Your question at the end was spot-on. I really don't understand why more people don't ask this question and in a loud manner, since our actions for the last number of years could not answer this with anything logical or realistic. There is nothing reasonable about any of it.
Regardless of my current deep criticism of American govt, society and elites, one can only rationally ask where the USA is headed. Generational theory is a short view. I am reading Toynbee, have ordered Spengler, have mommsen's 8 volume history of Rome to read. America went from small pionier origins to nationhood to continental power to almost global hegemony. This parallels Roman developments. The internal proletarial is growing, to use toynbee's phrase. The statc elite is ruling past us, lobbyists make laws, pay campaigns. External proletariat is angy, 'down with america',see ISIS, Al Quaeda, BRICs, etc.
This cycle could be the one ofcaesarism Spengler saw as precursor to decline of a culture. The signs are all there, povettyand wealth, militarism, unrepentant corruption of banksters, unpayable debts, a resource system without future and ecological disaster.
whether one beliees on the founding ideal or not as historical studets we should not go 'Eyes wide shut' into the future.
I know that this will seem somewhat off topic, but I'm going to offer a comment on the 'arbitrary authority of King George III'. by 1776 something was happening to governance in England in particular, and in the United Kingdom more generally, which was clearly not understood in England's North American colonies, and possibly not even in England itself. It had begun in the reign of George II, when Sir Robert Walpole became the first recognizable Prime Minister, from roughly 1721-1742. It culminated in 1760, when George III surrendered the right to personal rule to Parliament. The actions which the Founding Fathers attributed to George III, although done in his name, and quite possibly with his approval (not just his formal, legal, consent), were not his policies, but those of Parliament and the government of the day. In addition to this, there was the fact that the lack of representation of which the colonists, rightly, complained, was even worse in England itself. Parliament hadn't been reformed since Medieval times, and there were many 'Rotten Boroughs', in which the 'Lord of the Manor' had the gift of the Member of Parliament, and was often the sole elector, in addition to which, the demographic changes which were happening as a result of the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution had already begun to create cities out of villages, which had no representation in Parliament whatsoever. All of this brought a slowly rising pressure on central government, which came to a head in the early 19th century, several generations after the United States gained its independence, and was resolved by the Great Reform Act of 1838 (and a series of further, smaller, reform acts). The key fact is that King George III was what, in today's United Kingdom, would be known as a 'pantomime villain'.
4 comments:
Your question at the end was spot-on. I really don't understand why more people don't ask this question and in a loud manner, since our actions for the last number of years could not answer this with anything logical or realistic. There is nothing reasonable about any of it.
Thanks
jim
Regardless of my current deep criticism of American govt, society and elites, one can only rationally ask where the USA is headed. Generational theory is a short view. I am reading Toynbee, have ordered Spengler, have mommsen's 8 volume history of Rome to read. America went from small pionier origins to nationhood to continental power to almost global hegemony. This parallels Roman developments. The internal proletarial is growing, to use toynbee's phrase. The statc elite is ruling past us, lobbyists make laws, pay campaigns. External proletariat is angy, 'down with america',see ISIS, Al Quaeda, BRICs, etc.
This cycle could be the one ofcaesarism Spengler saw as precursor to decline of a culture. The signs are all there, povettyand wealth, militarism, unrepentant corruption of banksters, unpayable debts, a resource system without future and ecological disaster.
whether one beliees on the founding ideal or not as historical studets we should not go 'Eyes wide shut' into the future.
Good Morning:
I hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I shall always remember and be thankful for your educational and thought-provoking posts.
Thanks
Jim
I know that this will seem somewhat off topic, but I'm going to offer a comment on the 'arbitrary authority of King George III'. by 1776 something was happening to governance in England in particular, and in the United Kingdom more generally, which was clearly not understood in England's North American colonies, and possibly not even in England itself. It had begun in the reign of George II, when Sir Robert Walpole became the first recognizable Prime Minister, from roughly 1721-1742. It culminated in 1760, when George III surrendered the right to personal rule to Parliament. The actions which the Founding Fathers attributed to George III, although done in his name, and quite possibly with his approval (not just his formal, legal, consent), were not his policies, but those of Parliament and the government of the day. In addition to this, there was the fact that the lack of representation of which the colonists, rightly, complained, was even worse in England itself. Parliament hadn't been reformed since Medieval times, and there were many 'Rotten Boroughs', in which the 'Lord of the Manor' had the gift of the Member of Parliament, and was often the sole elector, in addition to which, the demographic changes which were happening as a result of the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution had already begun to create cities out of villages, which had no representation in Parliament whatsoever. All of this brought a slowly rising pressure on central government, which came to a head in the early 19th century, several generations after the United States gained its independence, and was resolved by the Great Reform Act of 1838 (and a series of further, smaller, reform acts). The key fact is that King George III was what, in today's United Kingdom, would be known as a 'pantomime villain'.
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