July 26, 2012

NYT: Churchill's Special Relationship "poisonous," "hateful"

According to Wikipedia
Otto von Bismarck remarked at the end of the 19th century that the most significant event of the 20th century would be "The fact that the North Americans speak English".

The half-American Winston Churchill coined the term "Special Relationship" for the ethnically-anchored alliance among the English-speaking peoples that, as Bismarck feared, more or less conquered the world in the 20th Century.

Charles Blow, regular New York Times columnist, writes:
On Tuesday, The Daily Telegraph, a leading conservative newspaper in Britain, quoted an anonymous adviser to Mitt Romney commenting on the so-called special relationship between Britain and the United States: 
“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr. Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.” 
The paper pointed out that the comments “may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity,” and they did. 
The reporter who wrote the story said later on Twitter that the anonymous adviser “was a member of the foreign policy advisory team." 
... Romney’s team stopped short of issuing a complete repudiation and demanding a total cleansing of these poisonous ideas from their ranks. 
The phrases “if anyone said,” and “weren’t reflecting the views” are weak and amorphous and don’t go far enough towards condemnation. 
The reason is simple: the Republican Party benefits from this bitterness. Not all Republicans are intolerant, but the intolerant seem to have found a home under their tent. And instead of chasing the intolerant out, the party turns a blind eye — or worse, gives a full embrace — and counts up their votes. 
... In the 2000 U.S. census, only 8.7 percent of Americans identify their ancestry as English, which is ranked fourth behind German, Irish, and African-American.
The bipartisan National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund projects that in November the Latino vote will be almost 26 percent higher than it was in 2008. That would be a staggering increase. 
No amount of corporate money and voter suppression can hold back the demographic tide washing over this country. As each of these gaffes further reaffirms the Republican Party’s hostility to minorities, the shorter the party’s lifespan becomes. 
I for one don’t believe that this is a coordinated effort. It’s the seepage from a hateful few slipping in like water through a compromised dam. But it will not be enough for the Republicans to plug the holes. They must drain the reservoir.

How many American politicians have gone to visit some village in Ireland where one of their great-great-great-grandfathers came from and there pledged undying cultural loyalty to the Irish? 

Basically, all of them.

In principle, what is the difference between highlighting the value of one's Irish ethnicity and one's Anglo-Saxon ethnicity? 

In practice, of course, Ireland is an unimportant country while England rivals America for global cultural dominance.

The Anglo-Saxons have turned out to be the biggest winners in history. Their language dominates the world in 2012. 

And the reason the Anglo-Saxons won is because they figured out a lot of better ways to do things, such as the British parliamentary system. And a big reason they figured out better ways is because they valued freedom of discussion and tried less hard than most people to shut down all criticism and unwelcome speech.

But, the way things work in the modern world is that it's hateful and poisonous for anybody to be publicly proud of being related to a winner. To win these days, you should proclaim your victimhood whenever possible, which gives you moral authority to silence your critics.

Thus, in practice, Barack Obama rivals George H.W. Bush as the WASPiest-acting President of my lifetime, vacationing on Martha's Vineyard, playing golf, and reading Marilynne Robinson novels about Congregationalist ministers. But, if he were Brooke Osborne instead of Barack Obama, would he have ever been considered Presidential Timber? Would anybody have ever even noticed him? Of course not. Among people with a mellifluous prose style, Obama is not the most perceptive observer, but he;s got that figured out, as shown by naming his autobiography after the deadbeat African father he barely knew. Thus, Obama was offended to discover that his nasty but sensible rich African grandfather had spent his life as a head servant for the English colonists, studying the ways that made them rich and powerful, and applying them in Kenyan countryside.

In theory, we now admire losers. (In reality, we admire power and money, same as always.) 

But there are reasons the losers lost. And those reasons, which ought to comprise valuable lessons for the future, are never to be mentioned in public.

180 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it is pretty much just an Anti-White sentiment. Of course, the Whiter you are, the more you are hated. I would also caution Whites from thinking they won some jackpot that will go on forever. It looks like every single White country will turn non-Whites in 50 years or less. There is a big chance the special cohesion that made progress possible will falter.

SFG said...

"And the reason the Anglo-Saxons won is because they figured out a lot of better ways to do things, such as the British parliamentary system. And a big reason they figured out better ways is because they valued freedom of discussion and tried less hard than most people to shut down all criticism and unwelcome speech."

What you say is true, but winning wars with Napoleon and exterminating the indigenes so they could spread across a continent didn't hurt either.

Nice guys finish last, in game and in global politics.

SFG said...

And no, I'm not bashing the Brits. Reading your blog has taught me the value of cruelty in international affairs. Worrying about ethics just gets your people killed. ;)

Anonymous said...

The Anglo-Saxons have turned out to be the biggest winners in history. Their language dominates the world in 2012.

Nothing says victory like dispossession.

scoobius dubious said...

"No amount of corporate money and voter suppression can hold back the demographic tide washing over this country."

Heh, that's cute.

He thinks this place is still a country.

Orthodox said...

I'm neither Anglo, nor Saxon, yet I would say America is an Anglo-Saxon nation. I don't know Bobby Jindal or Herman Cain's specific political beliefs, but I would expect them to echo the same sentiment if they were the nominee.

I read that piece and I'm ready for secession. I don't think there's any question where this is all headed.

IHTG said...

This is beyond parody.

Anonymous said...

Secession? Don't you wish. No chance. We're going to be swamped.

What's the phrase? Someone wrote a book about it - We are Doomed.

Seneca said...

Very anti-White racsim on display.. Reminds me of Tiim Wise's infamous anti-White hate screed regarding the pending White demographic collapse. Expect more of this anti-White hate speech as White power declines further and the anti-White racists become more emboldened.

Anonymous said...

"National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund projects that in November the Latino vote will be almost 26 percent higher"

I noticed it all on my own. Thanks Steve!

Shame about your dad but I guess it was his time. Take comfort in knowing he lived through probably the most pleasant times in human history.

Steve Sailer said...

"Take comfort in knowing he lived through probably the most pleasant times in human history."

Yup. His family moved to California in 1929.

He was skiing 70 years ago, before there were lifts -- put your skis on your shoulder and hike up. He was there when somebody lugged a Model T engine to the top of June Mountain and hooked a rope tow to it.

In the 1930s in Malibu, he'd swim out past the breakers to the kelp beds, dive down to the bottom with a knife in his teeth, and pry Giant Abalone off the bottom, then roast them in a bonfire ont he beach.

AMac said...

SFG (7/26/12 2:55 AM)

> What [Sailer says about the Engish] is true, but winning wars with Napoleon and exterminating the indigenes so they could spread across a continent didn't hurt either. Nice guys finish last, in game and in global politics.

Relevant remarks by Gregory Cochran in his current post at West Hunter:

--- begin quote ---

Lesson: when one human population expands into another, there is almost always some admixture (enough to transmit adaptive alleles, certainly) but there isn’t always much. Laurent Excoffier thinks that such events are always similar to a ‘range expansion’ – diffusion and random mating – but that happens not to be the case. Not when AMH met Neanderthals and Denisovans, not in Neolithic Europe, not in the Philippines, not in the Americas.

--- end quote ---

Svigor said...

What you say is true, but winning wars with Napoleon and exterminating the indigenes so they could spread across a continent didn't hurt either.

If winning wars with Napoleon and "exterminating" a continent worth of natives were as simple as you make out, everyone would do it.

Nice guys finish last, in game and in global politics.

The world's full of nasty guys who finished last.

Secession? Don't you wish. No chance. We're going to be swamped.

What's the phrase? Someone wrote a book about it - We are Doomed.


