Yet another attempt to insult Americans that will fail.

Just like we Americans are proud of being cowboys, we are also proud of being from the lower classes. We regard knowing which fork to use as a sure sign of effete snobbery, and consequently take pride in grabbing whatever fork is handy and digging in.

Way to totally miss the reason that America has eclipsed the UK, Sean. Oh, and I would guess that more Americans take pride in having an Irish heritage than Scottish or English. Funny how Mr. Gabb left the great migration from Ireland out of his recital of the cultural roots of America. I guess the Irish are too lower class to merit any of the credit for the American character.

What a tool.

Yeah... we Americans just inherited our wealth. We never worked for it or nuffink, and the freedoms which we enjoy were just "there" when we needed them, so we could get all that loot.

Dean called it correctly: Gabb's a tool.

Every American knows he is as good as anyone, and better than most - and assumes that everyone else feels the same way. There's no shame to being from a "second- or third-rate country" in America - one is expected to assimilate, of course, but also expected to be proud to be Irish or Hmong or Persian.

Mr Gabb's quoted paragraph is both offensive (paupers, inferiority, third-rate, etc) and likely to be completely incomprehensible to most Americans. Certainly I can't figure out what American people he is talking about.

What a card.

The reason for the entire trans-atlantic rift is contained within this gem of European naivite.

It is impossible to be labeled a "racist" for blatant anti-Americanism, because of the great diversity there. However, people (especially white, Christian Europeans) are downright, blatantly PREJUDICE nonetheless. Mr. Man says he will refrain from assuming a nation of 250,000,000 all acts the same way, and then goes on to say precisely that. If he were a principled objector to the Iraq war he would at least credit the substantial anti-war movement in the U.S.

But he doesn't. Instead, sounding like a first-class passenger on the Titanic, or a 18th century French Dandy flailing his hands wildly about, he declares an entire region of people culturally inferior to himself for a lack of cutleryly sophistication.

In my brash, uneducated American twang, I declare, "Hater!"

Damn those untermenschen who comprise my family tree! Why, if not for them I'd know how to tie my own shoes, make Jello, or coax the fire monster to life in my fireplace with the magic spark sticks.

This is what happens when you don't adopt societal-wide eugenics programs, people.

"It is, I admit, inappropriate..."

Then maybe you should shut up, before you embarrass yourself.

"But Americans remind me increasingly of someone from the lower classes... because so many of them are drawn from second and even third rate nationalities.... joined by millions of paupers from elsewhere who learnt a version of the English language...any sense of their own inferiority. The result is a combination of overwhelming power and the moral insight of a tree frog."

And who, pray tell, are you to be declaring levels of "moral insight"? Who made you the arbiter of right and wrong? The parts the paragraph I have left uncut above demonstrate your inequality to the task.

Being an American both by birth (all Puerto Ricans are American citizens from birth) and by chioce, it's quite entertaing to see a true elitist snob rattle off some nonsense about how my ancestors "never withheld . . . any sense of their own inferiority". Sounds like an ole case of envy -- if I'm misjudging, it must be because of my overwhelming power combined with my tree frog's moral insight.

R.C. Dean is correct this insult actually made me laugh. If anything I am proud of my peasant heritage. My great-grandfather was a Slav who came to America and worked in the coal mines of Penn. Just as proud of him as I am of my Scottish border war refugee ancestors. My understanding is that they weren't all that polished either.

Sean Gabb has just exposed himself as an oaf of far greater magnitude than any American.

Spot on, Jon !!

Wow... I can't imagine what Sean was trying to accomplish with this diatribe.

My only point on this (and I would recommend any reader to digest the entire piece before making comments) is the use of the tree frog as a measure of moral insight. As a rhetorical device this did not work for me, on the grounds that tree frogs are not associated with morality in any shape or form. The sense of indignation petered out.

As most libertarians have skins of rhinoceri, personal insults are pointless. Call someone a tool and, in normal English, pejoratives aside, this means that they are useful.

Sean Gabb is one of the most informative constants on the English libertarian scene, and has always championed freedom in this country. At the end of the day, it is only England that he cares about.

I'm embarrassed to share the same name. I'd like to ask a question of him though. Exactly when did the Europeans lose the baggage of their two attempts at collective suicide in the last century? And what, in American history, even remotely compares to their self-slaughter? Now who are the barbarians?

Figured I'd revisit this thread and share a little story. In the late 1800's my great-grandmother immigrated here from Poland. She spent her first night in America sleeping in a doghouse. Around 5 years later she married my great-grandfather, who was a German immigrant. He later became the first chief of police of Plymouth, Michigan.

Yeah, these were people who were on the lower strata of society of their home countries, and the reason they came here is precisely because of the stultifying, static atmosphere of Europe. They came here and they flourished because they believed in busting ass and they believed in America. The kid they raised eventually became captain of the University of Michigan track and football teams, and then he joined the Marines and fought against people who used to be his father's countrymen in the first world war. His son fought in the second.

This is just my grandfather and father. There were countless other Americans just like them, and most of them low class mutts and the refuse of European society. I'll gladly accept that pedigree any day.

Hmm....so all Americans are crude, except those of Scots and English descent.

I suppose it's just pure coincidence that Mr. Gabb happens to be...oh, what was that...oh, why English, of course. :)

Reminds me of that line from Lord of the Flies "We're English, and the English are best at everything!"

Ya gotta smile...

PS - What about the poor Welsh?

Dear Sir,
What really intrigues me in Mr. Gabb's piece is the term "third rate nationality". A "third rate" country or even nation is something I can understand, but a nationality? I wonder how I should make myself out. I am a Brazilian of old Portuguese extraction, which means I am probably part Celtic, Germanic and Latin and certainly part Jewish, Moorish, South American Indian and Black. All very third-rate, I suspect, but, in spite of that, my forefathers opened up Africa, India, China and Japan, conquered half the territory of South America, defeated ferocious and quite able American Indian tribes (a vile business, but no piece of cake), created vast kingdoms in Africa to supply us with slave labour (again, a vile business; again, no piece of cake), expelled the oh-so-first-rate French, Dutch and English (yes, English: pirates and the like) invaders and created a country whose people, though living nowadays through a particularly messy phase of their history, have almost always had the good sense and the good taste of taking persons like Mr Gabb for what they are: sanctimonious, unimaginative boors.
Oh and just another thing: I have just visited Mr Gabb site and, if that photo is any guide, then I can confidently state we are much better looking than he is.
With kind regards,
Mário Vilela
Ribeirão Pires, Brazil

the moral insight of a tree frog
Well, if England and Scotland hadn't rounded up ever decent, moral, uptight and morally outraged individual in the UK and sent them HERE 400 years ago, we might have a few nude beaches here, too, eh? But NOOOOO.....
All the PRUDES came here, the NUDES went to France..
>sigh

They say that 'when the drink is in the wit is out'. He must have had a skinful...

