At the point of writing this, I have only got as far as page 2 of this thread. I have read much within it that is offensive. However, this particular example has to be arguably the most offensive thing I've read so far:
Your European ancestors who didn't leave during the migrations of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, were likely smug members of the 'have' society, or those who were afraid, for one reason or another, to question the status quo.
Johnny Canuk
NOW I understand (being half Welsh/Irish) why I spit on the graves of my ancestors on a daily basis. The graves of those smug, self serving elitist bastards who died during the great Famines of Ireland. Also the graves of those snivelling, cowardly bastards who died down the mines just to prop up the ruling elite (most welsh coal went to the land of the free BTW). Heaven forbid that any of
them should have questioned the status quo "sorry old chap, it's just not british". You claim our ignorance of US history while you blithely make crass, sweeping generalisiations about the motives of Europe's poorest and most vulnerable. You make me sick to the core.
Having descended from those who stayed behind, I suppose it is understandable that you cannot comprehend the motivations of those who left, and the social system they have spawned.
Johnny Canuk
Ooh, let me think, how about
survival. Granted, the vast majority emigrated to the USA to escape many forms of persecution, but forget you not the opportunists who saw a 'virgin' land ripe for exploitation and fecund with new, as yet untold, opportunity.
And with respects to the social system they spawned, they merely set up in America the kind of system that they -and
their ancestors had tried to establish in Europe and got slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands for (the numbers reflect the continent-wide casualties of various failed Civil wars, insurrections, protest movements etc.)
The mass migrations of the 18th and 19th century were also triggered by Europe's most bloody revolutionary period. Absolute monarchies were being overthrown in orgies of bloodletting and revenge, the fledgling democracies squabbled and fought over long-disputed borders. The industrial revolution quickened the pace and barbarity of these conflicts. For most of that 200-year period Europe was in flames, in the revolutionary term, and the physical.
So, I ask you, if the whole of Continental North america suddenly flared up in that way, and i cite an (impossible I know) scenario of the USA breaking up into it's component states, a militarily adventurous Quebec attemping to gain as much territory for the french speaking nation as it could in a protracted campaign towards annexing Alberta, Alaska sealing it's borders from refugees, bloody revolution Within Mexico, old scores being settled between California and Texas -With New Mexico as the battleground. All of this happening within a -relatively- short period of Fifty years, but the outcomes festering for far longer -and that troubled continent also being at the dawn of a world-changing technological shift with all the benefits -and abuses that would bring... What would you do? And what would your descendants do?
So the next time you give it the large one about the innate superiority and gutsiness of the north american of european descent, just bear in mind that back in Europe things were not as cut and dried as you seem to think.
And BTW, about the internet giving you a different personality, rest assured that if you had grossly offended my ancestors and belittled their struggle -in person, face to face- in your black and white world view, i would not be so rational about my arguments... And you would be seeking the assistance of a good dentist.
-Sub-
[ 18 October 2001: Message edited by: Sub_bass ]