Nah. More of a looming genetic bottleneck. One day all Whites will be racists, the non-racist Whites having become non-White. I suspect Jews have something similar in their distant past.

Svigor said...

But Nolan seems to think his batman movies are indeed HOLY SCHMOLY BATMAN!!!

That's how Lucas got rich. He took something that "should" be approached only as camp and played it straight. Star Wars isn't "a serious EURO ART FILM treatment," of course, just family entertainment, but it is played straight.

Y'ALL WHITE BOYZ LUH-DA HA'ELL OUTA SOME NEUTRAL COLORS!

Go to Scandinavia. Last time I checked those buggers love 'em some bright colors. 'Specially orange and yellow.

Didn't see the movie but Puffer is too big to play catwoman. Also, what was with the mask with stitches? That was ugly.

She was pretty skinny in her prime. "Big" is not a word that springs to mind.

Hitchcock had a lover for the visceral

Slippy, verrry slippy.

In fairness, that applies to most movies. And most TV shows. Why do you think that bad guy on "Law And Order" or "CSI" and similar shows is always a white guy (or if not, a white woman) and not, as in real life, some dumb black thug?

Because liberals and Jews are too busy whitewashing blacks, and blacks have a grievance industry?

I mean, everybody knows blacks make great scientists, genius hackers, criminal profilers, etc., so everybody knows they'd make great evil geniuses, too (Joss Whedon is one example of a guy who isn't afraid to go "full retard" in this manner).

Nolan did. Hitchcock didn't. Hitchcock never made a comic book movie.

Not really a fair comparison. One, comics were a very different medium in Hitchcock's time. Two, comic movies weren't nearly as viable a proposition technically as they are now. Three, comic movies weren't an established thing.

Svigor said...

Whoops, wrong thread.

Thomas said...

Sure, only ~8-9% of the population is pure English, but what % is partially English?

Yet, we can have a special relationship with Jordan's neighbor when only 2% of our population is that ethnicity, and when they have contributed much less to the country.

German reader said...

"The Anglo-Saxons have turned out to be the biggest winners in history. Their language dominates the world in 2012. "

Well, they are such great winners that English people will be a minority in their own country in 50 years, easily within the life time of English children born today. A very odd kind of winning.

Anonymous said...

To be Anglo-Saxon is the height of insensitivity. Can't have that in a multi-culture.

Foghorn said...

Politicking aside, what feelings is this article supposed to impart? Fear? Victimhood? Some of you have expressed helplessness as if we’re part of a foregone conclusion. I don’t normally speak purely as a member of my race, but as a white I don't feel like a victim. Isn't that exactly what Steve laments of the other races, their victimcrying? I understand the virtues of my race and that they are no longer in their primacy, but that doesn’t make us victims. We still have adequate resources to determine our fate and the resoluteness to do so. I also understand that Steve typically espouses thoughts along the lines of "democracy/social-welfare does not function well in heterogeneous societies, e.g. America, vs., say, Scandinavia." So if there is a movement coming against the white in American Democracy, and this essential condition is at the crux, what is the white doing in response? The other races are gaining the upper hand in population, which circumvents our financial and cultural advantage. Do we resist? Do we try to outbreed them and spread our power even thinner? I see that as a problem. Secession doesn't seem viable, IMO. Someone else mentioned the Jews - they're insular but doing well. We would essentially forfeit our democratic control, but not necessarily our influence, and would retain our culture. We could also opt to protect our power by adjusting our rule of law, become as kings like the English of old. I don’t see that getting a warm reception, plus it undermines our image as Democratic Americans. However, the gradual movement toward more and more limited freedoms (to protect us from ourselves) may eventually land us in a similar mechanism, but we would have to retain control until the crucial regulations could become fully operational. We would still be hated and the forces of the world would continue to build against us. The other option is to embrace the other races, mix genes with abandon, and try to achieve some homogeneity so that our social systems can begin to work again. This seems like a natural step toward a truly global unity, if you’re into that thing. I think it has a certain allure. Does anyone else have any ideas?

Anonymous said...

In my opinion this is a 'dog-whistle', kite-flying exercise by Romney.
What he (or his aides) are saying, in so many words, is 'that unlike the Obama admnistartion, that is third world and non-white oriented, I am am unashamedly out to accentuate and perpetuate white heritage and the white world'.

An act of kindness and courtesy to the British perhaps, (I believe Romney is of pure and relatively recent English descent), but I think it is more aimed at domestic consumption.

Anonymous said...

Actually English descent is many, many times greater than 8 or 9%, most Americans who list their ethnicity as 'American' are really of british descent.

Anonymous said...

If the Anglo-Saxons are the biggest winners in history, I guess that makes the Jutes the Pete Bests of history?

Anonymous said...

Anglo-Saxons? I have to believe most of their success was Norman. Do you think the Saxons wrote the Magna Carta? Alfred the Great aside, all the Saxons did was get beaten up by invaders from time to time, usually Viking.

Of course, given the relative paucity of English ancestry in this country, something also must be said for the cultural dominance coming from a single language. Could England and America have ever ruled the world if the Normans and Saxons had developed different languages?

Anonymous said...

The 8-9% is pure English and excludes scot, welsh, and the always discussed Scot-Irish. So, this under represents the Anglo-saxons, not to mention the fact that large numbers of Huguenots, German, Dutch, and Scandinavians have intermarried and have been in this country so long they are more or less Anglo-Saxon. The Roosevelt's are Dutch, Eisenhower and Hoover, German. Is Romney a Anglo_saxon name? Sounds German to me.

Anonymous said...

As I mentioned earlier, Romney intuits that the USA is at a crossroads (majority non-white by 2040), and realises that the generalized trend of the American poltical class (accentuated by Obama), is to view the non white world as the rising power - and that the USA belongs of it - and not of England or Europe - and thus there is a general long term run down of any sentimental , cultural or actual affiliation with Britain, the USA setting a new course for itself based on entirely different sentiments and models. In this reckoning, England, a declining mid popualtion north European nation is no more important than India or even Kenya is.
Romney's posturing is a subliminal kick against this, but in actual fact, I sincerely doubt if he'll do anything substantive. Despite all the hype, the trend's gone too far. England's only hope was in a unified Europe - but that project's f*cked up.

Anonymous said...

In doing my genealogy, I discovered that I am mostly English. Because of the differentness of the other ethnicities, it seems people exaggerate, probably unconsciously how much of other stuff they have. So my mother would talk about her Norwegian grandmother but not mention that her other grandmother was English. Yeah, sure the granny from the English family had been here since the 1600's, but from what I could find (which was a ton, all English names) she was pretty much all English. She also didn't mention her English grandfather from a family here since the early 1700's. It was a similar story on my dad's side. They noted that grandpa was German because that was noteworthy, but what about grandma and the other granparents? English. So yeah, there were the other ethnics, but most were English.

Aaron in Israel said...

In principle, what is the difference between highlighting the value of one's Irish ethnicity and one's Anglo-Saxon ethnicity?
In practice, of course, Ireland is an unimportant country while England rivals America for global cultural dominance.


I think the global angle is all wrong here. What matters is that Anglo-Saxons were long politically and socially dominant in America, while the Irish never were. That's why it's fine to express Irish pride but not fine to express Anglo-Saxon pride. Even the words remind people of "WASP."

In a nutshell: Irish pride, German pride, Polish pride, Jewish pride, Italian pride - all OK. Anglo-Saxon pride, white pride - not OK. It's a local thing.

Anonymous said...

"I read that piece and I'm ready for secession. "

borderist bigot!

Anonymous said...

"How many American politicians have gone to visit some village in Ireland where one of their great-great-great-grandfathers came from and there pledged undying cultural loyalty to the Irish?"

"To win these days, you should proclaim your victimhood whenever possible, which gives you moral authority to silence your critics."


