02/06/2012
Declaration of Independence Signers: " … diverse but also insular."
Bloomberg has published a curious article Why the Early U.S. Didn’t Go the Way of the Euro By Robert E. Wright Feb 1, 2012
This is a discussion of why the fledgling United States managed to establish successfully a single currency, in contrast to the problems of the Euro. Professor Wright argues
What the Europeans failed to appreciate was that early America’s real glue was not its dollar union but its fiscal one.
In order to arrive at this conclusion, Wright has to navigate around a huge factual obstacle: the historic American nation was overwhelmingly homogenous, being of British heritage, English speaking (and Protestant). Every singleSigner of the Declaration of Independence or his ancestors hailed from Great Britain. This supplied the new Republic with a cohesiveness the EU fatally lacks — as its elites are belatedly acknowledging.
To be sure there were trace elements of other European populations, but barely above antiquarian significance. And there were a considerable number of African slaves, who simply did not count.
Wright’s attempt at his absurd maneuver:
Ethnically and linguistically, early America was diverse but also insular. Most folk preferred to stay with their own, be they Dutch, Forest Finns, Germans, free blacks, Welsh, Scots, Scotch-Irish or one of four flavors of English, each with their own distinctive dialect and religious, marital and childrearing customs. Even movement to the frontier didn’t become vigorous until roads were built and military victories against the natives were won.
Forest Finns? What is he talking about? This passage appears to be deliberately deceitful, substituting nouns for quantitative reality. The mention of “four flavors of English” unquestionably refers to David Hackett Fischer’s magisterial Albion’s Seed, indispensible reading in my opinion to all wishing to understand the Colonial Americans. Including Professor Wright — one of the “four flavors” discussed in the book were the Scotch-Irish he mentions separately. And the idea that the early Americans were immobile is simply wrong, as a glance at any Settler genealogy demonstrates.
Why does Wright, who seems to be well-read, choose to so misrepresent the colonial Americans? Even if homogenous, they could easily have quarreled over finances: he has an arguable case that fiscal policy mattered.
Could it be that he was obliged to incorporate the Bloomberg proprietor’s contempt for Americans, leading as it does dogged imperviousness to facts and eventually disclosing hatred? Unfathering America seems to be popular in certain quarters.
And getting into the MSM carries a price.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.