It is this total lack of understanding by Europeans of American history and culture, that causes so much of the dissension between the two.

American culture is totally unique, and every bit as good as the Euro culture, but without the snotty class system that Gabb seems to think so fine.

So much for his libertarian theories being based on personal freedom, the man is a hypocrite.

Sean Gabb's rant reminds me of the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, one of the leading lights of the eugenics movement in the 19th and early 20th century. We know what that line of thought led to.

If you believe in the dignity of man and the potential worth of every human being, then you must reject Mr. Gabb and everything he stands for. If you aggree with Mr. Gabb's thoughts, then you must accept dictatorships and oligarchies and you must have contempt for mankind. Who do you want to be?

And, in the same spirit --

Europe increasingly reminds me of a threadbare, impoverished aristocrat, confident in his own mind that he deserves attention and deference but totally unable to support that with any empirical evidence of superiority, making pompous pronouncements in a thin, reedy, frustrated whine. When the American continent opened for settlement the pitcher of Europe tipped, spreading the energetic, mobile cream of its society across the Atlantic and leaving behind a thin, bitter bluejohn of idle wastrels and nonsensical intellectualists. Naturally the new settlers prospered, not least from hybrid vigor as immigrants from every clime sought the best in one another, and the Old Countries stagnated, having lost the few percent of active participants in society and lacking the wit to seek recombination across ethnic lines. Today Europeans pontificate to emptiness, harking back to eighteenth century socioeconomics with the serial numbers suitably filed off as the New Order to whom all must submit, because that was the last time they were of superior importance in the world. Britain hung on longer than most, at least partly by absorbing immigrants both physical and ideological from the wide swathes of red on the map, but even Albion is not immune. Sunk in the swathing swaddles of Continental bureacracy and Continental infighting, exhausted from trying and failing to participate in the bloody to-ing and fro-ing of the descendents of Richelieu and the Habsburgs, she, like the used-up continent she hugs, sinks increasingly to impotence, implausibility, and irrelevance.

Hey, I can go on for hours. Shall we have a contest?

Regards,
Ric

Ok Philip C., I read the whole damn thing, and it contains lies such as "Their military is degenerating by the day into an armed rabble, killing civilians apparently at random." Donald Rumsfeld, call your office!

Sean appears to have, in addition to a poor grasp of American culture and history, and being an apparent bigot, swollowed quite a bit of lefty poison with his 'libertarianism' regarding the progress of things in Iraq.

So while I can agree with his point near the bottom that the 'enemy within' in the West is rampant multi-culti nonsense, I can't agree that 'the enemy without' (disaffected Arab's, mostly) are harmless.

And I double dog dare him to read the paragraph quoted here out loud in any bar in the US outside of New England, NY or CA (those being the areas here most infested with 'the European disease' of class bullshit, and the multi-culti crap which he decries).
He seems to me to be the British version of the doctrinaire wacko libertarians in the US.

Oh, and 'less secure than at any time since the early 1940's'? Maybe 'the herd' in his neck of the woods in more riled up than since then, but has he forgotten what of the 20th Century he lived through? Less secure than the whole world was during the Cuban missle crisis? Less secure when he walks down the street right now than he was when the worst of the IRA bombings were going on?

WTF is he smoking, I want to know so I can avoid it.

Heh, heh. If he had watched many american movies, he would have noticed that over civilized europeans are presented as figures of fun: snotty, pretentious, and silly. Yep, the prejudices run both ways, though by and large americans don't pay much attention to Europe, and why should they? Why are europeans so obsessed with America anyway, don't they have a culture of their own anymore? Guess not.

What I feel now is disappointment. Sean's opposition to the war is okay with me, and some of the arguments he gives are respectable, if mistaken. But I was really struck at the venom this time around and the pomposity of it the whole piece.

From what I recall, he's never been to America.

I'm surprised that Sean Gabb wrote that or indeed thinks that way about Americans.

It reminds me of one of the little quotes on the back off his book “Dispatches From a Dying Country” where one contributor wrote something along the lines of – “Mr. Gabb has been too long in the sun and it shows in his writing”.

I didn’t agree with the sentiment then but in this instance I do. It has been rather hot lately.

Such idiocy must have been meant as satire. Otherwise it's just pretty silly stuff.

I too am a great admirer of Dr Gabb's writing and was disappointed by this extract. It is indeed gratuitously rude about a generous and kindly and very clever people. Clearly, he has never visited the United States and experienced the vigor, helpfulness and graciousness one constantly encounters there.

As to effete 18th Century Europeans someone referred to above as being disapproving of the US, wasn't it Montaigne (or another Frenchy beginning with M) - who was much taken with American characteristics and wrote about them with admiration?

The only time Americans begin to take themselves too seriously is when they, as in some posts above, think you are interested in the fact that their great grandmother was from Co Cork and came over pinned to the mast and their great grandfather was a one-legged runaway slave who went on to invent nuclear power and changed his name to Guggenheim blah blah blah.

I love America, but I do not understand why they always assume foreigners have the faintest interest in their family history. We all came from somewhere. Who cares? When two American are alone, do they bore each other thus, or do they think their family histories (of which they are rightly proud - I'm not trying to take that away from them) are particularly fascinating to foreigners for some reason?

Anyway, Dr Gabb was way out of line and the quoted paragraphs reek of ignorance and, frankly, unalloyed spite.

Perhaps these Americans should stop bawling like spoiled babies because they didn't like what the nasty man said and try a bit of British stiff upper lip.

This polemic by master Sean Gabb is not about the war in Iraq, but a crude attempt to broaden the fields of ignorance under the flag of Marxist claptrap. His primary vehicle here is the class warfare of envy, resentment and embitterment, not only of his fellow Englishmen but across the Atlantic as well. To bolster his case he resorts to a lorry load of lies surrounding the coalition's considerable successes in Iraq, normally found being peddled by the hard left and mainstream media.

Some of Wretchard's comments simply leave master Sean's diatribe in ruins.

http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_belmontclub_archive.html#108480294741806978

OK, because I'm a rich, handsome, dual-national, transoceanic cosmopolite, I shall bend down and offer a little rare personal criticism of the United States.

It is sadly true that many Americans think they are better than others merely because they inherited:

1) a sparsely populated land of virtually boundless resources; and,

2) a liberal political system suffered and died for by generations of others.

"We" would have had to have been extraordinarily stupid to ferg it up completely.

I laughed. I cried. I had another coffee.

