October 28, 2012

Ben Franklin: "Britain was formerly the America of the Germans"

For those interested in questions of deep ethnic roots, discuss. 

Note: Franklin used this device to make a topical political point in favor of American liberties in the colonists' dispute with the British crown. Yet, the image is arresting from a cultural point of view as well.

39 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Britain was formerly the America of the Germans"

It was taken for granted in Franklin's time that Britain (or England at any rate) was settled by freedom-loving Germans after the fall of Rome. The Whig theory of history rested largely on this belief.

Modern research indicates that the theory was not true, or was at best only partly true, but as is so often the case in human affairs what matters is what people believe to be true.

The America Founders genuinely believed themselves to be the genetic and intellectual heirs to a tradition of anti-authoritarianism and decentralization going back to Roman times, with the Germanic tribes in the role of freedom-fighters. Whatever the flaws in this belief, what matters is that the Founders conducted themselves as if it were correct.

Anonymous said...

"Modern research indicates that the theory was not true..."

It does? I don't know what genetics says about this, but in looks and national character the English are much closer to the Germans and Dutch than to the Irish. Stereotypically the people of northern Wales, who probably come closest to being the descendants of Roman-era Celtic Britons, are unlike the English in character and looks, in fact more different from them than the Germans are. Based on that I would assume that that pre-PC-era English were probably right about their ancestry.

rightsaidfred said...

Dickinson was firmly committed to contend for the liberty delivered down to him by his ancestors.

Apparently, we no longer have ancestors to honor, either future or past, and our candidates vie for the title of who can trade more liberty for central planning. And cheap chalupas.

Anonymous said...

The truth is that we just don't know much about early Anglo-Saxon Britain. Some claim that the shocking lack of Celtic place names points to a much longer Germanic presence. The genetic factor analysis shows the English to be...at a midish point between the Irish, Dutch, Danes and Germans. Go figure.

-Hank The Plant

Hail said...

"Modern research indicates that the theory [of Germanics settling England] was not true"

What?

Hail said...

(1) Ethnic stocks are never static. Internal and external dynamics are always shifting things. The heavy infusion of high-fertility Irish over the past x number of years (post-Industrial-Revolution) into English cities is a relevant example here. This has meant that, I have heard, the average White-English person has one Irish great-grandparent. (If true, this means 1/8th of modern-England's ancestral stock is recent-Irish-immigrant). The genetic tests which claim only a minor portion of today's White-English ancestry is Germanic should remember this -- England('s White stock) was historically more Germanic than it is now.

(2) According to Richard McCullough, about 33% of the anthropological-types one sees in among English Whites today are associated with post-Roman Germanic invaders/settlers. This may or may not imply that 33% of ancestral stock is Germanic -- it is just a measure of facial phenotypes. There will be some phenotype overlap among all European ethnic groups.

(3) In Britain, it is well-known that rates of blondism are much higher in the eastern periphery than in the western one.

Anonymous said...

There you go stirring the pot, Steve.

Anonymous said...

The New England Puritans were mostly from East Anglia which was settled by Angles from northern Germany.

Volksverhetzer said...

For me this question lingers on ship technology. If the evolution of seafaring ships happened along the "North way", the sheltered seaway from Denmark to the Russian border, then it might be partly true.

The reason it is only partly true then, was that Germany would have been the America of the Scandinavians, as they needed to wait for seafaring ships to immigrate in numbers.

If it rather was that seafaring ships developed in the whole North sea area at more or less the same time, then the Germanic people could have been a coastal population only, as you find Finns deep in the forests of the whole of Fenno-Scandinavia, while you find Swedes along the coast of Finland.

On the British Isles, you could then have had seafaring Germanics along the coasts and Gaelic people inland.

If you assume Germanic needed large areas to develop, then the Urheimat is very easily found, as it is the landscapes where you only find Germanic place names, and that is Scandinavia. The problem is that you find Mainly Germanic place names along the North Sea coast as well.