It's funny to me that the Irish have been lumped into the generic "victim" category nowadays. Most of the old Nationalist rhetoric that fueled the War of Independence (and subsequent Civil War, which may have killed even more people) spent less time whining about British oppression (though there was some of that, naturally) than glorying in the fighting spirit of the nation which refused to be conquered, and renewed the fight in every generation, despite defeat. Read the oeuvre of Thomas Osborne Davis sometime- it's 10 times more militaristic and xenophobic than anything the "Imperialist" Kipling ever wrote. That goes double for the songs of Patrick Joseph McCall.

The lesson, I suppose, is that militarism is O.K. as long as you are a loser. Once you start winning, though, you'd better ditch that warlike talk for the kind of peace-loving sentimental stuff that goes over well at the U.N. General Assembly. Post-1948 Irish politicians seem to have figured this out, and acted accordingly.

Anonymous said...

Well, the Anaheim riot shows the left which wants a new people's group can exploit a situation. In fact the bad behavior wasn't all Mexicans in gangs but a far left La group and Occupy OC. The Republicans just allowed Anaheim and Santa Ana to become the way they were about 30 years ago by allowing business interested to hire them and Reagan's legalizing efforted so the left coming back in protest groups uses the Illegal aliens that don't always get along with the cops to protest.

Anonymous said...

I remember the NYT arguing the same thing in 1993 as a reason to vote against Giuliani. Rudy and his party represented the past you see, a world where the minorities would now be calling the shots in Gotham. Oh, he won in 1993 and 1997 and Bloomberg running as a Republican and independent won in 2001, 2005, and 2009 and the neither the Democrats or black politicians have even sniffed Gracie Mansion since Dinkins left in 1993, but that is irrelevant, we will make you recalcitrant bigots see the future which will be happening real soon now.

Black Death said...

Bismarck also said:

A journalist is a person who has mistaken their calling.

Anonymous said...

No, the reason is the Channel. It gave a luxury of not having to do with constant invasions and wars. Wars usualyl hurt middle class and freedom of discussion. Why exactly Poland, much more free in XVI century than England, lost, while GB won? You can say about inbreeding-outbreeding factors, but there is also one another -- in the next century Poland fought almost constantly, sometimes against three oponents at the same time, and twice lose more population percentage-wise than during 2nd world war.

THe Channel, that's the answer.

Anonymous said...

What's been forgotten here is that Whitehall officially repudiated the "special relationship" shortly after our idiot Secretary of State referred to the Malvinas Islands rather than the falklands Islands in anofficial speech earlier in this administration. This extremely serios and potentially lethal faux pas came on the heels of a number of serious slights to the UK by our first affirmative action president. The british response was constrained and temperate but made quietly clear their dissatisfaction with the current regime. One can only hope that a more competent administration will work to restore this strong bond with our closest, firmest, and most constant ally.

By the way, whenever my liberakl friends try to suggest that Hilary and Barak are some kind of competent I can usually shut them uop by pointing out how their tag team operation ( a mixture of a nasty personal vendetta on BO's part and incompetence on Hilary's) managed to wreck over 150 years of diplomacy.

Anonymous said...

"The Anglo-Saxons have turned out to ne the biggest winners in history."

As one of those Anglo-Saxons living in the third world immigrant overwhelmed Canadian city of Toronto, I don't feel like I am "winning" at all. In fact every day I feel more and more is being taken away from me.

Anonymous said...

Yes, but that was 60 years ago. There were many openly racist citizens of the United States then too. But the percentage now is much smaller. Since then the Supreme Court nixed laws forbidding mixed race marriage, laws and customs segregating students by race, and the court also required affirmative action to try to overcome racism.
Our current racists would like to return to the Jim Crow era. Most of us refuse to return there and now most of us support equal rights for LGBT persons.

Peter A said...

As a German/Irish American I really have a hard time getting enthused about the "Anglo-Saxon" heritage. The mythical connection to England, mostly promoted by a small WASP elite, led the US to take the wrong side in World War I, leading to a host of modern calamities.

stari_momak said...

Over at 'American' 'Conservative', Daniel Larison says we should just, you know, take all that WWI and WWII stuff and 'Five Eyes' and whatnot and forget about it, just a matter of realpolitik. Meanwhile Samuel Goldman says there is no such thing as an Anglo-Saxon at all.

Anonymous said...

"Nothing says victory like dispossession"

If they had wised up to the scotch-irish this wouldn't be a problem.

Anonymous said...

Charles Blow has been such a flunkie sycophant for Barry that I wouldn't be at all surprised that he made up this "unnamed advisor."

Blow has absolutely no journalistic integrity...NONE.

Anonymous said...

"In theory, we now admire losers. (In reality, we admire power and money, same as always.)"

Sharp.

Dutch Boy said...

I suppose naval power + imperialism are better ways to do things for some. The American relationship with Great Britain has been a disastrous one (congruent with our current special relationship with Israel). Propping up a failing empire against its imperial opponents is a no win game for us and has resulted in the imperialism and militarism that has bled us dry.

Sgt. Joe Friday said...

"Secession? Don't you wish. No chance. We're going to be swamped."

Actually, what I see happening is that the various ethnic factions will self segregate - that is, if the government doesn't take a nasty authoritarian turn and become like the old USSR, with requirements that one have an internal passport and government permission to live in a particular place.

Presuming there is still freedom of movement, you can expect whites to move away from the southwest as it becomes more Mexicanized, and away from places like south Florida, the black majority cities of the deep south, and whatnot.

At some point, there will be so little that bonds us together that the country will fracture and then disintegrate. The only question is if it will be a more-or-less peaceful, "so what" sort of event, or if the government will use force to try to keep the entity going for a while longer.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of special relationships, which country does AIPAC represent?
Which country do all politicians make a pilgrimage to?

Anonymous said...

Culturally and politically, 100% of Americans owe something to Britain.

Anonymous said...

that 'gay marriage' kid will be feted s the next charles blowhard.

not a hacker said...

Take a look at Charles Blow's pic on the web. If there's every been a more smug and self-satisfied visage, I haven't seen it.

Dahinda said...

"Charles Blow" - that is an apt name!

Reg Cæsar said...

...an Anti-White sentiment. --Jeffery [sic]

Real men don't capitalize 'white'. That's right out of the Jet magazine stylebook.

NOTA said...

I couldn't find any content to this latest manufactured outrage at all, except that Team Blue's shills needed something to shout at Team Red's shills about. In a couple days, this will be replaced by another manufactured outrage about Obama saying the economy is doing okay or some Romney aide talking too mean about Hillary. The shills have to find something to yell about, or nobody will watch their shows and they will have to do something else for a living. (Since most of them are too old and wrinkled to turn tricks, that pretty much leaves waiting tables or working as one of those human signs.)

99.9% of the "big issue of the day" that the talking heads yack about have no relevance whatsoever to choosing a president. It's just noise, generated by the campaigns or their hangers on and useful idiots, and chewed over to cover the fact that most of the time, the guys at CNN and Fox and MSNBC don't really have anything interesting or informative to say.

Anonymous said...

"In the 2000 U.S. census, only 8.7 percent of Americans identify their ancestry as English, which is ranked fourth behind German, Irish, and African-American."

English ancestry is usually underreported:

"However, demographers regard this as an undercount, as the index of inconsistency is high, and many, if not most, people from English stock have a tendency to identify simply as Americans[7][8][9][10] or, if of mixed European ancestry, nominate a more recent and differentiated ethnic group.[11] Throughout the nineteenth century, England was the largest investor in American land development, railroads, mining, cattle ranching, and heavy industry. Perhaps because English settlers gained easy acceptance, they founded few organizations dedicated to preserving the traditions of their homeland." (WIKIPEDIA).