Hank Scorpio wrote:

'Figured I'd revisit this thread and share a little story. In the late 1800's my great-grandmother immigrated here from Poland. She spent her first night in America sleeping in a doghouse. Around 5 years later she married my great-grandfather, who was a German immigrant. He later became the first chief of police of Plymouth, Michigan.'

The fine city in which I sit, this very instant.

I'd like Sean Gabb to define, please, which nationalities it is, exactly, that he sees as 'second- and third-rate'. Then at least we'll know where he's coming from, and know which surnames we should leave off the guest-list for the next at-home, so as to save the silverware.

Elitist, myopic, xenophobic prick.

Ooops, sorry, that old American inferiority slipped out again.

I like the tree-frog analogy, because it shows Mr Gabb's stupid, thoughtless vapidity quite nicely. It's tree-frog season here in MI right now. They are harmless, useful (eat lots of bugs), fun to have around, and endlessly productive - just cock your ear around any pond or swamp in the Lower right now. And the varieties which are truly dangerous (although we don't have those here) at least have the good grace to advertise their danger clearly - they come in a variety of DayGlo colours which clearly say 'look, but don't mess with me, because I'll f**k you up real good'. It's not a bad natural-world analogy for Americans, as it goes.

Mr Gabb falls into the same trap as the other scribes mentioned, and millions of other Europeans besides, to wit, of thinking that Americans, as a whole, give a toss about what anyone like them thinks. There's a saying, in the US, that 'if you can do it, it ain't bragging'. The US does while Europe dreams and postures, and Joe Sixpack can figure out which of the two choices works best.

I wish him well in his blinkered prejudices, but think he should realize that he is bobbing in the wake of the world's progress.

llater,

llamas

llamas,

I laughed. I cried. I had another coffee.

I wailed like a schoolgirl stood up on prom night.

Sean can write some very good things now and then. Of late, he has produced more of this sort of rubbish and less of the good stuff. I believe Johnathan is right that he has never been to the US.

This is a rather like the load of pompous rubbish that is written daily by any of the Guardinista anti-war left. How very sad...

Andrew I-D - Yes, it reads like a piece by someone who "knows" the United States through TV shows and has never actually been there. And it really is the most embarrassing claptrap.

A side thought: It is very difficult for those who aren't very familiar with both countries to judge people on an individual basis. For example, it is obvious to every Brit, including many who voted for him, that Tony Blair's an obsessive, rather dim showoff who loves having people sweep his path with palm branches. Yet the Americans (most of them) think he is wonderful. They have no clues to guide them and they take him at his own estimation of himself.

Conversely, anyone who has lived in Texas for any amount of time knows exactly where George Bush is coming from and is aware of the strengths which he keeps very quiet about. But the British, having no cultural clues, judge him a moron.

How reassuring to have confirmation that in the UK it's still all about class. All these idiot journos are still trying to one up one another and lesser breeds by displaying their classy credentials. Sean Gabb not only reveals his ignorance of the New World but also dispenses misinformation about tree frogs, which is grossly unfair to the tiny amphibians. I've frequently put uppity Brits in their place by remarking blandly after they offer their uninvited opinion that they could never live in America because they'd miss the culture, that they've missed it in the UK so of course they'd miss it in the new world. Since all of us who are not of Scots or English descent (notice how the Irish are out of the mix) are supposedly knuckle dragging neanderthals, the Brits I dump on with such innocent drollery get quite incensed.

What I liked best about the article is that it contained both of the following:

The last time I wrote about Iraq, I suggested that we had no choice but to continue with our share of the occupation. The escalation of violence there and the revelations of torture have now changed matters.

....

As it happens, I was right from the beginning.

His insults are pretty mild stuff compared with what I've read about the French here.

Millie Woods - Most waggish, I'm sure.

You may have noticed that all the British who have posted on this thread have defended the United States and condemned Dr Gabb for his churlishness and ignorance on this particular point. None of us felt it necessary to cast slurs on another country to make a point.

As we say in Britain, which Americans who don't know us believe is all about class, you sound just the tiniest bit chippie.

As an individualist I neither buy into the put downs of the 'lower class' by the effete, nor do I buy into populism trumpeting the 'salt of the earth'. I've had people look down their nose at me from on high and I've had some of the low-self esteemed 'salt' dismiss me as a dandy. All such preconceptions are means for an individual to define an 'us' and a 'them' and grab as much axiomatical moral high ground as possible.

It becomes a laughable mix of cross purposes when you find a Statist who elevates themselves into their positions by asserting they are better than the unwashed masses and turn around and praise the same mass 'the salt' to justify their meddlings. I find such dichotomies in all forms of Statism and is its shining feature.

...every time he looks down at his knives and forks

he thinks "What the f*ck were they thinkin' when they set the table here? No one with a lick of sense eats ribs and corn on the cob with a knife and fork. I bet that Gabb feller would tie himself in knots eatin' a taco or a kolache."

slimedog - As he lives in the city that has the largest variety of ethnic food in the world, Dr Gabb will know how to order and eat curries, and after you've mastered that, holding a taco (which is, after all, a sandwich) wouldn't be too demanding. As to ribs, they are too sweet for British tastes. We don't think honey goes with meat. Mais, chacun a son gout, eh?

We don't think honey goes with meat.

I beg to differ... I often cook pork with a honey and mustard sauce. yum.

I'm an American who came from what Dr Gabb might call third-rate stock, Polish immigrants who came to America and by the next generation were prosperous beyond their wildest dreams. As the comments above have shown, this is no unusual thing.

But yeesh, people, calm down. So Dr Gabb has come out with some funny anti-Americanisms. Big deal. It says more about him than it does about you, and really, it's not about you. I wouldn't take it so seriously.

I've met Dr Gabb and found him very nice and interesting, and while I disagree with him on many matters, these paragraphs aren't worth getting too upset about, and he's certainly not worth turning into some sort of hate figure.

johnathan writes well to decry an poor article which makes unworthy slurs on a people who have achieved so much... and many of the comments reply by making unworthy slurs on a different people who have achieved so much. somehow i don't think many of the commenters really understood a word of what johnathan wrote and in reality would have sat there grinning dumb and happy like bevis and butthead if sean gabb wrote the same thing word for word, but about the germans or french rather than the americans. people so often mistake what they feel for what they think. very unedifying.

When I lived in England, I found that often the people with the most intractable snottiness (and silly misconceptions) about Americans were those who had never been there. My mother in law was like that. American doctors have neon signs outside their offices! Americans routinely shoot one another dead over arguments about gardening! ("For the last time, I said compost heaps!'' BAM!) Americans drink wine from water glasses! Every accusation came from the same toy box of sins, and each seemed to be assigned relatively equal egregiousness. She was also of the oft stated opinion that people should live in their own countries, although she was from Scotland and lived in England, and I was from America and lived in England, both of which were okay.