If it was the whole North Sea coastline that was the Germanic urheimat, it could have started out as a pure trading language, as North sea trade have gone on since at least the Bronze age, and over three thousand years is long enough to develop a language and interbreed yourself into one people.

The reason that Scandinavia became completely Germanic also inland, is that they had a very small non waterway based inland population compared to the rest.

As for Germany becoming a Germanic country, since they seem to have spoken Slavic, Wendic and Celtic languages originally, it is probably that the Germanic speakers started to dominate the rivers, and then expanded from there.

So if it was the whole of the North Sea that was the urheimat, Franklin was wrong as the seafaring British and the seafaring Germans were already the same people.

If OTOH Scandinavia was the homeland, you need more explanations in addition to seafaring ships. That the Scandinavian are exceptionally adept at war, can be one explanation with some truth in it, but I rather doubt this explanation, as Finns, Wends and Celts seem pretty good at it as well. One explanation could be that the Germanics dominating the Northern Sea trade, made them able to absorb technology from a far wider base than the landlocked nations.

My favorite explanation to the Germanic expansion is however that they thanks to their animal husbandry and lactose tolerance, together with good skills with iron smithing, wagon and ship culture, managed to clear land where few other managed.

First year you chop down some trees, and use the leaves as winter feed, while the lumber is used to build a shelter. For the next years you do the same thing, while you live mostly on milk, cheese and meat until you have enough open fields where the stumps and roots have rotted away, so you can start plowing and clear the land of large rocks.

I also don't know how long this has been going on, but probably since the invention of the log cabin and timber frames, but it has been very common for a carpenter to build a new house where he lives, and then pick it down and move it to the customers house. As the houses were made so that they could be transported, they were often sold and moved over their lifetime.

Before I quit, I find it highly improbable that it was non-coastal Germany that was the Urheimat, both because of the large areas with non-Germanic place names, but also because German farm names lacks the oldest names we find in Scandinavia. If you in Norway, Sweden or Denmark find farms called Aker (acker), Vin(grasing field), Lund(grove) beside each other, you usually find bronze age objects, if you start digging.

NB. I am not an expert here, but oldest German farm names seems to me to come from the 500 ac, if you use the Scandinavian standard.

Anonyia said...

"Stereotypically the people of northern Wales, who probably come closest to being the descendants of Roman-era Celtic Britons, are unlike the English in character and looks, in fact more different from them than the Germans are. Based on that I would assume that that pre-PC-era English were probably right about their ancestry. "

I don't think Celtic and Germanic people look that different. There are small nuances, like Celtic people being slightly darker-haired, but generally they just all look like generic Northwest Europeans.

hbd chick said...

@ben - "Britain was formerly the America of the Germans"

sure, but a lot has changed since the anglos and saxons (and the jutes!) arrived on albion's shores. evolution stops for no man, not even the orderly germans. in other words, brits≠germans.

Auntie Analogue said...

Anglo-Saxon England was also raided and invaded by the Danes (Norsemen) and by the later Normans (also Norsemen by descent), so there is a fair skein of Scandinavian blood, and indeed surnames of Scandinavian origin, dispersed among the English. It was from the latter Norsemen from France - the Normans of William the Conqueror - that the English, especially the aristocracy, inherited their hooded eyes. Further, in the Middle Ages much of France was ruled by various English kings and nobles, many of whom were actually Frenchmen who sat on the English throne by dint of dynastic arrangements (e.g., the Plantagenet line). By the time the Renaissance was already past its full flower Henry VIII was still lavishing vast sums on wars in France. In these shifts of dynastic wars and cross-Channel rule much non-Norman French blood mingled procreatively with English blood.

Franklin's epigram is, then, simplistic, rather trite, as are a great many statements made by politicians for a political purpose, so I should regard it with a deserved wink and a nod.

Nolite Confidere in Principibus - Put not your trust in princes. [Psalm 146:3]

Auntie Analogue said...

