Tango01 | 25 Jul 2017 9:34 p.m. PST |
"And what if it was a mistake from the start? The Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, the creation of the United States of America—what if all this was a terrible idea, and what if the injustices and madness of American life since then have occurred not in spite of the virtues of the Founding Fathers but because of them? The Revolution, this argument might run, was a needless and brutal bit of slaveholders' panic mixed with Enlightenment argle-bargle, producing a country that was always marked for violence and disruption and demagogy. Look north to Canada, or south to Australia, and you will see different possibilities of peaceful evolution away from Britain, toward sane and whole, more equitable and less sanguinary countries. No revolution, and slavery might have ended, as it did elsewhere in the British Empire, more peacefully and sooner. No "peculiar institution," no hideous Civil War and appalling aftermath. Instead, an orderly development of the interior—less violent, and less inclined to celebrate the desperado over the peaceful peasant. We could have ended with a social-democratic commonwealth that stretched from north to south, a near-continent-wide Canada…." Main page link Amicalement Armand
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nevinsrip | 25 Jul 2017 11:34 p.m. PST |
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gamershs | 26 Jul 2017 12:08 a.m. PST |
Gee, I wonder how the Irish of the 1840s or the 1920s would agree about peacefully leaving England. Canada and Australia were both setup as non centralized governments by England. England, which is centralized, did this so that they could never grow into powers that could challenge England. Where in Canada Quebec could break away from Canada do you think York could ever break away from England. |
Ten Fingered Jack | 26 Jul 2017 3:01 a.m. PST |
Written by Adam (((Gopnik))). His ancestors were still in Russia at the time of the War of Independence. That disqualifies him as part of "we". |
Cacique Caribe | 26 Jul 2017 4:08 a.m. PST |
Lol. Most everyone's ancestors were somewhere else back then, weren't they? And yet, as US citizens today we all say "we". Dan |
robert piepenbrink | 26 Jul 2017 4:40 a.m. PST |
Never seems to occur to the "wars never settle anything" and the "let's move America left" crowd that without the US, Canada might have remained a geographical expression. The Brits never made any secret of a belief that the rights of Englishmen only so-so applied in the colonies, that colonial economies existed to serve British interests, and that colonial government was whatever Britain wanted it to be. These beliefs began to change--after Yorktown. At that, there was no such thing politically as Canada until the ACW was over, and Britain's last attempt to cripple the United States had failed. Faced with a unified and powerful United States (and Fenian raids) Britain got serious about self-government--as long as no one got too carried away with the whole "people have rights" business. To this day, don't cross the US' northern border and say anything some unelected committee decides is "offensive." You won't even get a trial. It would no doubt gall them to admit it, but Canadian independence was also begun on July 4th 1776, and was secured by the Continental Army--including two Canadian regiments. |
Parzival | 26 Jul 2017 5:35 a.m. PST |
Yeah, and the British government in Australia never did anything bad to its indigenous people. :-p Revisionist crap by a "hate America first" loon with a pathetically limited understanding of history. You can blame every bad thing on anybody if you stick a pin in history and say "…and look at all the crap that followed!" "If" forms the start of many a specious argument. |
boy wundyr x | 26 Jul 2017 6:33 a.m. PST |
"To this day, don't cross the US' northern border and say anything some unelected committee decides is "offensive." You won't even get a trial." – for the record, that's drivel. |
Pan Marek | 26 Jul 2017 6:50 a.m. PST |
Burton- I'm a Polack whose family arrived in the 1930s. Does that mean I am forbidden from commenting on US history? Really? The main error in the article (and yes, I've had musings to the same effect as its premise), is that it does not consider the impact on world history, and the development of governments and rights, that the AmRev had. Would the British Empire had banned slavery as early as it did if it was making huge profits from cotton? Would representative democracy have spread anywhere without the American example? Remember the words of the Gettysburg address, where Lincoln spelled out his fears that Union defeat was also a defeat for the entire concept of representative government. That said, it is indeed tempting to look with 20-20 hindsight at the development of Canada, especially if one is not fond of the current US government. Note, however, that Australia has had plenty of violence and racism. |
Supercilius Maximus | 26 Jul 2017 7:45 a.m. PST |
Yeah, and the British government in Australia never did anything bad to its indigenous people. :-p Actually, the BRITISH government never did. It was the local authority that abused them – the UK government tried to stop this, replacing the Governor of New South Wales, for example – and was the first colonial authority to offer compensation to Aboriginal victims. |
robert piepenbrink | 26 Jul 2017 8:51 a.m. PST |
Boy Wundyr, start with this: link Actually, just google "offensive speech Canada" and go from there. You'll get some sort of "administrative" hearing--quite capable of determining guilt and imposing penalties, but not actually a trial. That's because in a trial, you'd have the right to an attorney, the presumption of innocence and I think also a more extensive appeals process. Canadians are promised free speech "within reasonable limits" but the government determines what is reasonable. I'm not quite trusting enough for such a system.
