America’s Road Ahead – Part 1 and Part 2 - From The Declination

[roberth]

I just started reading it, the article is in two parts (there will be more parts). It will be well written and accurate because that is how Thales and his fellows write. It covers a little history first because without our history we have no future.

Note: this is the first post here by Triple Sphinctered Wombat. Be sure to give him a good welcome. -Thales

http://thedeclination.com/americas-road-ahead-part-1/

Is America a country or a civilization?
Per Toynbee, America can be classified as one amongst a relatively large set of European ‘parochial states’ which constitute a Western Civilization birthed by the Renaissance and Enlightenment, these events being the product of a 1,000 year medieval ‘interregnum’ following the demise of the Roman Empire, itself the last manifestation of a Hellenic civilization which is the direct ancestor of Western culture.

Europe’s protestant nations were predominantly or overwhelmingly populated by invading (and homicidally competing) Germanic tribes during Rome’s republican and Imperial eras, sharing cultural characteristics between one another that sharply differentiated them from their Celtic neighbors/enemies. Among these attributes were a respect for the individual over the group; the combined use of statutory and common law; respect for private property; personal responsibility; and the recognition of equal or near equal rights for women. Notice how these aspects influenced even religious choices. After all, there are very fundamental reasons why the Germanic areas of Europe are protestant, whereas the Gallic regions are catholic and the Slavic ones orthodox.

People with the courage to leave all that they had ever known in exchange for a chance to start fresh had the necessary mindset to embrace a new life. The factory environment – with its respect for rules and regulations applicable equally to all employees, rewards for efficiency, productivity and extraordinary contribution, and opportunity for financial and social advancement – not only vaulted these non-Germanic immigrants into a middle class existence, but proved to be the perfect training ground for helping them join the American melting pot. People from non-German nations and cultures learned thru their factory jobs that the Rule of Law trumps the Rule of Man; that what you earn belongs to you; that you are responsible for your own success or lack thereof; and that what you gain from your hard work and achievements cannot be denied you either by archaic custom or by someone with inherited privilege and position, as there was no multi-generational hereditary aristocracy to lord over you and deprive you by ‘divine right’ or medieval tradition of what you had earned from the sweat of your brow.

http://thedeclination.com/americas-road-ahead-part-2/

I've read it all, need to read it again and wait for the next parts to be written.

[Gman]

Anything by a Triple Sphinctered Wombat has to be good.

[Bailey Guns]

Anything by a Triple Sphinctered Wombat has to be good.

I read that and immediately thought of Maxine Waters. Don't know why.

[Gman]

I read that and immediately thought of Maxine Waters. Don't know why.

I have an idea why.

[Circuits]

Thanks for the link. The excerpt has inclined me to give it a read.

[roberth]

Part 3 is up.

http://thedeclination.com/americas-road-ahead-part-3/

Even a cursory review of America’s 229 year history (using the enactment of the Constitution as a starting date) reveals its success as a civilization in establishing itself against both physical and human external challenges – the Revolution, the conquest of the frontier, the wars with Mexico and Spain and three world wars (including the Cold War.) A critical fact to recognize is that labeling the United States a “Universal State” for a decaying Western civilization because of these events would be incorrect. After all, in the war against Mexico, America did not incorporate the conquered nation into its territory but released it to resume its status as an independent country and even paid for the tracts of territory claimed from Mexico in what became the American Southwest. The Imperial Russian claims on the NW coast of the North American continent were also bought, not annexed thru conquest. Cuba and the Philippines, both taken in the Spanish American War, were set free from American suzerainty to become nations in their own right. And finally, America did not consolidate Western Europe and Japan into a territorial empire after the 2nd World War, but released them, provided security and helped them get back on their feet. Alexander and Caesar would have had a stroke over such daftness. America is simply not the stuff of which empires are built.

There is a Bill Whittle piece to watch too, very interesting.

The McCarthy era notwithstanding, we are in the throes of confronting Collectivism as an internal, existential challenge to our civilization for the first time. This challenge, however, is of a different nature than the Western European one. Western civilization has been confronted thrice with a struggle between Collectivism and the existing social order, which even today still echoes its feudal past of a rigid class hierarchy. America’s struggle, by contrast, is one between Collectivism in terms of groups and tribes claiming grievances against other groups/tribes and seeking redress, versus the respect for and value of the individual evolved from the broader Germanic cultural tradition that is part of America’s original foundation and enshrined in the Constitution.