Another means of discerning the assorted peoples who came into England, Wales, and Scotland (including Orkney) is to examine Britain's toponymy, which reveals a great deal about the evolution of English and British culture and traditions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_place_names_in_the_United_Kingdom_and_Ireland


Nowadays Islamic place names that have begun to enter Britain's toponymy. Who'd'a thunk! At least Boudicca and Alfred the Great did not volunteer to welcome the Romans and the Normans, nor did Churchill welcome the notion of a second German invasion.

Volksverhetzer said...

"Roman times, with the Germanic tribes in the role of freedom-fighters. Whatever the flaws in this belief, what matters is that the Founders conducted themselves as if it were correct."

The English' supposedly closest cousins, the Frisians are and were a freedom loving people.

"Friese freedom or freedom of the Frisians is the absence of feudalism and serfdom in Frisia, the area that was originally inhabited by the Frisians, in particular the current provinces of Friesland and Groningen and the area west Friesland in the Netherlands and East Friesland in Germany. In particular, it refers to the absence of a sovereign lord, at least in the absence of a lord who owned the land"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_freedom

Feudalism never got a hold in Scandinavia either, and most farmers owned their own farm.

"The New England Puritans were mostly from East Anglia which was settled by Angles from northern Germany."

Angeln is in Sleswig and is a historical Danish territory. The Germans did not arrive until much much later, and it did not turn German until the 19th century.

The reason for the importance of the area, was that you with boats up until viking ship size, could cross by sailing up Eideren, drag you boat over land, before you could sail down the other side, without having to sail around Denmark. "Eid" means a place where you drag you boat over land, rather than sailing around, and farms near these "Eid"s had oxen they rented out to do the hauling. That the river is called "Eideren" = "THE eid" is also indication that this was the most important of them, as the "eid"s usually have some further name to separate the from each other.

Volksverhetzer said...

"This has meant that, I have heard, the average White-English person has one Irish great-grandparent. (If true, this means 1/8th of modern-England's ancestral stock is recent-Irish-immigrant)"

This goes both ways, as the Irish coming to England are not fully Irish, but mixed with English, Normans, Danes and Norwegians.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what genetics says about this, but in looks and national character the English are much closer to the Germans and Dutch than to the Irish.


Genetics disagrees with you. So do looks and national character.

Simon in London said...

Volksverhetzer said...
"(If true, this means 1/8th of modern-England's ancestral stock is recent-Irish-immigrant)"

I can believe that - the Irish influx into England is absolutely huge, and amazingly little remarked on. In many cities the white working class is primarily of Irish descent now*. When people talk about the English working class, they're often talking about an Irish-English working class.

*Although there is now a huge east-European influx too, especially Polish, who look set to join the upper-working-class.

Simon in London said...

anon:
"Based on that I would assume that that pre-PC-era English were probably right about their ancestry."

Taking all the genetic studies together, it looks to me like the English are mostly pretty mixed, with German or Scandinavian predominating on the east coast but not generally. It looks closest to Latin America, with mostly male settlers interbreeding with the native population. Female-line descent seems mostly indigenous back to the first settlers from Iberia at the end of the last Ice Age ca 8,000 years ago.

But culturally the Germanic settlement was clearly dominant.

Anonymous said...

It has always been a vexed question of how much 'Germanic' blood is actually in the British.
In England, at least, some have liked to posit a total race replacement after the Anglo-Saxon conquest, others state that the substrate of the English population was indigenous to the soil, being continually present since the last ice age ten thousand years ago.
Also, of course, it depends on what is meant by the appelation 'German', should we confound language with ethnicity?
REcently, I've read of a new study by the geneticists Ralph and Coop who look at something called IBD or 'dentity by descent' - a better guide to ancestry than older methods using haplotypes etc. The study shows that the English are more realted to the Irish (who appear to be close to the ancient basic stock of the English), than to 'Germans'.
A remarkable result. The English in claiming 'nordic' descent, have mysteriously always but always totally ignored the presence of their nearest overseas neighbors (Mull of Kintyre to you, and I don't mean Paul MacCartney)and treated them like they never existed. The English have never looked upon the Irish as being of the same stock, or indeed having anything in common, generally they were treated with quiet disdain.
But it does stand to reason. 'Germany' is hundreds of miles away across the North Sea. Ireland a few miles across the water from Scotland. The Anglo-Saxon invasion happened around 1400 years ago, countless centuries before then, there was free comunication between the stocks that were isolated on the British Isles be the sea level rise following the ice age.