She and her husband never went to the states, supposedly because she was afraid to fly, but I always thought that it was because she was terrified that the set table of her views on America, in which she had invested untold hours, would be upended by an actual visit.

She told me repeatedly that she didn't like Americans. Even though I pointed out that she had never been there, had no American friends or business associates, and in fact knew and liked me, she would not be dissuaded. I loved her, and I miss her. She was a trip.

Mario V, I think you can confidently state that just about anyone, anywhere is better looking than Mr Gabb. I would imagine that's part of the problem. All those superior genes to so little effect. : )

Jackie D. I agree with you, but I think the people on this side of the pond were shocked that Dr Gabb would write so intemperately.

Perry - Yes, ham and honey is a tradition. I should have written "beef".

Atlas - I think most readers understood Jonathan's points very well and most of us felt Dr Gabb had been, unprovoked, very rude about Americans. Had he written the same ignorant and spiteful things about the French or Germans, which he wouldn't have done because there's no resentment there, many Britons would have ridden to their defence, too. I remember making some sweeping and stupid condemnation of French civilisation in general and Perry parachuted in immediately with a strong (and informed) rebuttal.

Not to forget Lamb chops glazed with honey and rosemary.

Eamon

I find pouring a jar of honey over a large chicken while it is roasting gives it a lovely flavour.

Jackie D. makes good points - but then, what would one expect?

But the issue with what Sean Gabb wrote, and with much of what is written in Europe in similar vein, goes deeper, and it points up a very telling difference between Europeans and Americans - in these matters, at least.

If, as suggested, he had written something like this about the French, or the Germans, I like to think that I would have found it just as offensive. Because the slurs that come across as so uncivilized, and unjustifiable, are not about what people do - their deeds - but about where they come from - their antecedents.

When Americans, for example, poke fun at the French (such and easy and inviting target, after all) the thrust of their jibes is aimed at their behaviour. Their hypocrisy about Iraq, for example, or their offensive rudeness to foreigners, or their machinations in international trade. Not merely the fact that they think differently - Americans, after all, have to be used to people who think differently - but that they act differently.

By contrast, so much of what Europeans sling at Americans has to do with who they are and not what they do. Much of it is unqualified opinion, and mostly of the schoolyard variety - Americans are all stupid, and boorish, and so forth. In the instant case, the complaint is that America is somehow inferior because the population contains a large number of decendants of inferior nationalities. That's why I'd like to know which nationalities Mr Gabb is referring to - I wonder whether he would stand up and call those same nations (which probably include Ireland, Italy and several Eastern European nations) second- and third-rate today.

I was recently in Europe for the first time in several years. I was stunned by the appalling ignorance that most Europeans happily display about the lives of most Americans. Their opinions seem to be based entirely on an amalgam of 'Sex and the City', 'Friends', 'Cops' and 'Survivor'. There is a whole litany of hoary old canards about America and the Americans which have simply passed into the received wisdom even though none of them are true. George Bush is a congenital idiot - everyone knows it's true. The 2000 election was stolen from Al Gore - it's simply a given. Americans all carry guns (hah!) and shoot each other dead over parking spaces every day - after all, it was in the Daily Mail, so it must be true! Michael Moore films are an accurate, documentary potrayal of everyday American life and mores - after all, he got an Oscar for one! 40 million Americans can't afford health insurance and will die in the gutter if they get sick - the Guardian said so! And so forth.

Americans are about-as-ignorant about the day-to-day life of Europeans, to be sure. But the effect of their ignorance tends to show itself in questioning what Europeans do - and not what happens in the other direction, where Europeans seem less interested in what Americans do than in who their forebears were, or whether they are 'PLU'. They seek to set a worldview in which America and the Americans are automatically assumed to be always intellectually and morally inferior, and thus allowing the soi-disant superior to wallow in the comfort of the familiar - 'our ways may not do any good, but at least we're better than the Americans!'

Snot-nosed, supercilious nonsense like Mr Gabb's essay certainly doesn't help.

llater,

llamas

I was wondering whether Sean was trying to be satirical and just winding folk up. But his article read like he actually believed what he said. Hence my broadside. At least the late Auberon Waugh, who was a crashing snob, was actually quite funny. Sean's piece was just awful.

Anyway, next time I see him I'll buy him a beer and tell him to calm down and take a vacation to somewhere educational, like Texas. Heh.

Paul - a whole jar?

Johnathan,

It couldn't be satire. Sean Gabb posted the article on Airstrip One as well, presumably for the thousands of comments ensuing.

For those who decry rudeness in debate, Sean is an unreconstructed C18th Whig, and that century was the paradise for civil and uncivil discourse.

I am not sure, personally, whether he leans more towards Burke, Fox or Sheridan.

All Whigs are factionable, but which Whig does he wear?

Philip

I have given Sean a lot of latitude over the past several years because I know his attitudes about the war and the US role come from a sincerely-held if (in my opinion far too fundamentalist) "realist" foreign policy perspective. FWIW I think everything we have learned about the Saddam regime since we've been rifling though his desk drawers has confirmed the fact that we couldn't have affored to let him continue. But I have to say Dr. Gabb has gone way, way over the top. Does he consider his own wife's background to be third-rate? Or Adriana's?

Then again, Lynndie England's background is almost certainly from the Anglo-Scottish border; holding a naked enemy on a leash is probably something her border-raiding ancestors of five hundred years ago would have thought uproariously funny.

American and British media have made a minor industry out of exaggerating the (rather minor) differences between the countries and playing up the most grotesque extremes and stereotypes of both sides. Given the thought-police of the race relations bureaucracies in both countries, it has become the last safe prejudice. Sean's piece carries on in this tradition; given that he has never been to the States, I suppose he can claim willful ignorance as some excuse. Of course, being a book-oriented type of fellow, he could try reading some of the literature on the issue. But I suppose that's not as much fun as firing away.

I've been a fan of Sean's writing for a long time. I was sorry to see this piece.

Paul Coulam, as well as being an accomplished polemicist and fashionista, is also a dab hand with a chicken and a jar of honey. Who knew?

I have to come back to what H posted -- considering some of the stuff that's been written here (with hearty approval) about the French, the outrage over Dr Gabb's piece is somewhat amusing. I don't think it makes Dr Gabb look bad to have people taking what he's written far too seriously, and -- in the eyes of some -- it may make his criticisms ring a bit more true than they otherwise would have done.

Sean Gabb's offensive views on America and the war on terror have been obvious for some time. I recall similarly uncivilised, irrational and insulting comments on the LAF some time ago.

Why anybody would consider the moral ideas of such a person worth taking seriously in any sphere is quite beyond me.