"In the 1980 United States Census, over 49 million (49,598,035) Americans claimed English ancestry, at the time around 26.34% of the total population and largest reported group which, even today, would make them the largest ethnic group in the United States.[12][13]. This outnumbered the population of England at the time." (WIKIPEDIA)

Syon

Anonymous said...

"In principle, what is the difference between highlighting the value of one's Irish ethnicity and one's Anglo-Saxon ethnicity?"

Because the Irish are victims (good), and the Anglo-Saxons are opressors (evil).

Anonymous said...

And the reason the Anglo-Saxons won is because they figured out a lot of better ways to do things, such as the British parliamentary system.


Come on, they won because they won wars, or were on the winning side of wars. People don't speak English in India because of the wonders of the British parliamentary system.

Anonymous said...

Would it be likewise "insensitive" to point out that Israel was founded by Jews?

If not, why not?

Would it be "insensitive" to point out that America has a special relationship with Israel? If not, why not?

Severn said...

From the Obama website -

http://www.barackobama.com/discussion-points/obama-commitment-to-israel/


President Obama’s Unwavering Commitment to the State of Israel and the US-Israel Relationship


President Obama has consistently demonstrated his unshakable commitment to Israel’s security and well-being, strengthening the unbreakable bond between our two nations. In both word and deed, the President has signaled to the world that the US‐Israel relationship is stronger than ever. Our President’s stellar record speaks for itself:


Obama has repeatedly reaffirmed the special relationship between the US and Israel, meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu seven times since he took office.

Appearently it's fine for the US to have a "special relationship" with another country, as long as that country is not Britian.

Anonymous said...

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special”


I'm sorry - exactly which part of this is supposed to be controversial?

Anonymous said...

the way things work in the modern world is that it's hateful and poisonous for anybody to be publicly proud of being related to a winner.


No, you're wrong about this. Israel is a winner, but I don't see a lot of hate for it on that account. On the contrary, American politicians and reporters fall all over themselves in their eagerness to surpass one another in their loyalty to Israel.

Philosopher said...

We speak English as opposed to Spanish, French or German. Is that the point or question?
After a recent census (most likely 1980 but could have been 1970), a Soviet leader remarked with serious concern that more Americans claimed German ancestry than English. He was concerned a US-Germany special relationship would replace the US-UK one.
Turns out he misunderstood the categories.
There are far more English + Scottish + Welsh + Irish descendants.

Philosopher said...

@Thomas
Read The Jewish Phenomenon, by Steven Silbiger.
(from Amazon review) The implementation of seven key principles of Jewish living is a doable recipe for success for anyone willing to implement the process.

The Principles:

1. Real Wealth is Portable: It's Knowledge
2. Take Care of Your Own and They Will Take Care of You
3. Successful People Are Professionals and Entrepreneurs
4. Develop Your Verbal Confidence
5. Be Selectively Extravagant but Prudently Frugal
6. Celebrate Individuality: Encourage Individuality
7. Have Something to Prove: A Drive to Succeed

Anonymous said...

@Steve Sailer

"The Anglo-Saxons have turned out to be the biggest winners in history. Their language dominates the world in 2012. "

What a load of garbage. The achievements of Anglo-Saxons are miniscule compared to those of the ancient Hellenes and Romans, from which "Anglo" civilization emerged. Anglo-Saxons have created pretty much nothing of new in terms of arts, literature and political thinking.

As for scientific and technological achievements, it is not fair to compare because practically everything that has been inented has been invented in the past 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution happened first in England by some fluke of history. And in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the scientific achievements of Germany and France surpassed those of England and the U.S.

As for the popularity of English, I eould say that Latin is civilization's foremost language and not English. Even at Harvard law school they still use most legal terms in Latin.

And what is "Anglo-Saxon" civilization anyway? Just look at America. What civilization it has? Anglo-Saxons have created a petit bourgeoise society where all social life revolves around profiteering. No great art, literature or abstract scientific achievements. The greatest American genius was Edison, a practical inventor and ruthless profiteer. All of America's achievements were done under the Capitalist hydra. Everything for profit motive. Do you think Michelangelo wass thinking about protis when he painted the Sistine Chapel? Do you think Descartes was motivated by profits when he did mathematics? Do you think Dostoevsky wanted to get rich and that motivated him? I do NOT admire the U.S.A at all. In fact, it is the Society I despise the most.

Sailer, you come across as an obnoxious and arrogant blowhard with your constant blowing of the horn of your own country and culture. But what else to expect? After all, you are the guy who said that Brazilians don't like reading based solely on the testimony of a guy who was delayed at an airport for a few hours. You are so arrogant and at the same time ignorant.

Whiskey said...

Blow is part of the aristocracy, the too-big-to-fail leadership that is grabbing ever more power, and regulating ever more of ordinary life for Whites, while giving carte blanche to the upper class rules and non-White underclass. This will not end well. Think Syria, think the Ottoman Empire, think the Austro-Hungarian Empire, etc.

Those who dominate will be those with the greatest cohesion that kill their enemies the best. Technology kills, every time. And those places that get ever more deadly, dangerous killing technology dominate. England dominated because for a long, long time, it was in the forefront of technology, not just killing, but transporting the killing globally, to basically everywhere.

irishman said...

When talking about the English we probably should use the word Norman instead of Anglo-Saxon. It's far more accurate.

Sorry for being prissy.

Londoner said...

Obama of course made a toe-curling pilgrimage to some Irish village to celebrate his vanishingly tenuous and quite probably fabricated link to "the old country", and paid exactly no respect to his almost 50% English heritage when he visited England.

Romney's names - all three of them - are pure Old English, something that is exceptionally rare in England, never mind the USA, and his ancestry is pretty heavily English and I am very pleasantly surprised that he has not taken this opportunity to throw it under the bus. For all Romney's faults, this has made me think well of him.

Londoner said...

Irishman - it's more accurate to use "Norman" when talking about the ruling classes, but not when talking about the rank and file population, with whom the Normans neither had nor have any desire to interbreed. As Steve pointed out recently, very few of the English settlers in North America were Normans, and England's modern-day Normans (i.e. the ruling elites - they were never kicked out) much prefer to identify themselves as British rather than English (far too plebeian an identity).

Anonymous said...

Wasn't it Anglo-America's special relationship with Britain that tipped US to side with UK against Germany in both world wars? Aren't Jews telling us that was a good thing? I guess 'special relations' with UK was good as long as it served Jewish interests but it's no longer useful when the 'new UK' or New K is Israel. So, special relations to UK belongs to the past whereas special relationship with Israel belongs to the future.

Besides, UK, whose only remaining economy is finance, is only part of the global finance system.

Anonymous said...

Didn't NY TIMES run an article saying, 'WE are all wasps'?
Gee, using the logic of blowhard, wasn't that hateful? I mean why doesn't NY Times run an editorial saying, 'we are all Nepalese'? I'm sure there are some Nepalese-Americans around. I mean we gotta be inclusive. And we know Anglo contribution to this nation was no more important than Nepalese contribution.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:"What a load of garbage. The achievements of Anglo-Saxons are miniscule compared to those of the ancient Hellenes and Romans, from which "Anglo" civilization emerged. Anglo-Saxons have created pretty much nothing of new in terms of arts, literature and political thinking."

Guess you have somehow avoided hearing about parliamentary democracy....

anonymous:"As for the popularity of English, I eould say that Latin is civilization's foremost language and not English. Even at Harvard law school they still use most legal terms in Latin."

That explains why nobody in Tokyo and Beijing speaks English...

Anonymous:"and the Industrial Revolution happened first in England by some fluke of history."

What ever allows you to feel better about yourself, dear boy.

