This may help in your understanding.
..Andrew Jackson our 7th Presicent
Posted on 07/09/2006 4:46:50 AM PDT by Leifur
When the Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed in 476 the Roman Empire ceased to exist. The dark ages descended upon Europe. Christian civilisation in the West collapsed. The second christening began about one hundred years later from an area that had itself been christened by Roman missionaries but had geographically never been part of the Empire because it was situated across the sea, even more to the west than the Western outskirts of the Empire had been. From here the Saints Columba and Aidan and other holy men travelled east to bring the ancient heritage back to the lands where they had originally come from.
History never repeats itself, and yet similarities are often so striking that in a way there is nothing new under the sun. In the 17th and 18th centuries North America was colonised by freedom loving people who brought the political institutions and traditions from Europe to a new continent across the sea. Many of them had left Europe because they wanted the freedom to live according to their own conscience instead of the conscience of the centralist absolutist rulers of the new age that was sweeping across Europe from the 16th century onwards. Their traditions were rooted in the decentralised traditions of the late Middle Ages and the Aristotelian philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Europe’s Middle Ages had been characterised by an absence of central power, while man was bound to multiple legal systems: the legal order of his city, that of the land, that of his guild, that of the church. There was not one monopolistic ruler, as in China or in the Muslim world, but many, which guaranteed greater freedom for the individual. The philosophy of Aquinas, moreover, was centered on the individual. God had called man to be free from sin, but in order to be free from sin he had to be virtuous, and in order for virtue to have any value it had to be voluntary, implying that the virtuous man had to be free in every aspect of his life including, as Aquinas’ followers later pointed out, his economic activities.
Hence the paradox came about that the civil society developing in the new continent was in a sense older than the new Modern Age of the absolutist monarchs governing Europe. When the Americans rebelled in 1776 they rebelled against absolutism in order to keep their old freedoms. Theirs was a conservative revolution. Europe had its own series of revolutions from 1789 onwards, but these were revolutions of a different sort. They toppled the ruling absolutists to replace them by absolutists of an even extremer form: totalitarians. These were not satisfied with controlling their subjects’ political and economic lives but also wished to control their minds and souls, i.e. to become their god.
The different historical evolution of Americans and Europeans has greatly influenced them. American society is a society whose culture and view of mankind resembles that of the old mediaeval Europe from which it organically evolved. It puts man before the state because it accepts that man should come to God as a free being. Europe, having lived through the perversions of the Modern Age, has absorbed much of the absolutist and totalitarian spirit. Though the state was rendered democratic in the second half of the 20th century – an event, moreover, that would not have been possible without American assistance – it has in fact developed into a totalitarian democracy. Europeans still tend to put the state before man, still see the government as a god (a benefactor who feeds and supports his people), while the real God – He who wants people to come to Him freely because otherwise their “choice” for Him is no choice at all – has almost totally disappeared from present-day European society.
Americans have never lost the vital understanding that freedom has to be indivisible in order that man may lead a virtuous life. Democracy and freedom of expression represent only the political and moral-cultural fields of life. There is a third important field of social life: economics. In this field the Americans have adopted a system that allows citizens the greatest possible economic freedom and severely restricts the power of the government. It is called capitalism, which to most Americans is something positive, while to most Europeans it appears deeply repulsive.
The strength of America's political system lies in the fact that ordinary Americans have never underestimated the supra-economic function of their economic liberty. One way or another, consciously or unconsciously, ordinary Americans have always felt economic liberty to be an indispensable guarantee of their democracy and freedom. Most ordinary West Europeans do not. In “welfare state” Europe, capitalism is a dirty word, as despicable as communism. Its euphemistic equivalent is “free-market liberalism.” But many West Europeans aren't even in favour of that. Economic freedom in Western Europe is severely restricted by a multitude of regulations and laws. Although these are designed to protect the citizen against risks, they discourage him from taking risks altogether and thwart his prosperity.