We mustn't be too hard on the Americans. After all, more than half of them now agree with the four-fifths of Iraqis who think that US armed forces should be getting out of Iraq.

Dean called it correctly: Gabb's a tool.

Not so, Gabb is a wedge, a dull tool.

It should read:

'paupers' who 'never held any sense of their own inferiority'

Over 70% of all Americans consider themselves upper middle class.

80% of us are above average.

How do we do it? Well all I will say is that it is the secret of our success.

W.J. failed to mention that American opinion holds that 18 months to two years would be soon enough to get out of Iraq.

Timing is every thing.

In essence the American people (a majority in any case) hold that it is too early to make a decision.

Most Europeans I've met have very little knowledge of American culture or history.

I remember a conversation I had with a young Dutch man. Trying to find some common ground, I mentioned the Dutch settlers in old New York and how their lives had been chronicled by the early American author Washington Irving. He had never heard of Washington Irving;he had never even heard of Irving's most famous chacter, Rip Van Winkle; he did not realize that the two Presidents Roosevelt were descended from these same Old Dutch settlers. A complete blank. Moreover he wasn't even interested in the subject matter -- it was more like, yawn, let's get back to discussing how terrible the US is and what a great guy Michael Moore is.

I also tried to explain to a Swedish friend that Americans have their own versions of European fairy tales. I tried to talk about American folk tale characters such as Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, John Henry and "Steve" from the Wreck of the Old 97 -- and what they say about US history and culture. Zero interest and zero knowledge.

I've heard nonsense from a Norwegian woman who waxed on and on about America's "Chrsitian fundamenatlism culture" and how American women were so oppressed by "American family patterns." When I pointed out that American women got the vote decades before most European women, she flew into a huff and began to babble about small enclaves of polygamist Mormons in Utah.

Yet the same European people will often tell us how much they "know" about our culture and our history, and presume to lecture us in that annoying know-it-all tone on how we should behave.

Unfortunately, thanks to the Internet, I now have a rather poor impression of most European people, where formerly I had a rather positive impresson of them.

Question? If the US is populated by the lower classes of the old-world how come they now run the world?

Sean:

Answer: Hard work and dedication. And the tyrants Lincoln, Wilson and FDR usurping the sovereignity of the States, but that's another matter.

"W.J. failed to mention that American opinion holds that 18 months to two years would be soon enough to get out of Iraq."

It's a start. The neocon cabal want them to stop in the ME for the next 20-30 years, knocking off Iran, Syria, Lebanon, etc. Fat chance.

Given that most citizens of the obesitocracy only get their info from controlled media such as Faux News, it's promising that their natural isolationism has already reasserted itself somewhat. The spirit of Washington's valediction to Congress still flickers, despite all the perversions of the original republic into a warfare/welfare state alluded to by the previous poster.

Dylan T Lainhart - Nor just hard work and dedication, but America's secret ingredient: boundless optimism. I think that's partly what did the trick.

The people who emigrated to start a new life in a country they'd never seen placed their faith in the future. We forget today what a tremendous act of faith it was to leave home, family and the land of one's birth, in an age when being "well-travelled" meant you'd been to the nearest large town, and to invest the tiny amount of money one had managed to put by for passage to a country they had only heard about.

Unlike Dr Gabb, I think it was the quality of immigrant that was the making of America, and they passed that resourcefulness and optimism down through the generations. Yes, it was a vast, virgin and bounteous land, but the energy and will it took to tame it and endure the hardships could only have been expended by people who were absolutely certain that the future was going to work for them.

" The neocon cabal"

Cabal is a word that historically has most often been used in conection to Jewish conspiracy theories. When a paleo uses the term "neocon cabal" what they really mean is ZOG, Zionist (Jew) Occupied Government. This is a faveourite term amongst the KKK, slinhead Neo-Nazis and other paleo groups.

"Given that most citizens of the obesitocracy"

Ahh a Gabbism. The little sneer at those lower class and fat Americans. We are all fat of course, all us church going patriotic Americans. For this and other myths turn to chapter one of your free book 'Anti-Americanism for Dummies', personally signed by Michael Moore himself

"get their info from controlled media such as Faux News,"

Of course Fox is controlled. Its the only large scale media that gives voice to conservative, libertarian and patriotic Americans. Its the only major news outlet that tilts to the Right amongst a sea of liberal-left media. So therefore it MUST be controlled by the secret ZOG media cabal. Right?

The fact that a few weeks ago I read an article on Fox by a libertarian criticising Bush on government spending and even, shock horror, foreign policy, was just a figment of my imagination. Damn those tricky Zionists!

"The spirit of Washington's valediction to Congress still flickers, despite all the perversions of the original republic into a warfare/welfare state alluded to by the previous poster."

Ah yes, the Welfare/Warfare state. Such a neat little term that just trips off the tongue and covers so much sloppy thinking.

But wait a minute. There was no welfare state during the War of Independence. There was no welfare state during the War of 1812. Nor during the Civil War, the Spanish-American War or even World War One.

But surely the welfare state and war go together right? Dont they? Oops. Mabey not.

Mabey Osama bin Laden really did declare war against America. Mabey Saddam Hussien really did want to turn the whole Middle East into one giant Arab Fascist state and destroy Israel and set himself up as the new Saladin so he could teach the world a lesson by squeezing the oil supply.

Of course unlike WJ I'm not wearing my special paleo-isolationist tin foil hat to keep out the mind control ray beams that ZOG, ahem, sorry, the "neocon cabal", is beaming into all our heads, so I might be wrong.

It would seem that the once mighty 'ice-berg' of Libertarian thinking, has suffered a mental melt-down, and is now reduced to a puddle of socialist snidery and rectitude. Typical academic! - he believed his own publicity, and thought that he could do no wrong.

Gabbs comments seem weird to me.

Beef and Honey? I thought ribs were always pork? Chicken and Honey and Worcestershire sauce is a fantastic mariade.

US civilisation has made enormous progress in the last 5 years, you can decent beer practically everywhere now! ;)

Gabbs comments seem weird to me.

Beef and Honey? I thought ribs were always pork? Chicken and Honey and Worcestershire sauce is a fantastic mariade.

US civilisation has made enormous progress in the last 5 years, you can get decent beer practically everywhere now! ;)

Sean Gabb's libertarianism has always been more than slightly flavoured with Engish nationalism but I detect no socialism in anything he writes.

If Americans are going to support their government in waging immoral wars then they should expect that even people as civilised, educated, well mannered and saintly as Sean Gabb may be tempted to start calling them names.

That some of them then choose to sulk and whine like spanked children is indicative of a narcissistic vacuity that is breathtaking.

