Is America's Identity as a Largely Protestant Nation Ending?

Matt, Good Question & to that I reply that I believe much of America is going to find out very soon.

Personally, If I came back Id like being a Vagabond. No responsibilities & they have lots of fun just managing themselves....now thats living!

 

Depends on how you define economic freedom. The freedom to chose how your personal economics work out from start to end or to be given the same opportunities as everyone else to include starting measure of wealth?

 

In 1776 the Indian People were the majority. Of Course, they didn't count.

 

Let's take another example: is a poor black boy born on the wrong side of the railroad tracks as economically free as a white boy with white-collar parents? Does he have the same equality of opportunity? Can private finance (either via the churches or other charitable bodies) effectively change that on its own? History would suggest not: a cursory glance at the pages of Mr Dickens' or Mr Hardy's novels from 19th century England gives the lie to that.

I'm not saying that the government has or indeed can totally 'cure' the problem (and of course the government also creates its own set of problems) but experience has shown that private charity is a best a supplement to government, not a substitute for it. Charitable giving, for example, goes down very significantly in an economic downturn (people who usually give money find they have far less of it to give away), which is of course just at the time when the need for giving increases.

There is a further point here: government spending isn't just about providing money to the worse off at the expense of the better off, it's also (at least in the UK) far more about providing services which are available to all regardless of income or status (education, healthcare, transport/ infrastructure, police, defence, law and justice) without some of which the country would simply cease to function, so they are vital to provide a framework in which business can flourish (why do you think Bill Gates bases Microsoft in Seattle and not, say, Somalia?) and without which also, our poor black boy I started this post with, would be far more disadvantaged (yes, I know that there are many other factors at work here eg: if he has an absent or abusive father about which the government can do very little but churches perhaps can, but if government can address at least one of his disadvantaging factors, then surely it should).

[ETA - sorry, but one final point and I'm done: do I feel less 'free' as a result of the level of government provision in the UK? It's difficult because I can't really compare with the US as I'm not a US citizen* but I certainly don't feel that my civil liberties are threatened. Yes, we perhaps have more red tape to deal with as a business, and that's annoying, but that's more the result of well-meaning and sincere incompetence and ignorance on the part of officials rather than anything sinister or conspiratorialm and I certainly don't experience any of the 'threat levels' which seem to be displayed by American posters so often here in the News and Politics fora.

*Although I have to say that both my wife and I have separately felt pretty threatened by American officials when entering the US; the MO of said officials seemed to be to treat people as guilty until proven innocent, including in my case detaining me for half an hour separated from my children. I can safely say that I've felt far less 'free' there than when entering the UK or any other EU country where, provided you show your passport (or, more often than not these days, not even that), you're waved through. As my wife put it, quoting Catherine of Siena, "if this is how they treat their friends, it's scarcely surprising they have so few of them!"]

 

You do provide thought provoking examples and I'm familiar with Dickens and can see an inherent evil in the greed of the rich and the advantages taken against the poor. However, to the american mind the poor black boy you've mentioned has the same measure of economic freedom anyone else does. The difference is He doesn't have the equal level of wealth. Let me explain it this way he can make for himself any decision with the little that he has. He can use it to survive on for instance and to use his abilities in such a way as to gain more wealth. Certainly he doesn't have the same wealth base to work off of that a more affluent person does. But niether does anything prohibit his ability to gain wealth. This is the american view of liberty. Which is why you see more examples of the Richard Branson story in the United States than in England. Anyway that is the idea of it for the american. Government should only step in to guarantee that the affluent do not put barriers to others in the aquisition of wealth. Thus a poor man may become very wealthy. Also why there are laws against monopolies. However, in practice there is a level of preying on the poor especially by credit card companies and mortgage companies.

I understand entirely.

Ah but it does limit freedom. I've been in hospital both in the UK and the US and I assure you I prefer the US. Service and extent of service was much better. whereas in the UK Service was provided but the extent limited by governmental restrictions and time restrictions. Terrible.

