Very OT but of Interest to the Likes that Hang Here

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

This really came home to me many years ago when I was describing to a friend in Europe that I would often travel 600km (approx 370 miles) from an outback town to the city, just to spend a weekend with mates. For them, that 600km was one and sometimes two other countries.
To me, those distances are nothing, a 5-6 hour trip by car but... if I had to do it on horse, it's about a week long trek.

This is also one of the things that I find very interesting I have done 3000 miles (about 4800km) in three days and never left my home country, went sea to sea. Most Americans that I have talked with about this have a real hard time comprehending how small most European countries are in comparison the North America, and I suspect it is the same for the European people just reversed. Just a case of you are used to one thing and think everything is the same.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by CDAT

Most Americans that I have talked with about this have a real hard time comprehending how small most European countries are in comparison the North America, and I suspect it is the same for the European people just reversed.

Reminds me of a cute anecdote my trainer told me. He is a Lithuanian immigrant who lives in Chicago. He told me that his mother (still in Lithuania) panicked when she saw the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on TV, assuming that he must have been effected and might even be homeless. She had a difficult time accepting that he did not even see any rain from the storm.

[stormlion1]

Look at it this way. When King Charles II gave Pennsylvania to William Penn, he gave a chunk of land bigger than England was. I drive from South Jersey to Pittsburg every year and its only a five and a half hour drive. Of course I'm on straight roads over mountains and rivers but still.

[NanbanJim]

Webstral, do you have any links on your project? I'm sure we'd love to see them.

The below is often a rehash of other things, already said, often highlighting areas others have brought up. But, you know... a forum is for communicating.

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

This is something that has definitely been discussed outside of American circles but not necessarily as any sort of academic analysis and as far as I am aware, not as any in-depth study on the American psyche.

It's been more a case of questions such as: -
Do the Americans really not understand...

No, they do understand this--or at least are taught each of these things.

... Except for the deGaulle bit. That was news, but then NATO internal politics aren't taught nearly as much as the bipolar Cold War struggle. That bit is more a French History thing, so, no, we don't get taught French history in high school any more than I suspect the French get taught Texas-specific history.

Note, quite a few Americans would agree with deGaulle...

Americans are taught that the US made critical contributions to WWI and WWII, in the latter case after the French surrender. They are not taught the difference between French culture and Parisian culture, again, any more than a French student is taught the difference between Texas and Dallas cultures.

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I'm hoping my comments are not taken the wrong way as I intend no insult. It appears to many of us outsiders that US citizens can get very emotional when their country is discussed and often miss the point of what was being discussed because they perceive attacks where none were intended.

An apt observation; similarly, Europeans seem to us to be extraordinarily snide and yoked with an inferiority complex when speaking of the US, so I guess it balances out. Just an observation.

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I've had discussions with some friends who were either studying or lecturing at universities about the myth-making of America... the underlying theme to us appears to be that the US hero worships the colonial militias, cowboys and superheros as something of a replacement for not having the history and traditions of their indigenous, European and Asian forebears.

Beautifully said. Niel Gaiman wrote a book on that, but I'm a bigger fan of how you put it. No joke.

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

It's been interesting trying to examine how the USA perceives itself. As an outsider to US culture, it's a little surprising to see that the USA has taken ownership of the terms "America" and "American" to refer exclusively to them because in some countries we were taught that America refers to the two continents.

We are taught this as well, but we shorten everything. It's quite similar to deGaulle with the Russian/Soviet thing. Do you call South Korea "the Republic of Korea," or just "South Korea?" "North Korea," or "Democratic People's Republic of Korea?" "France" or "the French Republic?" "Germany" or "Federal Republic of Germany?" It would be interesting to know, might be telling about the cultural psyche.

Originally Posted by Raellus

I'm not sure either side really understood what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment into the Bill of Rights.

Quite right, "Regular forces" is no longer part of common knowledge; it is in fact rather niche, so language hinged on understanding of that is all but extinct.

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I would like to ask though, would not the various State National Guards be the legitimate inheritors to the original militias? I know they are heavily "federalized" but weren't they set up as a counter to a federal military trying to enforce federal policy onto the states?

Yes, the National Guard is an inheritor of the original militia, though one can also argue that after Federalization they are merely a Federal reserve force that is funded and operated by states until needed. There are also State defense forces under various names in many (but not all states). These are rather neutered, eg no exemption from national draft; on the other hand, they are rather come-and-go in comparison to NG/Reserve or even the regular military.

Originally Posted by CDAT

Most Americans that I have talked with about this have a real hard time comprehending how small most European countries are in comparison the North America, and I suspect it is the same for the European people just reversed.