Sean Gabb - more and faster please.

:) hahaha Paul.

And to all the offended Americans, get over it. Many worse things have been said about the French in this blog, to hearty approval, & if you want to see equivalent anti-European snobbery & misunderstanding, you can find it every week in the Right wing american press. Sean Gabb is wrongheaded on this one for sure, & to my mind it exposes a deeper thread of insular closed thinking in his writing, which i've objected to before, but damn... grow some thicker skin!

(oh, & striking back with simplistic disses towards Europe doesn't make you look smart btw)

Shawn:

"Mabey [sic] Saddam Hussien really did want to turn the whole Middle East into one giant Arab Fascist state and destroy Israel and set himself up as the new Saladin so he could teach the world a lesson by squeezing the oil supply."

hmm... maybe so!

But equally maybe my next-door neighbour would like to see a world-wide socialist revolution, & be in charge of the people's bureau for repression of greed & capitalistic thought. Fortunately my neighbour's route to power is rather unclear. As was Saddam's.

You're surely not loony enough to believe Saddam stood any chance of achieving any of those goals you claim he cherished, are you? We would've utterly kicked his sorry ass as soon as he stepped outside his borders.

Paul Coulam wrote:

'If Americans are going to support their government in waging immoral wars then they should expect that even people as civilised, educated, well mannered and saintly as Sean Gabb may be tempted to start calling them names.

That some of them then choose to sulk and whine like spanked children is indicative of a narcissistic vacuity that is breathtaking.'

A perfect exmaple of what I was thinking when I wrote 'soi-disant superior'. Thank you for providing it and illutrating my point so well.

The war in Iraq is simply defined as 'immoral' - no discussion is even required. It's simply a given. After all, since the Americans started it, it must be immoral - right? Not like those nice, moral wars started by Europeans - can we spell 'Yugoslavia', boys and girls?

When you simply assume the mantle of moral judgement - as is so often the case with Europeans - I suppose it's pretty easy to delude yourself into deriding any opposing opinion as being the result of moral deficiencies.

Mind, you, I suppose that, since the mess in the Middle East is largely the legacy of European colonial and post-colonial meddling (primarily the Brits and the French), it's only natural to try to blame the present mess on others. Nice way to leave a mess for someone else to clean up, there.

As to sulking and whining - who is doing the sulking and whining here? You don't have any cogent points to add to the debate - you're just engaging in personal insults directed at anyone who has the temerity to disgaree with you. Americans, daring to disagree with my ideas about them? Why, the very idea! Your increasingly-petulant posts point up the exact mindset among Europeans that I have been trying to describe. Thank you again for demonstrating my point so well.

You are spot-on in one thing, though - Sean Gabb's bloviations are very aptly described, by you, as 'name calling'. And they are nothing more. Coming from a person who, by all accounts, has never been to the US - well, the expression 'narcissistic vacuity' springs to mind.

llater,

llamas

A-t wrote:

'You're surely not loony enough to believe Saddam stood any chance of achieving any of those goals you claim he cherished, are you? We would've utterly kicked his sorry ass as soon as he stepped outside his borders.'

You mean, like last time? Where we stopped short, left him in power and in control, and gave him another decade to marshal his forces and make his plans while UN officials became rich beyond the dreams of avarice on 'oil-for-food' money and the 'international community' wrung its hands and told him that he was very, very bad, and not to do it again? Or it would stamp its foot and show him how mad it was?

Like that time, you mean?

If the previous President Bush had not been swayed by the whining and puling of the European-led 'international community', and had instead let General Schwarzkopf finish the job - as he was more-than-able, and ready, to do - we wouldn't be trying to clean up this mess now. Again.

Your next-door-neighbour may indeed harbour all the dreams you describe. But I suspect that he doesn't have a vast standing army, huge stockpiles of weapons, both conventional and WMD, and a demonstrated willingness to pursue protracted and bloody wars against his neighbours - does he? If he did - wouldn't you be a bit worried about him, and inclined to do something about it?

llater,

llamas

wo...llamas, I thought the only people who believed Saddam was like, all powerful 'n stuff were peaceniks before the war started, going on about what a hard slog it'd be invading Iraq. Now, let's look at that hard slog again, shall we?

Given that he had "another decade to marshal his forces and make his plans", Saddam's army was a bit of a f**ing pushover, wasn't it? Was this the fearsome army which was going to take over the middle-east? Defeat Israel?

Try harder please.

A-t - try harder? My pleasure.

The flaw in your argument is one of relative capacity.

Saddam's armed forces were indeed a pushover for the coalition. Both times. One would expect no less, considering the rag-tag assembly of hardware that he was buying, and the general quality of his conscript troops.

But when he used them against either his neighbours, or his own people, they had quite enough capacity to do tremendous damage, and to destabilize the region. He overran Kuwait - which had no defence capacity to speak of - in days. He used them against his own - the Kurds - with devastating effect. And he prosecuted a seemingly-endless war against Iran for decades without seriously impacting his own territory or his ability to continue.

When compared to the forces of the coalition, he was underwhelming. But when compared to the forces in his immediate region, he could be overwhelming. He continually sought both the expand his capacity to wage war and his chances for doing so. He tried to annex Kuwait and (as is often overlooked) threatened Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other defenceless nations in the area if they did not fall in line with him. He tried for 20 years to annex Iran. And let's not fool ourselves that he wanted these things so that he could spread democracy and the rule of law to these (admittedly troubled) places.

If the coalition had had the fortitude to winkle the bugger out the first time, a whole lot less people would have been dead and a whole lot less misery and suffering would have stalked the region. But the 'international community' - always ready to wring its hands and snatch defeat from the jaws of success - didn't have the stomach for it. And that was after all of the hard work was done. And one of the reasons that they lacked the fortitude was that the coalition was led by the Americans, and the soi-disant superiors of Old Europe just couldn't accept the possibility that American arms could succeed where their morally-superior but ineffective handwaving had failed.

Both times.

llater,

llamas

Paul,

Still can't see the forest for the trees can you?

Isn't English nationalism, socialist by nature? I thik that it is so imbued in the English psyche that they fail to recognise anything different - or better.

llamas, demonising Europeans (whether rightly or wrongly) for not having sufficient guts to "finish the job" and pointing out that Saddam was a ruthless man don't really suffice.

I know Saddam was a bad man who was willing to kill, & I also agree we should probably have pushed on & got rid of him in the first Gulf war. I think it would have been easier to deal with the fallout, as the essential difference was that we hadn't started that war, & our actions were percieved quite differently. (yes, you'll probably say something about provocation, or how the war never *really* stopped due to various UN resolutions etc., but in most people's eyes, in the middle-east & round the world, it did. That's the reality you have to contend with.)

