Bush & Co. trying to "democratize" the world for eight years that is not an unreasonable position. But please try to keep things in perspective and don't think that just because 72% of us can't find Britain on a map means that we don't care. Some of us really do and it is painful to see your island nation degrading into a real Hell on earth.
In retrospect I am sorry that I dignified Fletcher Christian's efforts with a response. He is just another little man in a little place who makes himself feel big by bashing the United States. It is safe; it is cheap; and it means nothing. Really not worth taking note of the buzzing of the flies.
Posted by: Bob Gilkison at July 6, 2008 2:24 PMBut as long as we're at it, this from Diana West's blog:
"The most senior judge in England--Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips (oh, please)--tonight gave his most Lordly, Chief and Just blessing to the use of sharia law to resolve disputes among Muslims.
Another reason to be glad we declared independence."
Posted by: Hannon at July 6, 2008 6:33 PM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.