Oh, no need to suspect. Find me a European who will talk about Texas (or Ohio or Wyoming or Washington) culture, laws, history, etc, and I'll find you ten (and ten Americans) who just see the US as another nation equivalent to a European nation, with a largely homogenous culture, language, laws, etc... Instead of noting that with nearly the same geographic size as all of Europe and half the population, their expectation that one should have one culture and the other should have 20+ cultures is a little odd.

I already found a Korean with the same preconception: The man who started the first Tae Kwon Do dojang I trained under. He states he moved from Seoul to St Louis because he thought, that's right in the middle, I'll get students from the entire nation there!

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by RN7

I'd love to know how the US is supposed to have betrayed France.

The way we betrayed them is by defaulting on our debts to France at the time. It was something like $2-3 million -- billions in today's terms. It was a heavy blow to the French treasury, and was one of the contributing factors to the beginning of the French Revolution.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

The way we betrayed them is by defaulting on our debts to France at the time. It was something like $2-3 million -- billions in today's terms. It was a heavy blow to the French treasury, and was one of the contributing factors to the beginning of the French Revolution.

But didn't America bail them out of two world wars and give them over $2 billion as part of the Marshall Plan after WW2.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

The Marshall Plan wasn't the "gift" that it's generally portrayed to be. It required that who ever was given funds for rebuilding had to spend the majority of the money on products from the USA, it was in the order of 60 or 70% if I remember correctly.
Plus there were other provisions specific to the countries themselves, for example, France was required to accept a certain percentage of American content in it's cinemas, Italy had to give up some promising developments in long-range airliners so they wouldn't be in competition with US aircraft builders and so on.

[stormlion1]

The Marshall Plan was both Grants and Loans. The Grants didn't need to be repaid but the Loans did. Not sure which ones the French took more of though.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

The Marshall Plan was both Grants and Loans. The Grants didn't need to be repaid but the Loans did. Not sure which ones the French took more of though.

The proportion of Marshall plan loans versus Marshall plan grants was roughly 15% to 85% for both the UK and France.

Source: Marshall Plan

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

The Marshall Plan wasn't the "gift" that it's generally portrayed to be. It required that who ever was given funds for rebuilding had to spend the majority of the money on products from the USA, it was in the order of 60 or 70% if I remember correctly.

So, you're saying there's something wrong with the teeth of the gift horse?

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by RN7

But didn't America bail them out of two world wars and give them over $2 billion as part of the Marshall Plan after WW2.

Well, think of it this way:

Someone asks to borrow $1 million from you. It's most of what you have, but you do it. A few weeks later, the guy tells you he'll never be able to pay you back. You go bankrupt as a result.

A hundred years later, your great-great-great-whatever grandson receives a visitor. He's here to pay back the million, plus interest. It will be good for your descendant, but it doesn't help you any.

The French at the time of the Revolutionary War had no conception that one day they'd be conquered and would need US help to get out of it; America was a pipsqueak little country at the time.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Well, think of it this way:

Someone asks to borrow $1 million from you. It's most of what you have, but you do it. A few weeks later, the guy tells you he'll never be able to pay you back. You go bankrupt as a result.

A hundred years later, your great-great-great-whatever grandson receives a visitor. He's here to pay back the million, plus interest. It will be good for your descendant, but it doesn't help you any.

The French at the time of the Revolutionary War had no conception that one day they'd be conquered and would need US help to get out of it; America was a pipsqueak little country at the time.

Well if France was so impoverished by what the US owed them were did Napoleon get the money to go and conquer the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, the Low Countries and half of Germany, and then try and conquer Russia, Egypt and India?

[Adm.Lee]

After the King fell to the Revolution, America and France continued to have disagreements.

Some 1790s French, and some Americans, were upset that the very young USA didn't help them militarily during the pre-Napoleonic wars that France fought with Austria, Britain, and others. There was supposed to be a treaty of alliance, and both were republics opposed to monarchy, right?

Presidents Washington, Adams, and Jefferson had to struggle mightily with the partisan divide over neutrality or involvement in France's wars.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

Presidents Washington, Adams, and Jefferson had to struggle mightily with the partisan divide over neutrality or involvement in France's wars.

Indeed. Adam's Federalists sympathized with England while Jefferson's Republicans sympathized with France. The Reign of Terror in France and French diplomatic misbehavior in the U.S. soured many here on the nascent French Republic. France's refusal to honor neutral shipping rights, and the infamous XYZ Affair led to a brief Quasi-War between the two nations ("Millions for defense; not a cent for tribute", or something to that effect). Adams' efforts to end that expensive and not-very-popular war led to a split in the Federalist party which allowed Jefferson to take the presidency and usher in the Era of Good Feelings.