Anglo-Saxon Historical Discussion

Arts & Sciences Culture & History
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My deepest apologies, Rowland. It was so hypocritical and obnoxiously yahooistic of me to think tracts like this one (quickly found with your recommended search method) could have anything to do with racism. :rolling_eyes:

:nsfw: :nsfw: :nsfw: :nsfw: :nsfw:
http://www.confederatepastpresent.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=188:anglo-saxon-supremacy-over-other-european-whites-asian-americans-and-african-americans-promoted-by-the-sons-of-confederate-veterans&catid=37:the-nadir-of-race-relations

You hear that, @jotham? The distinction is meaningless. God given rights are the same as government given rights if you have a God given government. :smiley:

But Rowland, why on earth are you invoking Grecian philosophy? Is Anglo-Saxon philosophy not adequate to express the same idea? :no_no:

Well, then. A workable model of political freedom came into our world by way of Anglo-Saxon civilization, having failed to emerge by any other path. Ancient Greece, pre-monarchical Israel, even the Roman Republic - all groped for it but fell short.

Finally, we’re getting somewhere! Maybe.

In an ideal world, you would now explain how the Anglo-Saxon path to freedom (or political freedom if that’s what you want to emphasize) managed to be the world’s first workable path to (politcal) freedom.

England/America plugged away at it for centuries and got it to work. This is a well documented fact, racist or not. The rest is semantics.

Other societies have also plugged away at it over the millennia, and here we are in the 21st century with quite a few countries that score above x on this or that freedom index. What makes England (still under French occupation btw :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:) so special?

And I repeat: invoking the US to support Anglo-Saxon supremacy is a stretch at best. The US does not have a Westminster style government. What does the highest ranking representative of the American people think of the much hyped “parliamentary supremacy” of the Magna Carta?

Besides, you waived your claim to the heirship of any nation when you decided to be a melting pot.

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I stand in awe of your multithreaded obtuseness. An ordinary person can only be obtuse about one or two things at the same time. But you manage not to see five or six obvious points of logic all at once.

23

And is not your purpose in life, or at least in retirement, to educate us out of our obtuseness? Please continue. :slight_smile:

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As always, I seek to teach the teachable. It’s important to know when to give up on a pupil.

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I hope you don’t do this for a living.

My hand is so awesome, it’s like three of a kind plus a royal flush, so you have no hope of winning. So yeah, I’m gonna fold now. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Forget about me. I’m obviously too far gone, believing in fallacies like if your country gets taken over by foreign invaders, that means it’s occupied.

But think of all the poor lost souls who might be reading this. Don’t you want to spread the gospel of Anglo-Saxonism to them?

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[quote=“yyy, post:21, topic:160121, full:true”]

You hear that, @jotham? The distinction is meaningless. God given rights are the same as government given rights if you have a God given government. :smiley: [/quote]
Did he say it was meaningless. It’s not so much that they come from God as that it doesn’t come from man. We don’t give each other liberty, it comes with being a human being. We can respect it or violate it, but we don’t bestow it.

[quote]But Rowland, why on earth are you invoking Grecian philosophy? Is Anglo-Saxon philosophy not adequate to express the same idea? :no_no:

…
In an ideal world, you would now explain how the Anglo-Saxon path to freedom (or political freedom if that’s what you want to emphasize) managed to be the world’s first workable path to (politcal) freedom.[/quote]
The Greeks had a pure democratic model, which wasn’t working. The American experiment (without kings) was as a republic, which is a representational democracy, which incorporates somewhat of an aristocracy, or specially elected people, who vote according to the wishes of the population. Because the general masses don’t keep up with the details of political life to bring an informed vote in all issues.

The British have their House of Lords, and our House of Lords, the Senate, used to be the vote of the states, which I still want as it provided another check on balance of powers but this was repealed by the 17th amendment in 1914.

[quote]> England/America plugged away at it for centuries and got it to work. This is a well documented fact, racist or not. The rest is semantics.

