No, no, I don't mean that! For goodness sake raise your eyes from the front of your trousers - and that includes you, ladies! I am referring once again to America. I sit here pontificating on its conditions and its direction - usually, 'directions' in the plural! - but really and truly I haven't a clue. I would suggest that geography is one of the key factors in attempting to gauge another nation. But how can you gauge America? It is simply so unbelievably, incredibly, gob-smackingly huge! It is beyond comprehension, which is perhaps why so many of their governments stumble and fail. Curious as to the statistics concerning size comparison between the UK and the USA I found this at travellersdigest:
They have tagged Ulster onto the side of Scotland to get in the correct square mileage. Here's another one in California which indicates that Britain is around 57% of the size of that single state! Texas alone is three times larger than the United Kingdom.
Today, in 'this our septic isle' we have some fairly virulent disagreements between the Anglos and the Celts, and also between the Anglos themselves. Everyone sits in their version of 'God's Little Acre' and, of course, the view is different and therefore on many things the views or opinions are equally different. Well, if that's how it is here, think what it's like 'over there'. What, for example, does New Mexico have in common with Minnesota? Or Alabama with Maine? Or Arkansas with anybody? (Jest kiddin', JK!)
A hundred years ago there were still the common ties of north-west European heritage to bind people together in Protestantism and the rule of law as practiced under the constitution. But today, I wonder. The southern border states are ripe for take over by Mexico given the huge influx of immigrants, the west coast has been inundated with Asians, mostly Chinese and Koreans. Now the Indians with their computer skills are swamping the high tech industries. On the East Coast whole areas of New Jersey are peopled with Russian immigrants. In the south, and in the big but ruined cities of the north, the 'indigent' black population - I call it that because they have been there as long as the whites - were beginning to emerge from their shocking history with hopes and ambitions but now, after years of malignant Left-wing agit-prop, they are returning to their ghettoes with an even greater sense of resentment and entitlement.
Meanwhile, at the top of this bubbling, sizzling, hissing stew of differing interests, mutal distrust and even downright dislike amounting to hatred, sits a Congress unable to agree on the time of day, and a President with emperor-like ambitions determined to spread the power and grip of a Federal government into every American nook and cranny!
I really fear for America. Tell me I'm wrong!
We are fighting two wars at once. Islamism is on the front pages and Multiculturalism is in our schools and media. The latter is ally of the former. Both are enemies.
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/multicultural-suicide/
Posted by: Whitewall | Friday, 23 January 2015 at 17:45
You can fit all of the "Lower 48" into Oz with room to spare and the UK will fit into the home paddock of many of our cattle/sheep stations.
It once took me over an hour to drive from the "front gate" of one station to the homestead.
And Monday is Australia Day. Yay. B-B-Q's and cold beer.
Posted by: AussieD | Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 05:38
Even a basic understanding of Rome and its rise and fall will see parallels with the rise and decline of Western nations today especially in Western Europe and the US. Bad leadership more often than good, debasement of the currency and what was the final nail in the coffin high levels of immigration and in some cases negative, callous and exploitive treatment of those immigrants.
Posted by: Antisthenes | Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 08:32
It just goes to show that size isn't everything! A little tiny country called England has created (not single handedly) a whole world system. If the English language vanished this evening the world would be in chaos.
Posted by: backofanenvelope | Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 08:50
Jes distillin' from from one lil' extraction David (an' jes the one as my recent dance with distillin' has left me ragged).
"What, for example, does Arkansas have in common with anybody?"
Actually ... we set the scale ... fer everybody else.
At the top is Tom Cotton.
Mike Huckabee is somewhere's middling.
Then there's Bill.
_________________
I'm tard Andra otherwise I'd try two separate 'CAPCHAs' - what it was I thought might be coming from the sea - my computer "alarums" due to many things. If the distinctive ding-dong has to do with an EQ say, a set of coordinates rolls by on the ticker - friends and acquaintances general GPS locale has been previously set. Provided I'm not completely whacked ... I'll make *some effort* to let em know.
Posted by: JK | Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 16:42
I'm not too worried about th4 Islamism, Whitewall, but the internal enemies are a real danger.
Yes, AussieD, but the difference is that all you Aussies cling to edges of the biggest desert in the world so you don't have anything like the internal pressures of the USA.
As I would expect from a man with a classical name like yours, Antisthenes (welcome back, by the way), a good pointer to a classical period. Now, where did I put my Gibbon . . . ?
True, to a degree, BOE, but on the other hand there are a few English-speaking voices I wish would disappear overnight!
"Tom Cotton"! Say no more, JK, your point is well made!
Posted by: David Duff | Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 17:03
Hi David,
In 1990, my late friend Lawrence Auster wrote a pamphlet called The Path To National Suicide. Like so much of his writing, it was prophetic. You can find it here; I consider it "required reading" for anyone who wants to understand the demographic roots of America's accelerating decline.
That's the main course, but for a little amuse-bouche beforehand, I offer this 2004 speech by former Colorado governor Richard Lamm.
Posted by: Malcolm Pollack | Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 19:41
Thanks, Malcolm, and I recall you mentioning his name in one of your threads over at your place. Alas, the first link you provide above doesn't seem to work but I have found his former blog spot preserved, fortunately, despite his death. I will dip in over the next few days.
Posted by: David Duff | Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 20:32
David
See your first map.
Probably more important for understanding the US and Europe is that there is more cultural difference between Dover and Thruso than between Houston and Wichita or Fargo ND for that matter. And probably more for the same distance most places on the Continent. Which is one of the problems trying to create a European Union.
Posted by: Hank | Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 21:34
Very sorry all: here's the correct link for Auster's pamphlet:
http://www.jtl.org/auster/PNS.pdf
Posted by: Malcolm Pollack | Sunday, 25 January 2015 at 06:19