Anonymous said...

It wasn't just the Irish. Don't forget the Welsh when discussing post-Anglo-Saxon invasion Celtic demographic contributions to the English population. Think about all those "English" Prices.

England, as the richest, most developed lowland area of the British isles was bound to attract people: the most active and also the highest and lowest members of more tribal Celtic societies.


This is a phenomenon witnessed elsewhere: would-be merchants, ambitious aristocrats, runaway slaves and serfs tend to be drawn to expansive, porous societies that are urbanized to a greater degree than their own, like the English, the Russians or the Turks. In the case of the latter two, they drew from the top and bottom of neighboring societies.

While it probably says little about the overall demographic history of the British isles, it is interesting to think of the number of Welsh and Welsh-descended people who held high position, not surprisingly, at the Court of the Tudors. And Cromwell, the great Saxon villain of Irish history, was of Welsh descent in the male line.

And then there are the Bretons, like the Fitz Alans and others, who participated in the Norman invasion.

I've searched for a long time, but I've found nothing on it. But was the semi-legendary male ancestor of the Angevins a Gallo-Roman? If so, and considering the origins of Cerdic of Wessex, England was ruled by "Celts" for much of its history. The old Wessex house- Saxonized Celts, the Angevins- Gallo-Romans?- the Tudors, and the Stuarts, a branch of the Breton Fitz Alans.

John Adams also wrote about the debt American democracy owed to English and ancient Germanic traditions. He also referenced the Welsh founder of his line.

Londoner said...

The historic view was near-total extirpation of the locals by the incoming Anglo-Saxons, but this is clearly nowhere near the truth. Settlement was intensive on the east coast, and quite far inland in some areas (e.g. the north and east midlands, and Northumbria), but the further south and west you go the more the English descend from the pre-dark age population. Many of whom may actually have been Germans of even older stock - which complicates things considerably - although this doesn't seem to be well understood yet.

At least the old presumption that pre/non-Anglo-Saxon = 'Celtic' now seems to be weakening. The old languages of Scotland, Wales and Ireland may have been Celtic, but that of course doesn't mean the people were. An easy way to make this point to a proud 'Celt' is to ask whether the fact that those countries now speak English means that their people are therefore English.

Anonymous said...

The following is from the "Atlas of World Population History" by McEvedy and Jones, chapter on England and Wales. It's related to what Simon of London has said.

"The native Catholic population had gradually dwindled under the repressive legislation that followed the Protestant Reformation, falling from about 20% of the total in 1600 to little more than 5% in 1700 and a bare 1% in the 1780s. The beginning of significant Irish immigration dates to this period of near zero native Catholic population, so the figures for Catholics after this date can be taken as a measure of Irish immigration plus, as time passed, the natural multiplication of the immigrants. By 1850 the Catholic percentage was back to 5% (0.9 m), by 1900 to 6.5% (2.35 m), and it is currently around 10% (5 m)."

That book was published in 1978.

As for national character, the English are stereotypically reserved. Stiff upper lip and all that. The continental Germanics are reserved, the Irish aren't. I've read amusing descriptions of northern Welsh, who are more Welsh in language and ancestry than southern Welsh, and no, they're not emotionally reserved.

Anonymous said...

As for national character, the English are stereotypically reserved.


"Stereotypically" is another way of saying "not really". Do you know anything about the English other than what you've seen on PBS?