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rmaker | 26 Jul 2017 9:56 a.m. PST |
Note, however, that Australia has had plenty of violence and racism. And so has Canada. it's just not polite to talk about it. |
42flanker | 26 Jul 2017 10:58 a.m. PST |
From the above responses, I suspect that not all of the writers have read farther than than the paragraph cited in the OP. Rather than myopic assertions regarding the British role in the Irish potato famine or discrimination against Australian aborigines, that "wars never settle anything" or "Let's move America left," those reading further will find that Adam Gopnik's article proves to be a thoughtful and sceptical review of two other authors' works Justin du Rivage's "Revolution Against Empire" and "Scars of Independence" by Holger Hoock. He uses this as the basis for examining two contrasting social and intellectual impulses that have held sway in American politics since the move to separate from Britain began, and also the role that violence has played. Interesting. |
42flanker | 26 Jul 2017 12:05 p.m. PST |
Would the British Empire had banned slavery as early as it did if it was making huge profits from cotton? I am not sure I agree. Not only were British trading and manufacturing interests making profits from cotton, they were making profits from tobacco, sugar and slavery itself. There is hardly a big house or public building in the British Isles from the period before 1865 that isn't founded to some degree on plantation products or slave trading. |
Cacique Caribe | 26 Jul 2017 12:17 p.m. PST |
What's with the "eh" thing? What's with the selling milk in plastic bags? Is that true? Is it true that Canadians living at the border sometimes cross over just to smuggle US milk? What's up with that? Can Canadian grizzlies and US grizzlies produce offspring without filling out a thousand forms in triplicate? Is it true that beards grow faster in Canada? Why is there no iced tea in Canada? Is that part of some tea purity/apartheid agenda? Is the plural of moose meese or mooses? Russia has the bear, Brits have the lion, China the dragon, US has the bald eagle, but why is the beaver the national symbol in Canada? Is that the meanest animal you got? :) Dan PS. Sorry, I thought it was "ask silly stuff about Canada day".
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foxweasel | 26 Jul 2017 1:06 p.m. PST |
That's an aggressive looking beaver! Not often you hear that I'll bet. |
robert piepenbrink | 26 Jul 2017 1:17 p.m. PST |
Actually, 42nd, once you have an opening paragraph, The New Yorker and Adam Gropnik, you seldom need the rest of the article. They all work around to what a regrettable place the US is, and the bill of particulars seldom varies much. Notice the careful selection of books, though: absolutely no mention of Philips' The Cousins Wars, which clearly sees many of the same fault lines in the English-speaking world, but lacks Gropnik's trademark anti-Americanism. With Addams, Hokinson and Arno all dead, I'm not sure why the New Yorker bothers. |
Pan Marek | 26 Jul 2017 1:28 p.m. PST |
I find it interesting that being against the bad things about America is interpreted as being "anti-American". Conservatives hate alot of things about America, but no one would call them anti-American. |
42flanker | 26 Jul 2017 1:37 p.m. PST |
Notice the careful selection of books, though: absolutely no mention of Philips' The Cousins Wars I am not sure what dishonest intent you meant imply with your use of the word 'careful.' I would imagine that Gropnik restricts his discussion to 'Revolution against Empire' and 'Scars of Independence' because they are both recently published books he has been tasked to review, while 'Cousins War' was published almost twenty years ago. Not so much 'careful' as focussed. Kinda sneaky, I'll admit. |
Winston Smith | 26 Jul 2017 1:41 p.m. PST |
Jeff Foxworthy ("You might be a redneck if…") tells a story about a guy who came up to him and told him about his cousin who had his nipple bitten off by a beaver. That doesn't sound very nice. |
Cacique Caribe | 26 Jul 2017 1:51 p.m. PST |