You say he could have overridden Saudi... with the US military based there? You really think so? Wow.

When he invaded Kuwait, no-one was particularly expecting that, & we got him out of there quickfast. This time however, with us expecting potential hostility, & him weakened by 10-odd years worth of sanctions, he would've stormed straight through the whole Arabian peninsula, correct? Amazing.

*Perhaps* if he'd managed to retain power for several years more, & circumstances changed, maybe he might have become more of a threat again, but come on; be realistic about this. His ability to threaten other countries at the time our governments declared it imperative we invade was pretty minimal, judging by the pathetic defence the Iraqi army put up.

You'd assume it would be easier to defend your own country against US invaders than to invade other countries protected by the US. From the way the Iraqi army performed defending their own country, I'd guess that any invasion would probably have faltered within a few kilometers of the Iraqi border.

& I say again, the idea that Saddam was in *any way* capable of overrunning Israel, even a few square kilometers of Israel, is laughable in the extreme; an insult to the Israeli armed forces.

"Isn't English nationalism, socialist by nature?"

err... why?

I think too many people conflate anti-Americanism with socialist thinking. America and free market Capitalism are not interchangable. It is possible to love the second whilst hating the first (or vice-versa, if such is your bent).

But yes, if you'd care to elaborate on your quoted statement, i'd be curious to know how you arrived at this conclusion. Further, is US nationalism socialist by nature? If not why not? What about umm... Russian nationalism? Serbian nationalism? Australian nationalism? explain explain!

Paul Coulam:

Quite right -- we Americans ARE learning many lessons from the unceasing blasts of Eurobigotry directed our way (which started long before the invasion of Iraq BTW) over the past few years.

The trouble is, the lessons we are learning are not likely the same ones that Europeans like you think you are teaching us.

A-t - you make good points. But most telling are the points you omit.

Even with a US military presence in Saudi Arabia before the first Gulf war, yes, Hussein could well have overrun the country. He certainly intimated a desire to do so. While US military power is awesome, there has to be a meaningful amount of it. I remind you that it took 7 months to put the US military in place to kick his sorry ass out of Kuwait and back to Baghdad. If he had made good on his threat to invade SA, he would have been successful - especially considering that the UN response would have been another round of witless handwringing and attempts at negotiation. The only way to resist him would have been with boots on the ground, and those boots would have had to come from the US. Even a large contingent of air power (which was the primary US presence in SA at the time) would not have been able to stop him by itself. It's axiomatic that you cannot win a war of any sort with air power alone, and it's axiomatic because it's true.

This time around, I remind you that the US has pulled out of SA - in response to Arab nationalist pressures - the excat same pressures which Hussein used to use to further his ends..

As regards Israel, I remind you that Iraqi ballistic missiles were falling in Israel during the first Gulf war as a regular occurrence. How many more missiles do you suppose he could build or buy with a few more years of illicit 'oil-for-food' money? Answer - as many as the Syrians, of the Chinese or the French could build for him. His purpose would not necessarily be to overrun Israel, simply to destroy as much of it as he possibly could. The IDF is an awesome froce, to be sure, but if Hussein had attacked Israel in ways other than a classic land invasion - do you suppose that the IDF would be able to stop him? Even if the 'international community' would have allowed it?

Hussein alone probably could not have overrun Israel, as you suggest. But I think there's a lot of validity in the idea that, if he had seriously taken up arms against Israel, he might well have been the catalyst for a combined attempt by all of Israel's enemies, internal and external, to fulful their ultimate aim of destroying the nation and killing all of its citizens.

I don't 'demonize' Europeans - that's your word, not mine. I just observe what they do and draw conclusions. Europe, as a region, cannot abide the ascendancy of American power and the accompanying waning of their own. They have lost the moral fortitude to recognize and deal with evil and barbarism, preferring instead to wallow in a slough of equal parts moral relativism, blame-shifting and opportunist corruption.

Ask yourself these questions:

- Why does the European media fall all over a corruption story like Enron, and use it to foster stereotypes of America, while the enormous fiscal corruption that pervades the EU - or the UN, for that matter - goes more-or-less completely uncovered?

- Why are photographs of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers fit fodder for the front page of every European media outlet for weeks at a time, while images of an innocent American being beheaded alive by Arab terrorists are considered too unpleasant, and the story has a life of about 36 hours in the same media?

- Why will every media outlet in Europe uncritically repeat claims that President Bush 'stole' the 2000 election, while none ever mention the independent investigations which prove that he did not?

- Why do Europeans idolize Michael Moore, a filmmaker whose 'documentaries' have been endlessly shown to be equal parts fiction and make-believe and who is answerable to noone for what he says?

- Why does every editorial voice in Europe cry that the war in Iraq was all about the US gaining access to Iraqi oil, and yet none report that the US was perhaps the only nation complying with UN sanctions on Iraq, and that the nation which had all the oil-development interests in Iraq (and God-knows-what-else besides) was - France?

And a hundred other examples besides. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but if you beat me over the head with enough examples of rabid, fact-free, unreasoning, self-serving anti-Americanism from Europe, even I can eventually figure out the plot. That doesn't mean that I 'demonize' Europe or the Europeans. I merely recognize it/them for what it/they are - a region, and a population in cultural and economic decline, bobbing in the wake of progress.

And I was born there, for heaven's sake.

llater,

llamas

After sixty years of socialist government - whether of blue or a red hue. The ineptly run Welfare system. the even more ineptly run, 'Jewel in theCrown', The whole concept of the Nanny State, the encroachment on personal property rights, etc, etc, every single one a socialist idea, and all voted for by the great English electorate, plus many other instances of socialist thinking, too numerous to mention.

While there is a lot of whingeing about any of the items mentioned above, no-one really ever does much about it, and that is another English trait. Yet people say they are 'proud to be English', surely a sign of nationalistic pride, ergo they must like socialism and all that it entails. That most people like to think that they are 'caring', but feel that it is the State's job to do the actual caring, - isn't that a socialist trait?

As I said, most people seem to be reasonably happy with the way things are being run, - the war being the major 'bone of contention', As I mentioned, 'you folk cannot see the forest for the trees.'

It is not unreasonable to think of the English as being 'socialist' by nature, in much the same way as the Swedes or Danes are, and yes, even the Russians.

No doubt, you are now going to nit-pick my contentions, in the manner of most socialist debates, using 'straw man' arguments to cloud the issue.

You may think that socialism is the best system, which makes it all the more surprising that you wish to deny that it is a part of the English national culture, I would have thought that you would have embraced the idea wholeheartedly.

I happen to feel that socialism, as practised, is one of the greater evils in this world. The England that I was taught to feel proud of, - i.e. to have nationalistic pride in, is a very different place to England today.