Anonymous said...

England, as the richest, most developed lowland area of the British isles was bound to attract people


The fact that England forcibly annexed Wales, Ireland and Scotland explains the large number of Welsh, Irish and Scots in England. It's not really analogous to the current situation in the US where "Hispanics" are engaging in a mass migration.

irishman said...

There is in my opinion a substantial difference between Celts and Germanics, not huge in the broader scheme of things when it comes to the human race but enough to be noticed. Aboriginal settlers of the British Isles, France and Iberia were the northern extremity of a maritime people from Iberia who may have come from the Mediterranean. Whether these people were Celts or whether they were people conquered by the Celts is a separate discussion. I personally think we are not Celts but were conquered by them and adopted their languages. The reason I think this is we are genetically indistinguishable from Basques who do not speak Celtic languages.

The pre-Latin languages of Gauls and the Iberians were Celtic but seem to have quickly and completely died out when Latin came. This seems to be a characteristic of Celtic languages. The Slovenes were ruled by Germans for a thousand years and kept their language, the Slovaks were ruled by Hungarians for a thousand years and kept theirs and the Basques we ruled by Romans just like the Ibero-Celts yet their language survived.
A clue in why Celtic languages die out so easily and why they left so little mark in England can be seen in the death of Irish. The English never really clamped down on it, Irish people just stopped speaking it and it made no impact of English even in Ireland. To-day, it is the first language of no-one. It's a museum piece kept alive for political reasons. We have to learn as a requirement to go to college, otherwise no-one would bother.

When it comes to the Irish in England, these folks tend to be the bottom of the barrel and from the more Celtic part of Ireland. Of the folks who came in the last thousand years; English, Normans, Vikings, Hugeneots and Scots, only the Ulster Scots have a history of emigration. The rest were like whites in Mexico, relatively well off and likely to stay put, live in towns, be protestant and not have too many kids. The type of Irish that went to America were not destitute but the younger kids of better off farmers. America and Canada were expensive and only they could afford it. England on the other hand was cheap. So they got the underclass, especially "travellers"(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oZTW30fAQY) as we so euphemistically call them. The evidence that these folks are overwhelmingly Celtic came be seen in the historical populations of Irish counties. Most of the people were engaged in subsistence farming yet you see massive population declines after the famine in the western counties(wet and hilly and Celtic) and small declines in the east(flat and fertile and English).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_population_analysis#Historical_country_population

The Irish seem fairly homogeneous but there are big rifts under the surface. Those who are conservative, pro-church and anti-nationalist tend to be from the east and heavily English. Nationalism, anti-clericalism(leave theology aside, the religion of the Irish is shame and always has been) and socialism is prevalent among Celts.

The white working and underclass in both Ireland and England is now heavily Celtic. This probably informs much of the capitalistic tendencies among both Irish and English conservatives and may have in the past been the compost in which Presbyterianism and puritanism comes from. This is a religious movement which arose in Holland, Switzerland, England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, i.e. where German meets Latin/Celt, and would become strong where white meets black (U.S. South and South Africa).

Dutch Boy said...

The British geneticist Bryan Sykes estimates that about 80% of the genetic inheritance of the British people comes from pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain. If so, the English people could be considered Anglicized Britons, much like the Egyptians have been Arabized by conquest.

Dutch Boy said...

The British geneticist Bryan Sykes estimates that about 80% of the genetic inheritance of the British people comes from pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain. If so, the English people could be considered Anglicized Britons, much like the Egyptians have been Arabized by conquest.

Anonymous said...

"The pre-Latin languages of Gauls and the Iberians were Celtic but seem to have quickly and completely died out when Latin came."

Latin belonged to the Italic branch of IE. It so happens that the closest IE branch to the Italic branch is Celtic. It was easier to switch from Gaulish or Celtiberian to Latin than from Basque to Latin. Obviously, the Basque country's mountainous terrain must have helped too.