Foxweasel: "That's an aggressive looking beaver! Not often you hear that I'll bet." Lol. In the delivery room there are plenty of angry ones. :) Winston, I don't think beavers can jump, so what was the guy doing with his shirt off that close to the ground near a beaver? Dan |
robert piepenbrink | 26 Jul 2017 2:04 p.m. PST |
Pan, if you want to continue that, PM me. Getting that deep into politics isn't worth getting doghoused over. It's not really a TMP issue. Actually, none of this is. 42nd, Gropnik is on his fourth editor. I'm pretty sure he reviews what he wants. But in any event, when you do any sort of decent analysis or take part in what a friend calls the "Great Conversation" you at least make reference to the other ways the information can be interpreted and the preceding foundational books. This is not analysis: this is a prosecutor addressing the jury. Doing work like that isn't illegal or necessarily immoral. but there's no reason to take it seriously, either. |
42flanker | 26 Jul 2017 3:41 p.m. PST |
He wasn't writing a Phd thesis but a book reviews, in which he finds alternative perspectives of the nation's heroic foundation mythology. I can imagine someone doing the same with Britain's high imperial exploits. Is there something sinister in that- any more than there would be in choosing to review in the same piece two new books, published almost simultaneously, dealing with the same subject? Your prosecutor metaphor eludes me. What are the charges? |
robert piepenbrink | 26 Jul 2017 4:38 p.m. PST |
The usual. Blatant disrespect for our betters, and an insane conviction that rights of life, liberty and property are inherent, and not bestowed by a gracious government. Our political class has been pressing those charges for years. It isn't even a very good review. Just as an example, you don't have to study the Tories very long to realize that they didn't differ from other Americans on political philosophy: they were the outgroups in each colony--Anglicans in New England, escaped slaves in the plantation states, small farmers in the south. And they were welcomed back after the Revolution without political penalty. At least one Maryland legislator was still collecting his half-pay from serving in a Tory regiment. (The key to the Canadian settlements is that the British offered really good deals--land on the spot, tools and seed corn. You got nothing like that for serving as a Continental.) But Gropnik says nothing. The books are on his side, and he's cheering loudly. How, as he points out, could one possibly approve of a nation which failed to elect Hillary Clinton? And he takes as a given in his review that there is nothing in American history which might be a source of pride but the Revolution--which he explains was a mistake. Sloppy work by a partisan. Could we go back to miniature warfare now? |
Winston Smith | 26 Jul 2017 4:48 p.m. PST |
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piper909 | 26 Jul 2017 4:54 p.m. PST |
Canada is a fine country and an example in many ways for the rest of the world. I don't see Canadians flying into fits about emigrating to the US the same way Americans routinely grouse about emigrating to Canada. Nor has any other nation abandoned its own single-payer health care system in favor of an American laissez-faire method. That tells me something. The US could do a LOT worse than learning from our Canadian neighbors. "Best practices" shouldn't be only an academic monograph phrase. I personally regret that the US isn't in a greater union, a "Commonwealth" as it were, of English-speaking nations, united by language, heritage (to a degree), and political systems. As I said before on a related thread about the relationship between the USA and Great Britain and "the rest". |
42flanker | 26 Jul 2017 5:51 p.m. PST |
Blatant disrespect for our betters, and an insane conviction that rights of life, liberty and property are inherent, and not bestowed by a gracious governmen I am perplexed. Who is Gropnik accusing of these crimes; and where? As it is, I suspect we are reading different articles. I seen no mention of Hilary Clinton's name anywhere. |
Cacique Caribe | 26 Jul 2017 7:23 p.m. PST |
Winston, That is just plain crazy stuff! I can't even imagine the pain he must have been in. Dan |