h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How could you have missed the birth of the world's greatest nation!? The U.S.A.'s independence was the great achievement of the Enlightenment - for the first time a country recognised individual rights as the basis for society.

(a) No we didn't. See the thread called "Born on the 4th July"

(b) World's greatest nation? I thought it was the good ol' US of A that was born on the 4th of July. The world's greatest nation is Ireland which born a long time before July 1776.

I must note my disagreement with both of you, and correct your erroneous thinking.

As everyone knows, the world's greatest nation is, of course, Scotland.


(as the old joke says....

Michael comes up to God as he's designing the Earth and notices that God seems to be spending a lot of time on a very small area...

"God", he says. "You seem to be making that little area particularly beautiful, what with mountains, and rivers, and glens, and such"
"That I am" says God
"And you've put all sorts of minerals in the ground - coal and oil and iron and such"
"That I have" says God
"And you've populated the land with deer and cattle and sheep, and the waters with salmon and trout and herring and such"
"You're not wrong" says God
"And you've made all the women beautiful and the men rugged, strong and handsome"
"Indeed I have" says God
"But isn't that a little unfair... Why should these people get all of these bounties..."
"Ah" says God. "You haven't seen who they're getting for neighbours, yet!"

Indeed the USA was a country recognised individual rights as the basis for society, on the 4th of July 1776, but then it promptly forgot them for 188 years, desrtoyed the indiginous inhabit\nts with rervour, then stole the rest of the continent from the Mexicans in ine of the most one-sidied wars in history.
But No-one's perfect right?

Indeed the United States has its faults, but the fact remains that its original system came closer to capitalism than any other.

The indigenous inhabitants were stone age primitives. Some of them found it hard to adapt (and there were seens of savagery in the lawless West), but the expansion of the US has been a boon for the others.

I'm damn glad the Mexicans had the rest of the continent taken from them.

That's rather a one-sided view of things, isn't it?

From your response I get the feeling that you'd be a fan of Eugenics... (and just in case you can't quite work out my stance - I am very strongly against eugenics - you are both your genes and your environment... and as the recent findings in cloning suggest, much of what you are is decided by your environment... both memetic and biotic)

Many would say that US domestic and foreign policy shaped Mexico, more than Mexicans did.... and if you're using their recent/current economic woes as a yardstick.... then brother look to your own backyard first.

There are some interesting attitudes hereabouts displayed, some demonstrating that history is written by the people who write it. Mexico lost its land fair and square by losing battles of 5000 Santa Claus's soldiers against Davy Crocket in the Geronimo (or something like that) and all poor people are lazy and shiftless and breed too much so no wonder Mexico lost. No none of said that in so many words, but I could hear it coming, and I've heard/read the same about my ancestors in Ireland *and* my ancestors in the Highlands (I have both) and my non-ancestors in various African famines and others in India and China.

The WASP elements of the US of A didn't just conquer, its "original system came closer to capitalism than any other" showed when it bought Louisiana from the French and did a swop with the Russkies for Alaska and got interested in the gold in them thar hills.

I've plenty of Connecticut ancestors too. And Canadian ones. I'm a mongrel really.

Geeze, you guys, settle down! This doesn't sound much like h2g2 tollerance to me!

There aren't too many countries in the world that haven't made major and minor mistakes in exploring, settling, governing, assimilating and ruling other peoples, or eliminating them. We can't change history, or stop the world from going to hell in a handbasket, but at least here we can try and get along, or at least fight nicely.