Tag: American Nations

Boy, That Was Depressing

photog Current Events , ,

The Charlie Kirk murder has revealed just how deep the divide has grown between the Left and the Right.  And the visibility of the hatred is adding to the anger on both sides.  I’m pretty sure we’ve already reached the tipping point.  In other words, we aren’t going to heal this rift, ever.

But that doesn’t make it clear what follows.  After all, the South hated the North for over a century after the Civil War but there was nothing they could do to fight back.  In the same way, up until now there hasn’t been a mechanism for the red states to separate from the blue states in any meaningful way.  All they could do was compete to capture the White House, Supreme Court and Congress to keep the progressives at bay.

But with Trump back in charge of the federal government I think I’m hearing the first grumblings from the Left about splitting up the country into two separate nations; one red and one blue.  I was talking with some of the boys today at our weekly video coffee walk and someone noted this and asked where does Delaware end up.  I answered, ”With whomever gets stuck with it.”  But it’s a real consideration.  If this country gets split there will be tens of millions of people moving to escape the other camp.  And personally, I’ll be one of them.  And I’m sure it won’t be fun.  But it will be a relief in a lot of ways.  The acknowledgement that there are two different societies, two different moralities, two different souls living in these fifty states will motivate the realignment of people into two separate groups as naturally as oil and water separate.

And maybe that’s a good analogy.  If you take oil and water and put them through a high-speed mixer (homogenizer) you can emulsify the oil into the water as extremely small droplets that look like a blended material.  But if you turn off the motor slowly but surely the oil will reform into a separate immiscible layer.  And that’s what’s happening to us.  The forces that acted to bring us together are disappearing and the natural repulsion that each side feels for the other is getting the upper hand and we’re separating into two unmixable masses that repel each other as naturally as oil and water.  That’s what it looks like to me.  And the Left’s open glee at Charlie Kirk’s death just makes it easier to see.

But no one knows how this moves forward.  Fear of the unknown is a very strong force.  Both sides are feeling their way around this new dynamic.  Both sides sense the divide and have begun to attack the other side more openly.  But so far neither side has tipped over into mob violence (yet).  So far, we just have the ultra-psychotics on the Left attacking whomever they can find.  Charlie Kirk was unfortunate to give them such an easy target to hit.  But it could get much, much worse.

I guess the best case would be for both sides to sit down and hammer out a reasonable divorce settlement with each side getting a cut of the assets of “The United States of America,” like some kind of bankruptcy proceeding.

Boy, that was depressing.

On Patriotism

photog Current Events ,

All week long I’ve been seeing polls on patriotism.  Apparently, the Millennials and Gen Z aren’t patriotic.  Okay.  But why would they be?  Patriotism implies pride in a nation.  But we aren’t a nation.  We’re at least two nations, probably more.  Maybe these younger people are proud of people like them whom they feel are good people who believe in the right things.  And in fact, for many of them the right thing is globalism.  So, the “nation” they believe in isn’t a nation at all.  It’s the borderless “family of humanity.”  Instead of pride in the history and people of this “nation” they are deeply disturbed by the Europeans who settled and built America.  All they see is theft from the indigenous people and the enslavement of the Africans.

So where does that leave the rest of us?  Well obviously, we have no solidarity with people who despise us.  They aren’t our countrymen because they feel no allegiance to this nation.  Their allegiance is to a future in which the memory of this country’s birth and rise are eliminated and anyone who shows up here is just as much an American as people whose families built it.  What we have is the story of America as a legacy for us and our children, at least the children who aren’t in the globalist camp.  We need to pass along the legacy and the understanding of what a remarkable accomplishment the European settlers achieved.  They took a wilderness and turned it into a magnificent patchwork of farmlands and cities and industrial might and communities of strong intelligent people who invented amazing things that had never been seen before in the history of the world.  And made their home the envy of the old world.

Right now, patriotism isn’t something that most people associate with 21st century America.  Maybe it will be necessary for a separation between those who love this country and those who are ashamed of its history.  Maybe we must split into two separate nations before there can be a patriotic rebirth in the United States.  If that happens, I think it would more quickly solve our problems.  It doesn’t appear as if any other ending will provide a solution to the division that has grown up within our ranks.  We no longer believe in the same things.  We no longer are the same people.  We are moving in two opposite directions.  It would only make sense for us to live in separate countries.

Maybe the current battles over deportation of illegal immigrants will inspire California to decide on secession.  It would require a constitutional amendment and possibly more.  But if they were willing, I think the rest of the country would go along gladly.  Who knows?  Maybe the rest of the west coast and the Northeast would join with them.  And Canada could act as a northern link between the coasts and maybe a few other states like Illinois and Minnesota could join them.  It could really work.  They’d be rid of us and we’d be much happier without them.  And then both new entities would be free to come up with their own version of patriotism.  And boy would they differ.