Anonymous:"And what is "Anglo-Saxon" civilization anyway?"

Shakespeare, John Locke, David Hume, Darwin, Newton, Melville, Henry James, Malthus, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ernest Rutherford, Edmund Burke, Chaucer, T.S. Eliot,Orson Welles .....

Anonymous:"After all, you are the guy who said that Brazilians don't like reading based solely on the testimony of a guy who was delayed at an airport for a few hours."

Dear me, were your feelings hurt?

Syon

Reg Cæsar said...

Do you think Michelangelo wass thinking about protis when he painted the Sistine Chapel? --Anonyhole

If you mean "profits", no. He was a celibate with ascetic tastes and lengthy and generous commissions. Money never crossed his mind.

Mozart, on the other hand, was a family man and spendthrift who wrote almost everything for cash. Does that put him in the crass company of Yanks like Franklin and Edison?

I do NOT admire the U.S.A at all. In fact, it is the Society I despise the most.

And we're equally glad you don't live here. Why do you even post here?

Anonymous said...

"No, you're wrong about this. Israel is a winner, but I don't see a lot of hate for it on that account. On the contrary, American politicians and reporters fall all over themselves in their eagerness to surpass one another in their loyalty to Israel."

Israel is a winner that pretends to be a loser.The best possible combination in our current society.

Syon

Anonymous said...

Charles Blow - another affirmative action product. They're everywhere these days, including the White House.

Anonymous said...

anonymous:"Come on, they won because they won wars, or were on the winning side of wars. People don't speak English in India because of the wonders of the British parliamentary system."

Unless, of course, one is inclined to think that Britain's superior political system had something to do with winning those wars...

ben tillman said...

Real men don't capitalize 'white'. That's right out of the Jet magazine stylebook.

And right out of the OED as well, thank you.

Reg Cæsar said...

What a load of garbage. The achievements of Anglo-Saxons are miniscule compared to those of the ancient Hellenes and Romans... --Anonynonnyho

You'd think anyone who knows anything about "Hellenes and Romans" would also know the derivation and spelling of minuscule.

And Steve was talking about winners, not creators. Capturing two of the seven continents easily qualifies Anglo-Saxons as such, on area alone. Arabs, too, are great area-eaters, little of which they had any claim to, making their complaints about certain postage stamp tracts difficult to take seriously.

Reg Cæsar said...

'Real men don't capitalize 'white'. That's right out of the Jet magazine stylebook.'

And right out of the OED as well, thank you.
--Tillman

I said 'real men', not the OED! Men like T. Roosevelt, M. Grant, L. Stoddard-- and W. S. Churchill.

The OED now de-capitalizes 'Anglicisation', slavishly aping the Frogs. I use the pre-WWI Oxford and Fowler's available (free) from Google Books. Much less PC!

Prof. Woland said...

There are two ways for Whites to organize. One is to play the victim card like every other minority in this country and the other is to use chauvinism and trumpet racial achievement. Blacks like Blow who are envious or nursing a racial grudge, won’t be celebrating White achievement month when it arrives. A million years will not change the fact that a whitey invented the light bulb and Blow has to endure this humiliation every time he wants to see at night.

Simon in London said...

Foghorn:
"Does anyone else have any ideas?"

Strict Affirmative action for all ethnies at elite US Universities like Harvard, so that non-Jewish whites are represented in proportion to their share of the population. In 30 years they'd be back in charge of the country!
You'd have to require equal proportionate representation by State also, to avoid packing with Blue-Staters.

Anonymous said...

It seems like the response could be as easy as 'Yeah, we are celebrating the shared bonds and cultural heritage that has been so fruitful and triumphant that most of the rest of the world wants to be part of it.'

Anonymous said...

Unless, of course, one is inclined to think that Britain's superior political system had something to do with winning those wars...


The British political system has been in a state of slow but continuous evolution for several centuries. The East India Company, which was responsible for the conquest of India, was granted a Royal Charter in 1600 for a monopoly on trade in Asia. Is the "superior political system" a monarchy? I believe one or two other countries also had monarchies at this time ..

Harry Baldwin said...

NOTA said... most of the time, the guys at CNN and Fox and MSNBC don't really have anything interesting or informative to say.

They don't have anything interesting or informative to say because the really interesting topics are off limits and being informative about them would involve hate-facts. That's why so many of us spend our time reading blogs instead of watching TV news.

Average Joe said...

In practice, of course, Ireland is an unimportant country while England rivals America for global cultural dominance.

Steve you really are amazing. Charles Blow is a black writer for a Jewish-owned newspaper and yet you use this opportunity to bash the Irish even though it has absolutely nothing to do with them.

Garrett said...

"Anglo-Saxons have created pretty much nothing of new in terms of arts, literature and political thinking."

-Magna Carta, Parliament, Locke, Newton, Adam Smith, Bacon, Shakespeare, the list goes on....

"As for scientific and technological achievements, it is not fair to compare because practically everything that has been inented has been invented in the past 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution happened first in England by some fluke of history."

- Sure, easy to say they did nothing if you're gonna ignore the biggest advancement in human history since agriculture... easy at least to say they did nothing, if you weren't talking about the English...

'Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Paul Dirac, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a metric system was invented by John Wilkins, the first secretary of the Royal Society, in 1668. As the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering. Thomas Newcomen's steam engine helped spawn the Industrial Revolution.The physician Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccine is said to have "saved more lives [...] than were lost in all the wars of mankind since the beginning of recorded history."

Inventions and discoveries of the English include: the jet engine, the first industrial spinning machine, the first computer and the first modern computer, the World Wide Web along with HTML, the first successful human blood transfusion, the motorised vacuum cleaner, the lawn mower, the seat belt, the hovercraft, the electric motor, steam engines, and theories such as the Darwinian theory of evolution and atomic theory. Newton developed the ideas of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics, and infinitesimal calculus, and Robert Hooke his eponymously named law of elasticity. Other inventions include the iron plate railway, the thermosiphon, tarmac, the rubber band, the mousetrap, "cat's eye" road marker, joint development of the light bulb, steam locomotives, the modern seed drill and many modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.'
(From the Wikipedia entry on England)



"As for the popularity of English, I eould say that Latin is civilization's foremost language and not English. Even at Harvard law school they still use most legal terms in Latin."

- While we're shooting at fish in a barrel here with you, let's fire off another round- English is the de facto language of the world. There is a reason why kids from 3rd world countries learn English and not Latin, or Brazilian Portuguese. There is a reason we are discussing all of this in English and not Swahili...



"I do NOT admire the U.S.A at all. In fact, it is the Society I despise the most."

- Yet you are likely in the US right now. Why? You feel compelled to complain in English- why?


"Sailer, you come across as an obnoxious and arrogant blowhard with your constant blowing of the horn of your own country and culture. But what else to expect? After all, you are the guy who said that Brazilians don't like reading based solely on the testimony of a guy who was delayed at an airport for a few hours. You are so arrogant and at the same time ignorant."

- Read up on Projection. Then get back to me.

Average Joe said...

Take Care of Your Own and They Will Take Care of You

Unfortunately, when white gentiles do this they get labelled "racists" and "anti-Semites".

Average Joe said...

Israel is a winner that pretends to be a loser.The best possible combination in our current society.

It also helps if your American relatives control the media.

Anonymous said...

"But, the way things work in the modern world is that it's hateful and poisonous for anybody to be publicly proud of being related to a winner. "

Well, if being a winner is analogous to the goals in a game of RISK, I guess the English are pretty big winners. They won a lot of battles and conquered a lot of countries, but then look at where they are now.