In comparison to the US in some ways I felt less free in the UK about certain things. But thats because of my experience in the US. However, I never felt my civil liberties were in question. Keep in mind the UK is the most video'd country in the world and it seems that George Orwells book is becoming prophetic with regard to the UK. Also american's by nature distrust anything governmental so we tend to have more conspiratal ideas than other people.

I think americans are more direct than the English. And for an Englishman this may seem confrontational or purposely combative, in which case we are being niether. However, it can be percieved that way. I remember I was called to break up a fight at an Airmans club In the UK. MOD was also there. Of course I was strapped (I had a gun) whereas MOD was not. I got there shortly after MOD and was shocked to see MOD speaking in a controled voice reasoning to stop their activity. Well, the americans didn't respond well to it and we just went in a bit more physically. Two different cultures and approaches certainly.

 

A sharp lawyer helps. I just went to court & beat the heck out of an opponent who tried to appose my expansion & my ability to do it as a legal right. Thank God for the American Constitution because my lawyer used it to defend me & rip my opponent:thumbs: a new one.

As I told my opponent on the way out of the court room....."Learn to Loose" God bless America!:laugh::laugh::laugh:

 

Yes and no. The poor man (let's drop the whole race thing) doesn't have the degree of access to working capital that the rich man has, for example. He would tend if he comes from the poor part of town to not have as good an education and thus his potential is not so realised, etc

But if you went private/ had insurance in the UK, you would have found doctors falling over themselves to treat you. There are many faults with the NHS, don't get me wrong, and much needs to be changed and reformed. Bu if my daughter injures herself, we can go to the ER, get seen quickly if the injury is serious, and not have to worry one iota about payment.

I have to admit I've never felt threatened by that; for me it's a good thing in the fight against crime eg: one of my clients was rightly convicted of murder because CCTV footage tracked him from the nightclub where he paid by credit card and thus identified himself to where the fatal assult took place.

That's an interesting and significant difference: here we tend to regard government as our servant rather than our master and therefore there is more demand that they DO something rather than that they DON'T do something.

Yeah, definitely two nations divided by a common language!

 

Please tell me more about regarding government as a servant? Ive never heard such a thing!

 

It stems from the historical notion that government ministers are the servants of the Crown*, an archaism but one that seems to have embedded itself to a degree in our constitutional culture; if you add into that the concept that ministers are also accountable to the House of Commons, the elected representatives of us, the unwashed masses, and the notion grows on you. Of course, it rarely works like that in practice, but the mindset persists; heck, we even refer to our officials as 'civil servants' or 'public servants'.

*Hardly anyone in the UK understands what 'The Crown' means, but most of us have a vague notion that it's to do with some kind of combo of 'The Queen and the Rest of Us'.

 

That reminds me I was watching the TV show "The thin blue line" with Rowan Akinson playing a Cheif Constable who was told by a junior police man that his order for an "er" had come in. Rowan said "er, what the devil are you talking about?" The man showed him the Royal seal E II R and said "er" Not realizing it was Elizabeth Regina II.

 

Maybe there is a subtle comment on the intellectual levels of civil servants in the UK. I said subtle, in the US we'd probably promote them to something & give him a pay raise.

 

That will not ever happen over here, unfortunately.

 

It's because you're all treasonous rebels, naturally :smilewinkgrin:

 

Who bailed you out of WWII & kept the Hun in his place....IE, Saving the world from Tyranny.:thumbs:

All but the Russian Commie's :BangHead:

 

And who bailed you out in your War of Independence? Oh yes, those cheese-eating surrender monkeys...

 

Can you really be a rebel if your not treated as a citizen? If we weren't given a voice in parliament or represented properly? And so

:tear: :tongue3:

 

Ah, but most of the people of Britain didn't have the vote then either...

 

Mais, Monsieur, l'Angleterre était sur la piste jusqu'à Waterloo.

 

But they were represented and treated as citizens. Not so the Colonialist. Sure England helped us fight the French but only because the French was her enemy. England would scarecly help the colonies from her own enemies.

 

>Can you really be a rebel if your not treated as a citizen?

Like the residents of D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, the Marshall Islands . . . ?