Codevilla Proposes a Plan for Avoiding a Civil War – Federalism

photog Current Events, On-Line Article Reviews , , ,

Anthony Codevilla lays out how he sees restoring a way of life would have to take place in the United States.  And he clearly says that neither side is going to convince the other side to go along with it.  But he thinks the only way to avoid actual warfare is for the two sides to separate along regional or even local areas and ignore each other.  In this way the larger country can still cooperate on things like roads and armed forces without having to completely split the country in two.

It’s very long but worth reading if you enjoy an historian’s recapping of the historical precedence for re-establishing a conquered nation.  He goes into the way he thinks a national leader has to act to have this movement succeed.  And he does say that a strong leader will be necessary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do We Need a New Foundation?

photog Current Events , , ,

Almost since I was able to read, I have been a consumer of science fiction stories.  Back in the 1960s Asimov’s Foundation trilogy was considered part of the canon of great science fiction.  For the non-science-fiction-nerd, the Foundation stories are based on a conceit that a galaxy wide empire of human planets was formed and then, just as with the Roman Empire, it ends up in decay.  A mathematical genius named Harry Seldon perfects the science of “psychohistory” and calculates that the fall of the galactic empire is imminent and unstoppable and that the dark age to follow it will last 30,000 years before civilization reestablishes itself again across the Milky Way galaxy.  Seldon also calculates that if he could manage to set up an isolated “foundation” of scientists it can act as a seed to hasten the new civilization so that the galaxy can be restored to order in just a millennium.  Okay, end of science fiction history lesson.

Remarkably, the real world is now starting to resemble the fictional galactic empire and it got me thinking.  Do we need a foundation in this country that can survive the wreck of our republic and maybe form the nucleus for a rebirth of normalcy in this part of the world?  Asimov wrote the story so that the Foundation was located in the most obscure backwater of the galaxy so that it would be missed by the still powerful empire until it was too exhausted to be dangerous to the new civilization growing there.  Whether the analogy extends that far is a question.  In fact, I don’t even see a reason why it should be just one seed.  It seems smarter to have multiple centers and let them coalesce over time once the threat from the present federal government is reduced or eliminated.  But I could see how a large and powerful state like Texas would be a target for the feds while a small state like Arkansas might be missed when the feds go looking for trouble.  And another difference between literature and real life might be that rather than a complete destruction of the old state possibly we’ll see the old union start to reform with both sides of the political divide forming coalitions with the states that have the same politics.  Maybe the red states start pulling the same sort of stuff that the blue states do.  They can restrict their trade to just the states that align with their political view.  They can pass state laws to make it more difficult for the blue states and federal government to interfere in the aspects of life that they tend to cause problems in.  And they can coordinate their efforts to punish the blue states when they make a nuisance of themselves.

These things are already happening on the ground in the blue states with initiatives like sanctuary cities and so the question is whether some kind of coordination between these centers in the red states would be the equivalent of a new foundation.  Maybe the term foundation doesn’t seem precisely right but what we are talking about is the strength of a state being needed to protect its people from the feds and the woke establishment.  A state is big enough to resist coercion from the federal government.  The blue states have done a great deal along these lines and for the most part not a lot has been done to stop or even hinder them.  I know that the Left will resist this with every force they can bring to bear but just having the authorities in the reddest states begin the work of separating their interests from the blue states would be a sea change in how we all look at our place in the country.  And it would legitimize the point of view that the states are going to begin taking back their rights from the federal government.  In fact, that might be the only thing that can save this country.  What I mean is that even though both sides hate each other if we loosen up the controls so that the individual states can control their own affairs, they may be able to stand belonging to the same loose confederation as their enemies.

Now the only question is where should the new capitol be?  Never mind.  No capitol.  Just let the senators zoom from home when they need to talk.  And no salary either.  And two terms maximum.  Let’s be smart this time.

American Nations – A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America – by Colin Woodard – A Book Review – Part 2

photog Book Reviews, Current Events, Reviews , ,

(The first part of this review is found here)

 

In the second and third parts of the review I’ll go in depth about how the characteristics of the more important “nations” influenced how the political and social divisions in the later history of the United States would align.

Although the Spanish, French and even the English at Jamestown colonized earlier than the New England colonists, the Pilgrims and the Puritans were the biggest influence on early American life.  The Puritans left England, en masse, from mostly East Anglia to found a populous religiously intolerant Calvinist “heaven on Earth’ that they could run their own way.  They despised the aristocratic Norman noblemen and believed that a tightly knit town life run by selectmen who all agreed with the Puritan values would give them the social cohesion and resources needed to flourish and spread their way of life to the surrounding communities and eventually the other nations.