Other societies have also plugged away at it over the millennia, and here we are in the 21st century with quite a few countries that score above x on this or that freedom index. What makes England (still under French occupation btw :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:) so special?[/quote]

America and England were the first to succeed at representative democracy upholding liberty, from whence the other nations could find a model and work their own variations on it. The French like to think their Revolution is similar to our own, but it gave them more tyranny and another class of aristocracy, not to mention Napoleon crowning himself.

[quote]And I repeat: invoking the US to support Anglo-Saxon supremacy is a stretch at best. The US does not have a Westminster style government. What does the highest ranking representative of the American people think of the much hyped “parliamentary supremacy” of the Magna Carta?

Besides, you waived your claim to the heirship of any nation when you decided to be a melting pot.[/quote]
We got common law and lot of liberty ideas from Britain, or course.

Melting pot has absolutely nothing to do with it, that’s only about race. I’m not Anglo-Saxon at all, but Swedish, German, Cherokee Indian, and other stuff. But I am American and identify solidly with what she stands for, and recognize that much of it is of English provenance.

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He said I was making a meaningless distinction. My understanding is that you made the distinction, but whatever. The law can be perceived as “giving” rights, or it can be perceived as “recognizing” rights. If the law is silent on a certain right, and you say it doesn’t matter because God gave you the right, that’s your opinion (and possibly God’s), but it’s not the law.

They were not the only ones. But what is the definition of working? Achieving superpower status? Achieving great power status? Achieving a high standard of living for citizens? Achieving a high standard of living for citizens and slaves?

The American experiment (without kings) was as a republic,

And not an Anglo-Saxon republic. Or did I overlook that part of your founding documents?

The British have their House of Lords, and our House of Lords, the Senate, used to be the vote of the states,

Exactly – something very un-English. :hushed:

which I still want as it provided another check on balance of powers

Speaking of which…

Was he English?

What, at the same time? :confused:

Usually there’s only one “first” of anything.

With the USA, some people would say it was already a democratic success as soon as it was founded, or as soon as the revolution ended with a treaty (which was unnecessary because God had already decided the outcome, right?), or soon after that. Others would say it was only successful after the Civil War, and still others might hold it to a higher standard (women’s suffrage, aboriginal suffrage…).

In any case, it doesn’t matter because America is not England.

I am curious as to when you think England became a democratic success (or “political freedom” success, as Rowland would say).

The melting pot has a lot to do with culture.

[quote]But I am American and identify solidly with what she stands for, and recognize that much of it is of English provenance.
[/quote]

Of course, same with Canada and so on. But you created a separate country, made a big deal about how separate it is, and gained the world’s recognition as a separate country, so own it. America is America, not Anglia-Saxony. (You don’t even want to be in the Commonwealth! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:)

I still like Rowland’s idea that the Don has only one year to blame Obama before he needs to “own” his presidency. The flipside is that Obama shouldn’t take credit for anything the Don does after that.

I wonder if Rowland has considered applying the same logic here. Too bad I’ve scared him away by being unteachable. :sob:

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They were not the only ones. But what is the definition of working? Achieving superpower status? Achieving great power status? Achieving a high standard of living for citizens? Achieving a high standard of living for citizens and slaves?[/quote]
They didn’t last long, but developed into an oligarchy. Also, people had too much direct voting in all matters, which is how a general who won six battles was condemned and Socrates was put to death, by listening to eloquent speakers, being swept away with the emotion of the moment, and not knowing all the facts, as common people are prone to do. The system couldn’t stand.

Was he English?[/quote]
What does it matter? He was French, but the French didn’t prosper as a democracy during those times, but don’t tell the French that :wink: It was the English-speaking colonies, who already had liberty in their minds who could be captivated by what a Frenchman could say in furtherance of their goals, which already existed.

[quote]Usually there’s only one “first” of anything.