"The Slovenes were ruled by Germans for a thousand years and kept their language, the Slovaks were ruled by Hungarians for a thousand years and kept theirs..."

The differences between the rulers' and the locals' languages were greater in those cases than in the Celtic-Latin case. This can't explain everything, but I bet it was a factor.

"Stereotypically" is another way of saying "not really".

Public stereotypes are the golden standard of accuracy in anything sociological. Only leftists deny this. Studies can be botched or intentionally set up to produce misinformation, but folk wisdom never lies. No single person has ever succeeded in creating a stereotype, i.e. a piece of folk wisdom. Only in a leftist's warped mind does the word "stereotype" denote misinformation. A serious student of human nature respects stereotypes.

Simon in London said...

irishman:
"The white working and underclass in both Ireland and England is now heavily Celtic."

I only just realised this very recently, and I don't think I've ever seen it talked about before.
It makes me wonder about English paleocons like Peter Hitchens lamenting the decline of the English working class. Especially with your point that the Irish in England tend to be bottom of the barrel. Is the change in the English urban lower class as much a demographic shift as a cultural shift?

If Ed West is reading this, maybe it's worth an article in the Torygraph, Ed? :)

Steve Sailer said...

I recall a lot of learned speculation in 1977 over why the Sex Pistols ("God Save the Queen") were so angry at the queen of England, and what this says about the English working class.

The answer turned out to be that Johnny Rotten was John Lydon, and no self-respecting Lydon ever liked the English.

Steiner said...

With respect to many of the commentators, the issue is not the degree to which modern English are related to the Germans and Danes who occupy the contemporary territory of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Rather, we are concerned with the present-day misrepresentation of the Founders' opinions on race and culture in America, to wit, the notion of the "proposition nation". As the first commentator pointed out, the leading men of the American nation at its founding were race men, conscious vessels of the Germanic heritage and outlook in a new world. They expected America to be peopled by their "progeny" and others (like continental Germans who were already present in large numbers) who were compatible and suitable for physical inclusion in the new nation of America.

There was no suggestion that the mere adoption of a creed of loyalty to the United States was sufficient for such inclusion, quite the opposite. Yet even today's "conservatives", including constitutional scholars of the "originalist" school, offer up this complete fabrication as truth beyond question. As a result, the current occupant of the White House can stand up in public and describe the last fifty years' immigration to America as "progress", without a word of protest from the political competition.

irishman said...

You have to understand steve that no Irishman would move to let's say Liverpool or Glasgow if he had a choice.
Think of what you face. The sectarian situation in those cities is similar to Northern Ireland. There is no English equivalent to white guilt. And if you do get anywhere they'll find new reasons to hate you. Look at how they treat Wayne Rooney.

Ron Woo said...

>But was the semi-legendary male ancestor of the Angevins a Gallo-Roman? If so, and considering the origins of Cerdic of Wessex, England was ruled by "Celts" for much of its history. The old Wessex house- Saxonized Celts, the Angevins- Gallo-Romans?- the Tudors, and the Stuarts, a branch of the Breton Fitz Alans

I recall reading somewhere that many of the warriors that William Conqueror brought over and made dukes were from Brittany, seeking to reclaim their ancestral homeland.

Weren't the Tudors of Welsh descent?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 8:40 AM 10/28/2012


Celtic victimization is another form of minority whining. It, along with gay identity, is a way for white people to join in the game. Indeed, it was the first victimization. The Irish have much to answer for in this country by getting the "mirror, mirror on the wall, who's grandad had it the toughest of all" ball in this country going. They paved the way for everybody else, including immigrant identity politics.

And forcible seizure or not doesn't disprove my point. Rome, Moscow, Istanbul, any number of aggressive, expansive empires all seized land, but all were also strong pulls. They were dynamic. And in the British isles, outside of the Scottish lowlands and limited hinterlands of the Norse-Irish cities, southern England was the most active place. It could handle surplus population in a way the other regions couldn't. And Scots and Welsh migrants had been drawn to England already during the Middle Ages.