A better definition of winning (in global terms)is providing a high level of economic possibilities and personal freedom for the people in your country while improving or at least sustaining your nation's culture and passing it on through the generations. By that standard, there are probably dozens of nations that are doing as well or better than the English, none of who are resented to nearly the same extent.

Frankly, it's perverse to expect the descendants of the conquered to admire the conquerors just because they were the winners. By any sense of right and wrong this animus against the English is substantially deserved. Even in the British Isles, every non-English culture (certainly the Welsh, Scottish and Irish and perhaps the Manx and Cornish as well) has centuries of grudges against the English amongst the basis of its identity. You really have to have the extra dark blinders on to think that people hate the English just because they're "winners."

Kylie said...

Dahinda said...
"'Charles Blow' - that is an apt name!"

I think it would be even more apt to make his surname a present tense verb by adding a final "s".

Evil Sandmich said...

The reason is simple: the Republican Party benefits from this bitterness. Not all Republicans are intolerant, but the intolerant seem to have found a home under their tent.

Spoken without irony, of course.
Reminds me of the basic premise of the French Revolution: "We believe in absolute freedom, and anyone who doesn't believe in absolute freedom will have their head cut off".

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:"And what is "Anglo-Saxon" civilization anyway?"

Syon:Shakespeare, John Locke, David Hume, Darwin, Newton, Melville, Henry James, Malthus, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ernest Rutherford, Edmund Burke, Chaucer, T.S. Eliot,Orson Welles .....

Those are just a random group of Anglo people (and Hume was actually Scottish). I don't see how they constitute any cohesive civilization. If you ask a French person about French civilization, they don't spit "Descartes, Pascal, Delacroix, Pasteur, Napoleon" at you. They talk about French culture and civilization.

Anonymous said...

@Syon

"Shakespeare, John Locke, David Hume, Darwin, Newton, Melville, Henry James, Malthus, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ernest Rutherford, Edmund Burke, Chaucer, T.S. Eliot,Orson Welles ....."

All other European countries have as great or greater writers, artists and scientists. Should we speak of an Italian, German, French and Russian civilizations as well?

A civilization is defined as a culture derived from a common source. All European societies, icluding the English, are derived from the aicient Hellenes. The only thing typically English about England is English Common Law and the digusting custom of eating cow kidneys.

Stop posting above your level of intelligence, Sion, because it shows. You focus on othography and keep correcting my spelling mistakes, which result from me typing too fast, because you have nothing intelligent to say.

Anonymous said...

The English language has triumphed, making it that much easier for the non-white English speakers to immigrate and displace them. Success. The language might outlive the people.

Hail said...

Steve Sailer wrote:
"In principle, what is the difference between highlighting the value of one's Irish ethnicity and one's Anglo-Saxon ethnicity?"

1945.

No one wants to be Germanic anymore. That is to say, no one wants to be Evil anymore.

Brendan Eóin O'Shaughnessy said...

"In principle, what is the difference between highlighting the value of one's Irish ethnicity and one's Anglo-Saxon ethnicity?

In practice, of course, Ireland is an unimportant country while England rivals America for global cultural dominance."

Okay, Steve, so why aren't Slovakian or Norwegian American politicians making a big deal about their ancestry? Those nations were also after all historically put upon by their bigger, more powerful neighbors as well.

The fact is that in practice the Irish have a culture that's (even aside from the several centuries of romanticizing ) instantly recognizable and globally well regarded. If we can talk about such things with respect to nations, it is probably the strongest, most coherent brand out there. U2 has been the biggest rock band for generations now. Even what we call English music is significantly the product of displaced Irishmen (Lennon, McCartney, Lydon, Costello, Morrisey, etc). If I mention traditional Irish culture, people instantly know what I'm talking about. What's traditional English culture? Cricket, marmite, oxbridge rowing, morris dancing -who cares? The English, like the Americans, have a weak, nebulous culture that changes to meet the needs of the moment. They do not even know if they are celts, saxons, normans or some sort of paleolithic holdover from before the ice age. Likewise they have a fractured religious tradition courtesy of the reformation and a hodgepodge language as a result of the half dozen or so invading tribes who have at various times conquered the island. They're essentially loosely connected mutts who benefited from numbers, a comparatively strong central government and a span of ocean between them and the rest of Europe.

What's the benefit of identifying as Irish (or basically any other European ethnic group) as opposed to Anglo-Saxon on a personal level? To begin with, I do not need to be an apologist for the slave trade, the opium trade, the extermination of aboriginal populations on multiple continents and the perhaps thousands of other morally indefensible atrocities that the British empire has committed. I'm sorry, but chalking this up to sour grapes or being ashamed of being related to a winner is simply not sufficient. Finally (and perhaps most importantly) there are lots of girls who self identify as Irish or who at least like Irish bars, Irish beer, St. Patrick's Day, and Irish music. I just don't think that you'd get the same purchase from bragging about your ancestor on the Mayflower(what if anything do these descendants have in common with their puritan ancestors, aside from genes? What remains of puritan culture or religion in daily life?) It comes back to what I was saying; Irish culture is an ongoing, cohesive and coherent thing in a way that English and vanilla American culture isn't. And that goes beyond who won what battle several centuries ago.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous 2:46 PM

"Anonymous:"After all, you are the guy who said that Brazilians don't like reading based solely on the testimony of a guy who was delayed at an airport for a few hours."

Dear me, were your feelings hurt?

Syon"

Another ridiculous post...Why is it that every time I make a post here defending such and such group, you conseratives accuse me of belonging to that group? I think I know why: it is because you conservatives only care about yourselves and the people who are like themselves, so you naturally assume that everyone else in the World is like that. The hallmark characteristic of conservatives is their unbelievable lack of EMPATHY and ALTRUISM. Here are some fun fats for you:

- I don't need to be a Spaniard or of Spanish descent to defend the historical achievements of Spain.

- I don't need to be gay to defend gay rights and their right to get married.

- I don't need to be Brazilian to point out how ridiculous it is to claim that the population of a country of 200 million people don't like to read based solely on the testimony of a guy who wass delayed at an airport for a frw hours. FYI, I actually think that Brazil is a pretty shitty country, but that is beside the point. My critique is about the method by which Sailer came to the conclusion that Brazilians don't like to read, which is ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

"Sion" doesen't understand the difference between a "civilization" and a "group of geniuses who were born in the same country".

But then, this is the guy who likes to point out orthographical mistakes, a classic maneuver to appear smarter that actually only emphasizes that you are losing the argument.

I am not here to teach the A*B = AB to Sion. I honestly don't have the patience to explain to him basic lexicography and why a "group of geniuses" and a "civilization" are not analogous and synonymous terms. Go back to school, Sion!

Vanishing American said...

Anonymous at 6:28 said:

Frankly, it's perverse to expect the descendants of the conquered to admire the conquerors just because they were the winners. By any sense of right and wrong this animus against the English is substantially deserved. Even in the British Isles, every non-English culture (certainly the Welsh, Scottish and Irish and perhaps the Manx and Cornish as well) has centuries of grudges against the English amongst the basis of its identity. You really have to have the extra dark blinders on to think that people hate the English just because they're "winners."

If the animus against the English is deserved, then are you not justifying the animus of, say, American Indians or Mexicans or blacks against Whites? I would say so. The same arguments apply there.

If victim groups (aka 'sore losers') are always justified in bearing grudges, then White Americans deserve the animus too.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Britain I've been wondering what the chances are that the authorities would allow an athletically triumphant white man to be selected for the honor of lighting the Olympic flame, and be the public face of the nation's people.

Or, would the elites consider this to be unacceptable symbolism of what Britain once was?