The abiding characteristic that marks the Yankee is his desire to interfere with anyone else who does not live life the way the Puritan thinks it should be lived.  They are inveterate busybodies who cannot abide anyone enjoying life except on their terms.  This was notable in the 1600s and is equally true today.  Even with the demise of their belief in God they have turned their social justice proclivities into a cult that invests much of their time and energy in policing everybody else’s business.

As a practical consequence of their numbers and their organized approach to life they quickly spread in all available directions.  They spread north and east into New Hampshire, Maine and even the Canadian Maritime Provinces.  They went west and south into Connecticut, Long Island and eventually most of New York State.  Later when the western areas of the continent became accessible, they migrated to the Great Lakes region essentially colonizing all of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and parts of Ohio and even northwestern Pennsylvania.  And much later, in the mid to late 1800s, they even colonized the Pacific Northwest forming the core of Oregon and Washington and even areas of northern California.

One very exceptional branch that emerged late from Yankeedom (as Woodard names the New England founding) was the Mormons.  They were a radical sect founded by a Yankee from New York state named Joseph Smith.  Their extremely unorthodox beliefs and community couldn’t hope to be accepted in the confines of orthodox New England so they eventually fled the United States for Utah.  But it is interesting that their New England heritage of religious communalism is probably the only way that they were able to survive the high desert of the Far West.  Their cooperative lifestyle allowed farming in an area where all other small farmers eventually failed and left.

Diametrically opposed to the culture and the approach of the Puritans of Yankeedom were the landed gentry who colonized Virginia and later the Carolinas.  These men were landed gentry who utilized indentured farmers and later on, black slaves to become wealthy from tobacco, rice and sugar estates that they were given by their aristocratic connections in England.  In Virginia, the Carolinas and later in Georgia, the local government was a closely held enterprise of the wealthy few who did not even permit the common men to vote and certainly not hold office.  And once the system of farming was worked out, these men accumulated great wealth and lived more sumptuously than their patrons back in England ever dreamed of.  The colony of Virginia never expanded much beyond its original borders but the deep south plantations of the Carolinas moved steadily west through the gulf state areas of Alabama, Mississippi, and eventually into Florida.  Later when cotton became the great cash crop, areas of Tennessee, Arkansas and even Texas were also included in this plantation society.  These aristocrats were the spiritual descendants of the landed nobility of England and felt that they were owed obedience by the common people and should answer only to themselves in the way they transacted business and lived their lives.  Woodard compares the rivalry between the Puritans of New England and the Cavaliers of the Deep South as an analogue to the sides of the English Civil War where the puritan roundheads under Cromwell fought to the death against the cavalier gentlemen of King Charles.  And indeed, the documents of the time show that both sides saw it in the same terms.

At all times and even during the American Revolution when these opponents were allies and even countrymen a rivalry and a bitter hatred existed between these two “nations.”

In the next installment I’ll talk about how the other nations and especially the Appalachians figured into this wrestling match for control of North America.

American Nations – A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America – by Colin Woodard – A Book Review – Part 1

photog Book Reviews, Current Events, Reviews , ,

This book has several faults.  One is that the author is an enormous progressive bigot.  He allows his sympathies with the progressive areas of the country to shade almost every aspect of the descriptive and critical content of the book.  Another fault is that he has subsumed the work of earlier authors and glossed over any ideas that don’t fit his world view.  But despite these ugly qualities the book provides a lot of very important information that can be valuable if carefully interpreted.

The thesis of the book is that the foundational cultures that colonized North America along with the remaining older cultures (Native American and Hispanic) account for the regional differences that still determine how people think, live and vote.  And that I think is a remarkable fact and taken along with an understanding of the motivations and psychology of these regional groups provides us with a better understanding of why things are happening the way they are and what best to do to influence the outcome of political and social struggles.

The clearest way to start thinking of what this book can tell us is to look at a map that divides most of North America by how it was colonized.  https://www.twincities.com/2013/11/16/which-of-this-writers-11-american-nations-do-you-live-in/

As a list, the Nations of the title are

  • Yankeedom
  • New Netherland
  • The Midlands
  • Tidewater
  • Deep South
  • New France
  • Greater Appalachia
  • El Norte
  • The Far West
  • The Left Coast
  • First Nation

What you’ll see is that the original Massachusetts colony has spread into an area that encompasses New England, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, parts of the surrounding states like Illinois (Yankeedom).  And to a slightly smaller degree Washington, Oregon and Northern California were its result (The Left Coast).  And the founding of Pennsylvania produced a discernible legacy that extends from the Atlantic in a relatively narrow band through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, then spreads into a larger area that includes virtually all of Iowa, northern Missouri, and large parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and both Dakotas.  And in fact, the strip then hooks around to include the majority of non-French eastern Canada.  All of this is denoted as the Midlands.