Ernest, how kind of you to anticipate my "straw man" arguments. I didn't even realise I was going to use them, but now that you've anticipated it, there's clearly no point, so you've spared me the bother of even thinking about them. Astounding, you know my mind better than I do (or was it the socialist indoctrination campt the evil british government sent me to as a child?).

I think the casual throwing around of the term "socialism" is somewhat ambiguous.... Where does one cross the line into socialism? Why is the UK socialist whereas the US isn't? The US has some level of social provision, which the majority of the population believe is right... you have taxation to pay for more than just the obvious functions of defense/law & order.

If you'd like to know what my personal beliefs are (as opposed to pulling out some standard set that I could squeeze into, with a few alterations), I'm not one of these people who are certain a particular system is better than another; I have my preferences for sure, but i'm open to suggestion/debate. That's why I hang out here. Generally, I'm for a free society with some "socialist" safety nets, and i'm hardly demonising capitalism; it seems to me that people who are "anti-capitalist" are anti-life really, since "capitalism" is just another word for "the way things work when left to their own devices".

So yes, i embrace some 'socialist' ideas, as do most Brits; you're correct. However, I feel sure I could dig you up English nationalists who are as un-socialist as you'd like. Ergo English nationalism is not socialism, & I see no point in your comment. Arguing that Sean Gabb is a socialist is pretty strange. He's clearly irrationally anti-american, & a snob to boot, but a socialist? nope.

What's more, if you think that socialism as practiced in moderate European countries is one of the greatest evils in the world, your model of the rest of the world must be pretty darn rosy.

Susan - Despite his taste for chicken with a jar of honey poured over it (I'm assuming he goes on to cook the chicken), Paul Coulam is British, not European. It's a constant irritation that Americans think anything on the other side of the Atlantic is Yurrop.

Also although I normally, as you know, enjoy your writing and have sprung to your defence on more than one occasion, are these dark threats that "the lessons we are learning are not likely the same ones that Europeans like you think you are teaching us" designed to make the British and Europeans who have a bone to pick with America quiver, shrink back and reconsider? Frankly, that way lies bitter disappointment.

Verity wrote:

'....Paul Coulam is British, not European. It's a constant irritation that Americans think anything on the other side of the Atlantic is Yurrop.'

At the risk of starting a firestorm - this is, increasingly, a distinction without a difference. The Brits may think that they still possess a cultural and social heritage which is distinctly different from their European partners, but as matters of law, regulation and actual practice, the differences are shrinking every day. The homogenizer which is Brussels will not be denied. If you've ever seen a homogenizer - what they use to process milk - you'll know exactly what I mean.

Americans increasingly see everything on the other side of the pond as 'Yurrop' becasue, in any matters which affect Americans, that's exactly they way it/they behaves. So the Brits drive on the other side of the road - big deal. Pretty much all of 'Yurrop' is driving in the same lane.

Backwards.

llater,

llamas

llamas writes:

"Americans increasingly see everything on the other side of the pond as 'Yurrop' becasue, in any matters which affect Americans, that's exactly they way it/they behaves. So the Brits drive on the other side of the road - big deal. Pretty much all of 'Yurrop' is driving in the same lane"

And that would include fighting beside you, with the majority backing of the British population (notwithstanding the BBC's atempt to portray it otherwise), would it?

You're not wrong in your analysis of what the Europhiles are attempting, but you are woefully ignorant of the current reality in this country.

On a more general note, I suspect that the UK and USA are, under the skin, rather more similar than different and that all the yah-booing about Europe vs. USA would be more truly relevant if the former generalisation specifically excluded the UK.

There is historical tension between the two (and it's mutual, clearly), but (outside the Graduina-reading classes) it is absolutely nothing whatsoever like you will find sur le continong.

I don't know whether English nationalism, pace A_t, is socialistic, but certainly I think the English are, and so are the Scots. They both pose as robust fighters for "their rights" - meaning, more opportunities to screw more money and benefits out of the Exchequer, aka as the taxpayer. And they have taken to carey-sharey like ducks to water. And they appear to feel comforted by the idea that "the state" cares about them. I think they like being ruled and controlled.

Following up on the story of the little girl who was pregnant and her school arranged an abortion for her without telling her mother (note, the story did not say without telling "her parents", so presumably the mother was a single mother) a journalist - if that is not too strong a term - in The Independent wrote of a similar experience with his own 14 year old daughter.

Once they found out the child was pregnant (her sister told the parents) they scheduled a meeting with the school/social worker/nurse/outreach counsellor, who can remember? For some reason, the appointment had to be broken and, as he wrote peevishly, "There was no follow up". The caring state had neglected to get back to the father and mother of the pregnant child with their plan for what should be done about their daughter. And he was aggrieved.

Says it all. Beatrice and Sydney Webb struck a chord. As did Bernard Shaw. This is why the British are allowing the state to nationalise their children and their salaries. Now, even if you earn £60,000 a year, you can apply for credits from the state, making you a client of the state, who will decide whether your "benefit" is legit. And all children must now have passes for all exams. In some schools, 'A' now stands for 'Almost'. In other words, you get an 'A' for failing.

Except in independent schools, competitive sports are banned in case losing "damages" a child. They're supine. Universities are being forced to take in people with inadequate intellect and perserverance otherwise their state funds will be withdrawn - all are equal.

They have allowed their homogenous country to be carely sliced into different "ethnic" communities, all of which have rights in competition with each other [they're building an eight story "retirement home" in Tower Hamlets for Asians -read Muslims - only, as these have "unique needs" (one being that they don't speak English after 40 years in the country)].

British pensioners who have been compelled to pay into the system all their working lives and may also need to live in sheltered housing are nowhere.

Yet there is no popular uprising. They voted an obvious charlatan with a personal agenda in twice and it's not inconceivable that they will vote him back a third time - because he seems to be "caring".

Vast swathes of Britain are socialists down to their toes. It will be very, very hard to winkle them out now that they are burrowed in with the help of all the EU "directives" to which the socialists have signed them up without debate.

Llamas,

You appear to be falling into the same pit that Sean Gabb was accused of creating: imagining some creature called, with unimaginative description, 'Yurrop' and ascribing some general simile concerning milkto the continent.

Of course, if you were to examine British history, instead of pontificating, you would understand that common law countries where national consciousness is based upon institutions (Parliament, Crown, law, RN etc.) rather than language, culture and race, are peculiarly vulnerable to the regulatory maw that is Brussels. That is why we enact more of the directives than the French and the Germans, because we still instinctively follow the 'rule of law'.

Still, it's easy to badmouth an ally and judge all books by the same cover. Opening them up and appreciating the differences requires some thought.