I am guessing there's a diversity imperative and we'll see either Daley Thompson or Lennox Lewis. Neither would be an unqualified affirmative action recipient: decathletes are supposed to be the "world's greatest athletes" and Lewis won Olympic gold, was the best heavyweight champion of his formidable generation, and was a class act (by the standards of boxing). But neither of them ever really transcended their sport of captured anyone's imagination like Roger Bannister's 4 minute mile, which is the import competent organizers should want for this ceremony.

If the honor is given to a great white British male champion I'll be surprised.

Anonymous said...

"But, the way things work in the modern world is that it's hateful and poisonous for anybody to be publicly proud of being related to a winner. "

Well, if being a winner is analogous to the goals in a game of RISK, I guess the English are pretty big winners. They won a lot of battles and conquered a lot of countries, but then look at where they are now.

A better definition of winning (in global terms)is providing a high level of economic possibilities and personal freedom for the people in your country while improving or at least sustaining your nation's culture and passing it on through the generations. By that standard, there are probably dozens of nations that are doing as well or better than the English, none of who are resented to nearly the same extent.

Frankly, it's perverse to expect the descendants of the conquered to admire the conquerors just because they were the winners. By any sense of right and wrong this animus against the English is substantially deserved. Even in the British Isles, every non-English culture (certainly the Welsh, Scottish and Irish and perhaps the Manx and Cornish as well) has centuries of grudges against the English amongst the basis of their identity. You really have to have the extra dark blinders on to think that people hate the English just because they're "winners."

Vanishing American said...

Anonymous at 6:28 says that the victim groups (better known as 'sore losers') are justified in their animus toward Anglos.
If so, and if 'Anonymous' at 6:28 is a White American, then he is arguing that, say, American Indians, Mexicans, and blacks are justified in their endless demands and grievances toward us. All resentful 'victims' are thereby legitimized in their endless complaining.

Mr. O'Shaughnessy in a later comment at 7:24 says that all English popular music is made by displaced Irishmen. The music genre in which they perform is of Anglo origin, incidentally, rooted in America via British settlers.

The idea that the Irish have a purer pedigree than the Anglo "mutts''goes against actual history. Ireland, too, was settled by waves of different immigrants. Fomorians, Tuatha De Danaan, Danes, Vikings, the 'Celts', Anglo-Normans etc.

And the latest crop of immigrants from the Third World will not help preserve the Irish ethny.

Anonymous said...

If the English were always so great, why the Revolution? Were we wrong?

Average Joe said...

The English language has triumphed, making it that much easier for the non-white English speakers to immigrate and displace them. Success. The language might outlive the people.

Good point. I remember reading an article a number of years ago about how some Irish people in Ireland were taking a new interest in learning to speak Gaelic - which is largely a dead language even in Ireland - because most of the foreigners migrating to Ireland could not speak it. I suspect that one of the reasons why the Israelis took so much effort to make Hebrew a living language in Israel was to make the country less attractive to non-Jewish immigrants.

paleolithic holdover said...

Brendan, you talk about English music being "significantly" (whatever that means) the work of "displaced Irishmen" (ditto), and simultaneously sing the praises of U2. Perhaps you should remind yourself of that band's biography.

Is the ancestry of the Irish really so crystal clear in comparison to that of the English? Of course you all have the conviction that you are "Celts" based on the fact that a Celtic language was once spoken throughout Ireland, but the fact that a Germanic language now being spoken throughout Ireland does not render you a Germanic people doesn't seem to impinge on this nebulous conception of Celticness.

What are the things that instantly spring to mind when one mentions traditional Irish culture? Perhaps you didn't have the time to list them. A large part of the "brand" that seems to enthuse you so much is exactly that and has been confected by Guinness plc over the past twenty years. It would be possible to come up with a far less flattering summary of traditional Irish culture, as you are doubtless aware.

The misdeeds of the British Empire were the misdeeds of the ruling elite of England, which has not been made up of Anglo-Saxons for nearly one thousand years. The ravages they (and the Scots) inflicted on Ireland were first inflicted on England, but you are either unaware of this, or are aware of it but don't wish to acknowledge it. The ordinary people of England do not have and never have had any grievance with Ireland nor a desire to conquer/otherwise injure it.

Hallie Scott Kline said...

Great post, B. O'Shaughnessy. I agree with every word.

Sorry to hear you lost your father, Steve. I enjoyed seeing the pictures you posted of this robust and handsome man, living his life to the fullest. 95 years aren't nearly enough. My condolences to you and your family.

TGGP said...

"the special relationship is special"

Mitt Romney believes in an America where all Americans believe in an America where all Americans believe in America.

Anonymous said...

Your ancestors were winners. Great. Does that make you a winner? No.

Anonymous said...

anonymous:""Sion" doesen't understand the difference between a "civilization" and a "group of geniuses who were born in the same country"."

Actually, dear boy, you are the one who fails to grasp the fundamental cultural affinities that link such Anglo thinkers as Darwin, Newton, Hume, Burke, Melville, Eliot, Welles, etc. Their thoughts and achievements are the result of their Anglo heritage.

Anonymous:"But then, this is the guy who likes to point out orthographical mistakes, a classic maneuver to appear smarter that actually only emphasizes that you are losing the argument."

MMM.I think that you have me mistaken for someone else.

Anonymous:"I am not here to teach the A*B = AB to Sion."

And I was so eager to learn!

Anonymous:"I honestly don't have the patience to explain to him basic lexicography and why a "group of geniuses" and a "civilization" are not analogous and synonymous terms. Go back to school, Sion!"

Oh dear! Such confusion! You really do fail to grasp the fact that Burke and Darwin, for example, are the products of the same civilization.Perhaps you should save up for a trip to Britain.

Syon

Anonymous said...

anonymous:"Your ancestors were winners. Great. Does that make you a winner? No."

It does make life a bit easier...

Bob said...

What's the benefit of identifying as Irish (or basically any other European ethnic group) as opposed to Anglo-Saxon on a personal level? To begin with, I do not need to be an apologist for the slave trade, the opium trade, the extermination of aboriginal populations on multiple continents and the perhaps thousands of other morally indefensible atrocities that the British empire has committed.

Sorry, but the Paddies were a substantial proportion of the emigrants to the new world and of the soldiers in the British Army. They therefore willingly participated in all those naughty things you mentioned.

It comes back to what I was saying; Irish culture is an ongoing, cohesive and coherent thing in a way that English and vanilla American culture isn't. And that goes beyond who won what battle several centuries ago.

Wrong again, the Paddys are as deracinated as the rest of us.

Oh, and is there anything worse than a Yank who plays up there Irish heritage, which consists of little more than going to Irish pubs and having a vague understanding of Northern Irish politics?

Anonymous said...

anonymous:"If the English were always so great, why the Revolution? Were we wrong?"

Completely wrong. The American Revolution was a complete disaster.Just imagine how much better world history would have turned out if the USA had stayed part of the British Empire: no WW1 (the Germans would never have dared to take on a British Empire that included the USA), no Bolshevik Revolution (since no WW1, natch), no WW2 (of course), etc.

Syon

Anonymous said...

anonymous:"Another ridiculous post...Why is it that every time I make a post here defending such and such group, you conseratives accuse me of belonging to that group?"

It might have something to do with your, shall we say, heated responses.

Anonymous;"I think I know why: it is because you conservatives only care about yourselves and the people who are like themselves, so you naturally assume that everyone else in the World is like that. The hallmark characteristic of conservatives is their unbelievable lack of EMPATHY and ALTRUISM. Here are some fun fats for you:"

Ah, bold caps, the sign of the Leftist "thinker" at work..

Syon

Anonymous said...