With the USA, some people would say it was already a democratic success as soon as it was founded, or as soon as the revolution ended with a treaty (which was unnecessary because God had already decided the outcome, right?), or soon after that. Others would say it was only successful after the Civil War, and still others might hold it to a higher standard (women’s suffrage, aboriginal suffrage…).[/quote]
The Constitution sowed the seeds of liberty at the foundation, purposely, in the hopes of extinguishing slavery, which would have died out of its own inanition, if it weren’t for Southern democrat judges legislating from the bench. Lincoln became so disheartened by the Kansas-Nebraska act, that was when he decided to enter politics, because it wasn’t working to quench slavery as the Constitution was carefully crafted and designed to do.

As I said, it wasn’t in one stroke, but the character of the English led to it in several strokes when it became necessary to preserve liberties, and the first evidence is the Magna Carta. But some kings were more-or-less good and change wasn’t so necessary, but others would cross the line, which is why the people stood up and more reform became necessary and the English Civil War 1642-1651 transferred more power from the throne to Parliament, which became formalized in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Laws were made in 1800s to further democratic change. But in the end, the people didn’t take very lightly to their rights being violated.

yes, all that is true, but we didn’t become a nation in a vacuum. There were things that led to other things, and Americans were full of ideas of decency and representation and liberties that we got from British values, and we took them further. We had the Boston Tea Party because we protested Taxation without Representation. Where did we get that from? That’s not just an American idea. Can you imagine Chinese serfs doing such a thing at that time in China, or anytime, or even now? We got it from Britain, and we used it against them when they were being hypocritical.

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I love to do this myself. Saul Alinsky also advocated it. I’m less than half Anglo, but it’s not about race. Anyone can embrace the values and be a better man for it. But some people have race on their minds and project that on others, so here we are in Temp.

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The Constitution recognizes those rights. Common law also recognizes other rights. That doesn’t change the fact that when the law is silent, it’s silent, nor does it make your legal system theocratic.

Of course. And there are untold millions of people descended from this or that historical figure, but they are also descended from many other people. If you’re descended from a Thai king, that’s officially A Big Deal, but only for seven generations. After that, you’re a commoner.

If you want to say success is a vague idea, I won’t dispute that. The trouble is, when you claim you’ve won a race – or miraculously tied with a much older competitor – you need a visible finish line, and you need it to stay in one place. Otherwise, the claim is meaningless, and you’ve become your own worst nightmare: a rhetorical goalpost shifter! :scream:

Let me know if you come up with a meaningful definition of democratic success that can be dated, and we’ll see just how special the Anglo-Saxons were.

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Welcome back Rowly! :slight_smile:

Can you enlighten us now? :praying:

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Where did you get that idea? The southern contributors to the Constitution had no such idea in mind, and northerners were mostly interested in working around it in hopes of establishing a stronger union. Significant compromises were made which ensured a strong pro-slavery voice in electoral politics. The Kansas-Nebraska act is a good example as it was the result of legislative processes.

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See this is your perpetual problem, you define success as something that is government oriented, with laws, treaties, processes, etc. Democratic systems are a function of government, but the concept of liberty must exist before demands are made for government reforms to imitate those concepts. It isn’t that government (or the king) declares liberty out of the blue, and thus we’re officially free. Liberty comes from the people, and eventually, they fight and resist until government is with them instead of on them.

It is quite possible that England had a government form not totally recognizable as democracy as we know it today, and yet for the people and society to be quite full of ideas of liberty and decency and to live their lives according to that measure, and government, albeit undemocratic on the outside appearance, yet being quite conformed and inundated, flush with those ideas of liberty, respecting them and very reluctant to treat people otherwise as undignified animals. I believe English society was very much that way.

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Correction: I asked how you define it and gave examples of how others define it.

You’re telling me what my problem is, but I don’t trust your diagnosis because I see two problems here.

  1. Algebraic logic

If a = b, and b = c, then a = c.

It makes perfect sense until you try to apply it in real life.

Apple = fruit, and banana = fruit, ergo apple = banana.


This is what happens when you accuse someone of being a Keynesian on the grounds that he’s not an Austrian, for example.

  1. Neo-Manichaeism

Everything can be reduced to right vs. left and also right vs. wrong, which is the same thing. Everyone claiming to be on neither side is either stupid or lying.