Talking about forcible seizure of land, take it up with the Sioux or Ward Churchill. Maybe you could see about getting the Irish recognized as an indigenous people and you could hold joint conferences with other indigenous peoples whose lands have been seized and compare notes over who is the biggest victim.

Here's an idea, Alaister Moffett, on the BBC history-themed talk radio show hosted by Melvyn Bragg, forget which episode, claimed that to deny the Celtic identity of the peoples of the British isles was to try and erase their identity. He was referring to claims that the so-called Atlantic Celts were Celticized aborigines, and were distinct from the Continental Celts. Maybe shoot my coffee through my nose. Another on the long list of the sly Saxons' attempts to keep a Celt down.

And some of the US Latino population came from our seizure of Mexican land. History is a harsh mistress, deal with it.

irishman said...

"Celtic victimization is another form of minority whining. It, along with gay identity, is a way for white people to join in the game. Indeed, it was the first victimization. The Irish have much to answer for in this country by getting the "mirror, mirror on the wall, who's grandad had it the toughest of all" ball in this country going. They paved the way for everybody else, including immigrant identity politics."

The Irish have a lot to answer for do we? To whom must we answer? And why should we bother? It's not our fault the system Americans developed is useless at defending your posterity.

I am quite astonished at your chutzpah. Your whining about our whining. Germanic group evolutionary strategy is racism. All Germanic societies are racist, either overt or covert, always have been always will be. As Kevin McDonald might say, it's their group evolutionary strategy. This isn't to say it's wrong or right it just is. Faced with this the logical strategy for the rest of us is leftist identity politics.

We Irish pioneered a way to neutralise your group evolutionary strategy and use it's strength against English and by extension Americans. We have had to live with our troubles now you have to live with yours. The consequence of strength Anglo-German social structure is a great big pile corpses, millions strong and hundreds of years old. It's weakness is leading to it's submersion. It isn't the fittest so it isn't surviving. That's life sweet-heart. Deal with it.

Anonymous said...

Actually, I'm part Irish, straight up Galway peasants who probably were eating grass in the 1840's.

It is possible to be a member of a group and not have patience with its overt belly-aching, particularly considering their present condition.

I'll give you the benefit of a doubt and assume you are an Ireland Irish person. That's a different ball game. I'm talking about the Irish-Americans.

Re posterity? Dude, you think the Irish are going to get in on AA? Are the bulk of the Irish-Americans benefiting from the new dispensation? Unless they are rich or upper middle-class no. What happened is the American Irish, or, rather their leaders, cut off their nose to spite their face. They sure stuck it to the WASP man, didn't they, when Teddy K. opened up the immigration doors in the 60's?

All those cases of white firefighters and cops mad about AA and testing? What do you think they are, Bavarians?

And Leftist politics?

Look at it from an American-centric perspective. As of now, many of the American Irish are only Leftist in as much as it comes down to fighting Protestant ghosts and identity rhetoric. How do you think Reagan (wait, Reagan....) won? It wasn't just Protestants from the Sunbelt.

They tend to be more left than Southerners. But the days of Irishmen rejecting Anglo-American imperialism or Anglo-American style crony capitalism are over. Their leaders are in on the game, in bipartisan fashion, and the masses have absorbed the propaganda. Any ongoing whining is very annoying in the same way the "Scots-Irish" always go on about how marginalized and powerless they are.



Simon in London said...

"Britain was formerly the America of the Germans"

Britain is currently the America of the Pakistanis?

Anonymous said...

Its my observation that a product of two/three different races will exhibit characteristics of their parents.

English are good at Trade as Dutch; Intelligent and disciplined like the Germans,


I also believe such offsprings are more street-smart .

British more street-smart then the Germans.

FRS said...

Linking the Liberty Fund now? Interesting organization. I first learned of it from a prof. at Wabash College (of which the LF's founder was a major donor, as well).