Hence Western Europe's economy stagnates while America’s keeps growing. This causes jealousy, which reinforces the political frustration Western Europe already has towards its Atlantic partner. Many Europeans compensate for their frustration by feeling culturally and morally superior to the Americans, whom they regard as backward. Though the Americans live in the so-called new continent, they represent the old, pre-modern Europe: They believe in God, they refuse to realise that the state can be a benevolent institution and subsequently distrust it. Large parts of the West European population consider Americans to be naive, simple, unsophisticated, even dumb – a nation without any real culture or significant history. Such views are held not only by ordinary West Europeans (who get their political education in state run schools and from state run and/or state controlled media), but also by many intellectuals who ought to know better.
Europe, however, is being overrun by barbarians. Its populations are dwindling, its welfare systems are collapsing and its old religion, Christianity, which the Europeans had cast aside, is being replaced by another one: Islam. If Europe is to be saved it must return to its old heritage which has survived in the land across the Ocean. We need to bring America’s values to Europe. These values are our own lost heritage. To survive as Europeans we have to become Americans. It is time to save ourselves by establishing a Society for American Values in Europe.
This may help in your understanding.
..Andrew Jackson our 7th Presicent
Thanks. I hope it is just the 'elite' that feel against America. I think those people have lost their energy, but I am sure there is a lot of it in the regular people. You are right that only some of the news travels across the Atlantic, both ways. I think the only way most of us will learn about each other is places like FreeRepublic. Otherwise, we will all be in the dark and getting what the media people want us to hear.
I wonder if I should send this to my Swedish cousins. Their grandparents stayed when their older siblings (including my grandmother) came to America about 1900.
No, I think the update has it more along the lines of: "Islam over Fredom".
American elites who swoon at European sophistication need to wake up...
Western culture is like the grapevine. Wine grapes were imported into the US from Italy and France. Later, a disease struck the vines in France, and grapevine cuttings were sent back to France from the US to restore the French wine industry. Another disease has struck France and its neighbors......
On the other hand, the accent in the hill country of S. Carolina is very much like a modern English accent.
Yes, indeed. Not one successful terrorist attack since.
Hate to say it because it's not at all politically correct (but it's the truth), Muslims in the US do not dare to anger us further because they know that any aggression would result in mass casualties at the hands of Americans tired of our government's "Religion of Peace" appeasement, and mass expulsion from the country, along with their protectors on the Left.
I'm not saying it's right, or pretty. That's just the way it is.
Especially here in Indiana. Lifetime concealed carry, anyone?
Southern and Tidewater accents are easier on both the tongue and the ear, IMHO.
Since my maternal Grandmother was of Southron heritage, letting my clipped Yankee-speak slip into a nice drawl feels like putting on a comforatble old pair of boots.
Too bad, because Indiana wineries still produce a fine product.
I was having a nice dinner right in the middle of England (place called Grey Lady, I think. Great food btw) when the discussion drifted toward how the U.S. president was such a 'negative' force in world affairs. Luckily I had a dinner guest to my left who was a corn fed Nebraska grown foreigner. Let him take the assault from the 10 - 12 Englanders at our table. Unfortunately, they dragged me into the conversation and they were even starting to go after Reagan now. So I was trying to figure out a way to end this conversational topic. So I used the following line.
'Well, we could start talking about Margaret Thatcher now'.
Shut them up, right in their tracks.
And what about the serfs where did they come in.
LOL way to shoot your argument down.
I am always suspicious of those who try to romanticize the past
LOL They should ban mentioning Europe on FR because it encourages freepers to write rubbish such as this.
There were a whole raft or reasons why some stayed and some left to go abroad.
And major difference between American and European society may have something to do with the two major destructive wars that were fought on European soil, in both occasions part of Europe was reduced to almost stone age living .
According to what I have been able to discover, my Scottish ancestors (personally a Polish/Scot/Brit mix) apparently volunteered to be serfs if you can believe that. Very strange circumstances too. Apparently, they decided to give up their own land and possessions to help a Scottish noble fight for independence from England. Legally they had 'sworn there servitude'. Apparently, that meant they became serfs. Funny thing was, the Scottish Nobles apparently made some deal with the British Nobles, and guess what ? My ancestors ended up with No Free Scotland, No Land, No Possessions. So they climbed up on a ship and they moved themselves to America. The entire family line.
Perhaps, the society we conservatives strive for here in America, is a society that our ancestors in Europe tried to build there, but could not. Thus they moved to America. A New Continent. A New World. Filled with New Possibilities.
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