And in a similar way we can also see the results of the Virginia colonies (Tidewater) and the Deep South spread.  Because of the intervention of outside factors Virginia was prevented from spreading west, whereas the Carolinas went on to extend their way of life all the way down the Gulf coast to eastern Texas.

New Netherland is the Dutch founding in what is now New York City.  It is hemmed in by its neighbors to the North and South but is an extremely densely populated area with enormous commercial and financial clout.

A little less familiar is the origins of the Appalachian region.  This area was settled by lowland Scots, northern Britons and the Scots-Irish who fled poverty, oppression and civil strife in their homelands and spread out mostly from the Pennsylvanian, Virginian and Carolinian colonies to find freedom and autonomy in the mountains and forests of Appalachia and later go on to populate a wide band from western Virginia and the Carolinas to Northern Texas.  The states of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and most of Illinois, Indiana and half of Oklahoma Missouri and Arkansas are the area called on this map Greater Appalachia.  More or less directly, the Appalachians, by cutting off access to the west, were responsible for the fact that the Virginia colonies never gained as much widespread power as its neighbors.

In a similar way the book goes to describe the founding and spread of the other “nations.”  New France and “El Norte” (the Mexican colonies in the southwest) are the most unfamiliar to most American readers but the information is easily digested and the way that these areas developed is relatively clear.

The Far West is the mountainous and high plains areas between the mid-west and the Left Coast that were populated in the wake of the railroads.  This area is defined by its relation to the federal government and its improvement programs.

First Nation describes the area in the north of Canada and Alaska and Greenland that are inhabited by the Inuit and other aboriginal peoples of the region.

In the next installment of this review I’ll discuss how the characteristics and ways of life of these different foundations set them in motion and how they collided with the outside world and each other over the course of several hundred years.

 

(The second part of this review is found here.)

Reflections on the Political Landscape

photog Book Reviews, Current Events, Reviews , , , , , , ,

A while back I put Colin Woodward’s book, “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America,” in my wish list based on the Z-Man’s description of its importance.  I’m about twenty percent into it and I’ve got an idea of where it is going.  I also can tell that Woodward is a thorough going lefty but that there is a lot of useful information in the book.  The beginning of the book describes the origins of the various “nations” that he contends still underly the current political and cultural reality of the United States and its surroundings in North America.

As I said, there is a lot of slant to his description of the character of the various populations and you can tell where his sympathies lie and who he is virtue signaling to but there is also valuable information that actually helps to explain some general behaviors that can be observed at work today.

For example, Woodward waxes poetic about the New England characteristic of local autonomy and small-town democracy.  This is presented as a contrast to the feudal rule of aristocratic Virginia where great landowners lorded it over the common men and monopolized the government and the courts.  Supposedly this is still the reality today.  But anyone living in New England knows that any community that imposed any policies out of synch with the smothering regulation existing at the state level would be assaulted with the full force of the state’s judicial and administrative might and quickly the offenders would find themselves in prison and their families dispossessed and harassed out of the state.

One of the features of New England was its early adoption of universal education and the establishment of higher education as the basis of elite status.  This is also touted as a democratic virtue as opposed to the wealth-based basis of education in Virginia.  Looking at the present day it’s instructive to see that the educational situation is much changed.  The educational state of the poor even in New England has degraded to the point where claiming universal education is very debatable.  And the status of higher education has likewise changed to the point where elite status is more of a legacy condition than any kind of meritocratic status.  In other words, the state and poorer colleges have been degraded to where their degrees are approaching a worthless status whereas the high-status Ivy League schools are the domain of elite families and the affirmative action minorities that they include for the sake of appearances.

What seem to be happening is that the supposed egalitarian impulses of the New England nation and their descendants in the other Left dominated areas of the country have abandoned the pretense of equality and now embrace the model of an elect elite directing the lives of the rest of society as some sort of latter-day serfdom.  This conforms more closely to the Marxist model than any puritan world view.  And this of course makes sense.  As the New Englanders shed their Christianity, they reached out for what replaced it in their environment, the fashionable socialism of nineteenth century intellectuals.

I’ll have a full review at some point and other discussions of the ideas and the applications of these ideas to the present condition we find ourselves in.  Z-Man was right. There is useful information in this book overlaid with leftist smugness.