Call me stupid then. :idunno:

Getting back to our off-topic topic, you’ve missed my point about Montesquieu’s Frenchness. It’s not that the French Revolution was x or y, but that America’s founders realized Anglo-Saxon ideas alone weren’t good enough, so they looked to France, Switzerland, etc. Here’s another example.

the concept of liberty must exist before demands are made for government reforms to imitate those concepts.

Do you still not see the irony in forsaking the Anglo-Saxon word freedom (freodom) for the Latin word liberty (libertas)? I’m not trying to nit-pick. I think this is the problem with the Anglo-American fantasy, in a nutshell: it’s just not realistic.

It is quite possible that England had a government form not totally recognizable as democracy as we know it today, and yet for the people and society to be quite full of ideas of liberty and decency and to live their lives according to that measure, and government, albeit undemocratic on the outside appearance, yet being quite conformed and inundated, flush with those ideas of liberty, respecting them and very reluctant to treat people otherwise as undignified animals. I believe English society was very much that way.

I believe there is a modicum or reason in that paragraph! :astonished:

But we started with be it resolved that the Anglo-Saxons invented freedom, and then we amended invented to discovered and freedom to political freedom, and you would also amend Anglo-Saxons to Americans and Anglo-Saxons, as if they were identical twins with a psychic bond causing them to act in sync :eye: or as if you were playing with your time machine again. :no_no:

I agree that political freedom is a complex issue that’s difficult to reduce to a single item like a date, but I repeat, when you claim x has won a race, you need a finish line, or else the claim is unfalsifiable and therefore somewhat meaningless.

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I didn’t see the previous discussion as it just popped up out of the blue, so I’m not familiar with all of Rowland’s points, and I wouldn’t have necessarily said freedoms were invented. But I do believe that English speakers applied them more effectively than other nations (not that these were trying very hard), even if ideas came from them. The English were doers when others were merely thinkers or sayers, and that’s important;; that’s where the rubber hits the road.

You say it’s like a finish line, but who else were actually running (or competing) other than English-speakers? Mostly, they followed after American and England showed the way and it proved valuable.

I suppose it works with free markets as well, which goes hand-in-hand with liberty, as economic liberty is one of the highest individual liberties. England was the one to apply those principles in earnest in the 1800s based on Adams Smith’s seminal book and ideas causing the Industrial Revolution and precipitated wealth and accumulating capital in the West and a way of living based on liberty.

But French thinkers like Bastiat and German and especially Austrians were making ideas in the field too, but hardly any of their ideas were enjoyed in their respective countries. Mostly Britain, America, who were already slanted towards that viewpoint in the first place. It’s not that they needed to be persuaded by a Frenchman or Austrian, they already were, just predisposed to be more receptive to being shown more pathways to the same goal.

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[quote=“jotham, post:35, topic:160121, full:true”]
I didn’t see the previous discussion as it just popped up out of the blue, so I’m not familiar with all of Rowland’s points,[/quote]
I’m not familiar with his points either, because he refuses to make them.

This is the original statement (linked to in post 3):

It was the Anglo-Saxons who invented freedom. Athens tried, but they didn’t quite get the formula right. Faith in democracy puts the cart before the horse. You have to have liberty under law before you can have and keep democracy. And before you can have liberty under law, you have to have a pragmatic and anti-stupid culture. This is what the SJW crowd are undermining.

It’s one thing to say the West is the best, and whether one agrees or disagrees, it’s at least an understandable view, in light of the current geopolitical condition of the world. There are entire books that try to analyze the claim and logical counterclaims by various objective criteria, written by rational people.

But the Anglo-Saxons are the best? :noway: Even if you make a case for England’s supremacy, the Anglo-Saxonness of “England” is still debatable – or moot to use the AS word (notice the difference?). They were something like 10% of the population back in the day, they were conquered by the French (of all people!), and once you start calling them British you have a hard time untangling them from the Celtic nations of the region, as in Charlie Jack’s clip.

