>On Jul 3, 2008, at 2:55 PM, JP May wrote:
>
><natter, natter, natter>
>>  The United States
><natter, natter, natter>
>
>Is the first country founded on an idea, and not conquest. Thus, it 
>has a generic name.

I understand the spirit of what you are saying.

It would be rather as if, say, the USA deliberately had NO flag - you know?

("Fuck flags and nationalist crap like that!   And we're not having a 
name either, we're just calling it 'large place towards the top of 
the Americas' -- LPTTTOTA.  Yeah!)

So yes, it's perfectly sensible and logical to be "proud" as it were 
of having a "generic" as you put it, or "descriptive" if you will, 
"non - proper-noun" name such as "USofA."

Nevertheless, even given that: the whole idea of having the one 
country using the whole continent name in the title, is at best 
confusing.

(Hence, if it was JUST called "The United States" that would make 
tremendously more sense.  It would then only be "stupid" in the sense 
that "United Kingdom" is stupid, which it is - almost all countries 
could be described as "united kingdom" of course.)

Now ....

>, and not conquest

Um, RAH unfortunately I must alert you that the entire New World is 
described like this:

        "We Europeans decimated ... <italics>Erased!</italics> ... all
         the primitives and thus created the New World!"

Anyone who lives in Usa (or Australia, Brasil, etc), who forgets for 
5 seconds that their entire existence exists because we Europeans 
erased the local primitives a couple of decades ago ... is oddish. 
It must be said.

>A rather good idea, frankly, if more than a little tattered around 
>the edges, and certainly a better idea than various 
>Rousseau-clone-murderer/ideologies that have "evolved" since.

I think the Idea you are referring to, of the Scottish Enlightenment, 
the "idea of about 1800," is a good one.

Indeed, as discussed lately (per that quote from the flaming gay 
economist guy), times were indeed Incredibly Stupendously Good And 
Libertarian in England from about the time of the 1800 idea, through 
to perhaps 1900 or so.

Also, England created an excellent colony (confusingly!  ) called Usa.

EVEN BETTER, exactly as you point out, the "1800 idea" was even more 
EXPLICITIZED in Usa, which was absolutely fantastic.

So again, from (say) 1800 to 1900, that "1800 idea" was tremendously 
expressed in Old Blightly and everything was stupendously Good and 
Libertarian.

And indeed, over in Usa, similarly, matters were stupendously Good 
and Libertarian for two, three, four decades (although Usa had, um, 
Numerous Slaves and, err, lots of redskins to slaughter), putting 
aside the clampdowns on whiskey tax, creation of federal fiat banks, 
etc .. until perhaps the time of Lincoln?  (1850ish wasn't it?)  Our 
General List Consensus seems to be that everything went downhill from 
Lincoln, and now things have reached the point of the FBI becoming 
the CIA, etc.

So yeah, the "1800 idea" was expressed nicely for awhile in Usa, too.

(As discussed previously, somewhat confusingly: LATELY, say like "in 
the 1950s," Usa has in our lifetime been far less socialist than 
fucking fabian England.  But IMO both nations in the 1900s - that 
"century of the state" - were both megabloated statist fuck-ups 
compared to the previous "1800 idea" -motivated nations, as so nicely 
painted in that quote from that otherwise-asshole Keynes.)

I think that actually England enjoyed more-and-longer the 
Stupendously-Good-and-Libertarian era (exemplified by the Keynes 
quote) than Usa did; holding on till say 1900, whereas Usa only 
fundamentally held on until say 1850.  Both were statist shitholes by 
WW1.

(To repeat, once both had descended to being statist shitholes, by 
the time of say the 1950s indeed Usa admirably was considerably less 
socialist, enjoyed far lower taxes etc [still of course 
"inconceivably high" to someone from the 1800s] than Old Blighty. 
Interestingly since say the Hayek-Thatcher-Reagan revolution, Uk has 
perhaps fared BETTER than Usa; arguably there is now far less idiot 
regulation, FBI-NSA-FEMA-SEC, etc in Uk than Usa; it's possible that 
taxes are plain lower today in Uk than Usa.)  [Again of course, 
anyone visiting from the 1800s would find both Usa and Uk to be 
mindbogglingly overtaxed and statist.]

>Cheers,
>RAH

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