If you put forward America as an Anglo-Saxon nation, you have a harder case to make than if you do the same for all the other nations of partial Anglo-Saxon heritage, from Australia to Zimbabwe (to say nothing of Germany). Why did America succeed to the extent it did? I think you should get in your time machine and ask Montesquieu et al.

You say it’s like a finish line, but who else were actually running (or competing) other than English-speakers? Mostly, they followed after American and England showed the way and it proved valuable.

It’s no use suggesting this or that alternative to the Anglo-Saxon (or Anglo-American) fantasy if there’s no clear standard against which to evaluate the competitors for an objective comparison.

(Btw if you have nothing else to do today, try counting the ratio of Anglo-Saxon to non-AS words in this post. I wasn’t even consciously trying! :smile:)

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I just read an article addressing most these points, so I’ll just quote parts of it:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billflax/2011/09/29/forget-multiculturalism-restore-the-anglo-saxon-philosophy-of-liberty/2/#75995ad17b82

Historically, America’s unparalleled liberty shone hope across the seas. Our independence was essentially a counter-revolution. America, as Mark Steyn writes, “derives its political character from eighteenth-century British subjects who took English ideas a little further than the mother country was willing to go.”

The colonists reasserted their "ancient rights as Englishmen," then threatened by London’s encroachments after a long span of benign neglect. Previously, enforcement of the Navigation Acts and other laws had been lackluster and easily skirted. But suddenly parliament began interceding to “extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction.”

Jefferson and company believed London violated the laws of nature and saw independence in keeping with British tradition’s historic trajectory towards liberty. Independence climaxed a long quest which commenced on the fields of Runnymede in 1215 when the Magna Carta curtailed the crown’s reach.

The Declaration meant “not to find out new principles, or new arguments” but to appeal to “common sense.” Thomas Jefferson was particularly enamored with Anglo-Saxon culture; seeing the American Revolution as an historical step to restore liberties lost under Norman rule. He reminded King George, “America was not conquered by William the Norman, nor its lands surrendered to him.”

Like many American settlers, the Anglo-Saxons developed tribal mores around commonwealths of sovereign individuals claiming inherent, inviolable rights. Even the local king was subject to laws and custom. Property was respected and common law superseded civil statutes. Modern rights to juries and public hearings emanated from Saxon councils.

The Anglo-Saxons fashioned society on individuals, families, communities and later churches. Problems were resolved locally and only if necessary, by the broader nation. Little interference from without was tolerated. People adjoined, not as spokes on a wheel oriented toward a mystical state, but as webs of interlocking dependencies where neighbors bolstered others by shouldering their share of the load.

Modern historians dismiss this as mere lore, but many colonists, Jefferson foremost, believed Anglo-Saxon culture striking similar to theirs and reminiscent of ancient Israel. Jefferson even proposed a national seal emblazoned with Israel wandering toward the Promised Land and the flip side showing Anglo-Saxon heroes. America’s settlement harkened both. Adams credited the Anglo-Saxons “whose political principles and form of government we have assumed.”

Anglo-Saxon customs had eroded and the historicity is murky, but England suffered far less feudal paralysis than Continental Europe with a relatively fluid class system. The colonists bent British culture towards still greater liberties, forging a uniquely American perspective. Governments were established indigenously by small, often isolated groups dealing practically with local exigencies.

America shared the mother country’s language, culture and common law legal systems, without her predisposition for hereditary nobility or top down suzerainty. Republican principles prevailed. Government was instituted to protect life, liberty and property, further defined to incorporate propriety over conscience as the “pursuit of happiness.”

These free market platforms so prospered America that she soon eclipsed England’s vast prosperity. Jefferson boasted that you could travel the entire Eastern seaboard and see nary an American begging. Today, even our poor are wealthy by any material measure. So too have non-British immigrants fared well by adopting Anglo-American norms.

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Here are the keys.

Anglo-Saxon customs had eroded and the historicity is murky

What’s that now?

Modern historians dismiss this as mere lore

They would have claimed King Arthur as a source of “Anglo-Saxon liberty” if the chroniclers had made him a German instead of a Celt.

Actually, sometimes Arthur is portrayed as an Englishman… :rolling_eyes:

Jefferson and company believed London violated the laws of nature and saw independence in keeping with British tradition’s historic trajectory towards liberty.

Like banning slavery!:rainbow: Oh, wait… :doh:

Independence climaxed a long quest which commenced on the fields of Runnymede in 1215 when the Magna Carta curtailed the crown’s reach.

The fetishization of the Magna Carta began a few centuries after the fact, and the MC=liberty thesis is no longer in good standing among historians in general.

Thomas Jefferson was particularly enamored with Anglo-Saxon culture; seeing the American Revolution as an historical step to restore liberties lost under Norman rule.

That’s no smoking gun.

Let’s not forget old Tommy also dug the Quran. Does that make America an Islamic republic? :eek:

Like many American settlers, the Anglo-Saxons developed tribal mores around commonwealths of sovereign individuals claiming inherent, inviolable rights. Even the local king was subject to laws and custom. Property was respected and common law superseded civil statutes. Modern rights to juries and public hearings emanated from Saxon councils.

The Anglo-Saxons invented none of those, except for common law. (There may be a case for them having re-invented some of them. They call it the Dark Ages for a reason.)

The Anglo-Saxons fashioned society on individuals, families, communities and later churches. Problems were resolved locally and only if necessary, by the broader nation. Little interference from without was tolerated. People adjoined, not as spokes on a wheel oriented toward a mystical state, but as webs of interlocking dependencies where neighbors bolstered others by shouldering their share of the load.

Congratulations, you’ve just described primitive societies basically everywhere. (Replace churches with temples or what have you.)

Jefferson even proposed a national seal emblazoned with Israel wandering toward the Promised Land and the flip side showing Anglo-Saxon heroes. America’s settlement harkened both. Adams credited the Anglo-Saxons “whose political principles and form of government we have assumed.”

Speaking of Israel, when you visit them in your time machine, do remember to ask them what language all European tongues are descended from.

The colonists bent British culture towards still greater liberties, forging a uniquely American perspective.

That’s what I’ve been telling you. Uniquely American perspective means it’s not British or Anglo-Saxon. The only problem with that sentence is it neglects to mention the other influences because the author has an agenda (and/or is not very well read).

America shared the mother country’s language, culture and common law legal systems, without her predisposition for hereditary nobility or top down suzerainty. Republican principles prevailed. Government was instituted to protect life, liberty and property, further defined to incorporate propriety over conscience as the “pursuit of happiness.”

Ah, Jotham the Champion of Equality. So now America invented meritocracy? Next you’ll be telling us Jesus was an American. (We know that’s nonsense because he keeps reminding us of his Spanishness.:smile:)

Jefferson boasted that you could travel the entire Eastern seaboard and see nary an American begging. Today, even our poor are wealthy by any material measure.

Riiight… there is no poverty in modern America (and no need to make it great again).

This is so fruity, it takes the cake!

:apple::grapes::lemon::green_apple::pineapple::pear::peach::cherries::strawberry::tangerine::watermelon::melon::cake::banana:

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Well, many “poor” people in the US have a car, a smartphone, an HD TV, a computer, air conditioning, and a fridge. It’s a far cry from the Great Depression. Kids have shoes, it’s nobody’s paying job to be a chicken’s chambermaid and nobody is walking halfway across the country from Oklahoma to California with only the clothes on their back just for a shot at a job.

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China nowadays is a far cry from the Great Leap Forward. I once asked, if there’s no poverty in China, what’s with all the beggars?

Answer: it’s a scam, and they’re all foreigners. :money_mouth:

Btw it’s occurred to me that my “primitive societies” remark could be misunderstood. What I mean, non-pejoratively, is that it’s one of the most basic anthropological/political phenomena: first you have multiple small polities, then they integrate to form a larger polity, and the process repeats (sometimes also reversing). Every empire started that way, and there’s nothing original about it.