Brendan:"What's the benefit of identifying as Irish (or basically any other European ethnic group) as opposed to Anglo-Saxon on a personal level? To begin with, I do not need to be an apologist for the slave trade, the opium trade, the extermination of aboriginal populations on multiple continents and the perhaps thousands of other morally indefensible atrocities that the British empire has committed. I'm sorry, but chalking this up to sour grapes or being ashamed of being related to a winner is simply not sufficient."

MMM. Perhaps a quick refresher on European history is in order:

1. Belgium: cf King Leopold and the Congo.

2. Spain: Ahem...try looking up the conquest of the New World.

3. France: Try delving into French rule in North Africa, their slave-based island dominions in the Caribbean (Haiti, etc).

4. Russia: Look up the extermination of countless Siberian tribes in Imperial Russia's march eastward, the Ukraine Terror Famine, The Katyn Massacre, etc.

5. Ireland: You might also want to look into the role played by the Irish in Britain's overseas dominions.

All peoples are stained with blood, dear boy.

Syon

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:"All other European countries have as great or greater writers, artists and scientists."

Really?The Estonians have produced a physicist of Newton's stature?The Serbs have produced a poet equal to Shakespeare?History does play favorites, dear boy. It's a tough fact to accept, but the Italians, the Germans, the French, and the English are simply more important than the Finns, the Latvians, the Bulgarians, and the Romanians.


Anonymous:"Should we speak of an Italian, German, French and Russian civilizations as well?"

Some thinkers do while some thinkers do not. It all depends on whether one is a lumper or a splitter.

Anonymous:"A civilization is defined as a culture derived from a common source. All European societies, icluding the English, are derived from the aicient Hellenes."

MMM. Wouldn't going back to the ancient Greeks mean bringing in the Muslim Middle East? After all, they do like to talk up their role in preserving the Greek inheritance.


Anonymous:" The only thing typically English about England is English Common Law and the digusting custom of eating cow kidneys."

Well, that and the English language, Parliamentary democracy (something so impressive that countless nations have tried to adopt it), the British tradition of empiricism (both Bacons, Locke, Hume, etc), the science of economics (a wonderfully English-Scottish effort: Smith, Ricardo, Malthus,), etc.

anonymous:"Stop posting above your level of intelligence, Sion, because it shows. You focus on othography and keep correcting my spelling mistakes, which result from me typing too fast, because you have nothing intelligent to say."

Dear boy, you do keep on confusing me with someone else.

Syon

Anonymous said...

Anonymous;"Those are just a random group of Anglo people (and Hume was actually Scottish)."

Dear boy, we are talking about a civilization; the Scots are an integral part of Anglo culture, second only to the English (the Americans are a distant third or fourth-I'm not sure if they are ahead of the Irish).


Anonymous:"I don't see how they constitute any cohesive civilization."

Well, no one ever accused you of being a close observer.


Anonymous:" If you ask a French person about French civilization, they don't spit "Descartes, Pascal, Delacroix, Pasteur, Napoleon" at you. They talk about French culture and civilization."

And, presumably, at some point they bring up specific instances of French culture and civilization.After all, it is the individual components that make-up a civilization.

Syon

Anonymous said...

"I suspect that one of the reasons why the Israelis took so much effort to make Hebrew a living language in Israel was to make the country less attractive to non-Jewish immigrants"

Hebrew is the yiddish of the ancient middle-east

Anonymous said...

"Irish culture is an ongoing, cohesive and coherent thing in a way that English and vanilla American culture isn't."

Might have been true 30 years back. Vanishing rapidly. Catholic Church has been heavily hit by the child abuse scandals even as immigration and asylum levels are high and the Western youth/drug culture is widespread. Even a mini-City of London financial centre in Dublin thanks to low corporate tax levels. The place no longer feels THAT different to England.

In 2007 "more than one in seven people in Ireland was born outside the country"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7130698.stm

Lara said...

"I just don't think that you'd get the same purchase from bragging about your ancestor on the Mayflower"


You do if you are good looking.

Anonymous said...

"I remember the NYT arguing the same thing in 1993 as a reason to vote against Giuliani. Rudy and his party represented the past you see, a world where the minorities would now be calling the shots in Gotham. Oh, he won in 1993 and 1997 and Bloomberg running as a Republican and independent won in 2001, 2005, and 2009 and the neither the Democrats or black politicians have even sniffed Gracie Mansion since Dinkins left in 1993, but that is irrelevant, we will make you recalcitrant bigots see the future which will be happening real soon now."

The 1991 Crown Heights Riot killed the Democratic party and black ascendancy in NYC, Dinkins was the first and probably the last black mayor.

Moon Walk WASP said...

The most important takeaway from this thread is that the Industrial Revolution was a fluke of geography. Remember, kids.

Svigor said...

Another ridiculous post...Why is it that every time I make a post here defending such and such group, you conseratives accuse me of belonging to that group?

Douchebag, you're the one who won't pick a handle (and stick with it). Suffer.

Svigor said...

Real men don't capitalize 'white'. That's right out of the Jet magazine stylebook.

Real men use the dictionary.

Svigor said...

Yes, but that was 60 years ago. There were many openly racist citizens of the United States then too. But the percentage now is much smaller. Since then the Supreme Court nixed laws forbidding mixed race marriage, laws and customs segregating students by race, and the court also required affirmative action to try to overcome racism.
Our current racists would like to return to the Jim Crow era. Most of us refuse to return there and now most of us support equal rights for LGBT persons.


Segregation and Integration are two sides of the same coin. First the gov't unjustly interfered in the rights and affairs of men in the name of White Supremacy. Now the gov't unjustly interferes in the rights and affairs of men in the name of Equality. Same power-hungry vampires, different suits.

This current racist would like to see all free men put a foot in the vampires' asses for once, and send them and their excuses packing.

As for "equal rights," that's a load of horse shyte. You want special rights. You've had equal rights from time immemorial; they just don't suit you.

Simon in London said...

"no WW1 (the Germans would never have dared to take on a British Empire that included the USA)"

Not sure about that - Britain would still have been a sea empire not a land empire, would probably still have had a small army. and Germany did declare war on the USA in 1941, after all.

Also without US independence the population of North America in 1914 would likely have been much lower, due to reduced expansion (so less room to breed) - the Empire usually discouraged conquest of new territory - and reduced immigration. It would also have been less economically developed, to reduce industrial competition with mainland Britain's industry.

Anonymous said...

Brendan's post encapsulates Irish loserdom. Notice how Irish Pride always includes a litany of the Sins of Others. Look in the mirror, Paddy. See the deeply flawed humanity.

Winners, including Irish winners, don't marinate themselves in phony sainthood victimology.

Ethno identity obsessed losers don't give a damn about actual history. Their ideology is always a nasty brew of ignorance, selective memory and blame e.g. Patrick and Maureen, knowing not sin, were peacefully passing the time on their Emerald Isle, which they stole from no one, but then...

ATBOTL said...

This is an example of the anti-white left pushing the envelope. Even ten years ago, this remark would not have been criticized.

Anonymous said...

is there anything worse than a Yank who plays up there Irish heritage, which consists of little more than going to Irish pubs and having a vague understanding of Northern Irish politics?


I can think of an endless list of things which are much, much worse than that. If the worst thing in the world, or in America, is a Yank of Irish heritage going to an Irish bar, then we live in Paradise.

Svigor said...

"The Anglo-Saxons have turned out to be the biggest winners in history. Their language dominates the world in 2012. "

What a load of garbage. The achievements of Anglo-Saxons are miniscule compared to those of the ancient Hellenes and Romans, from which "Anglo" civilization emerged. Anglo-Saxons have created pretty much nothing of new in terms of arts, literature and political thinking.


Please do tell us what the Romans did in terms of arts, literature, and political thinking that they didn't crib from the Greeks. Roman achievement was roughly parallel to British achievement.

And if "newness" is all that matters, and copying is so easy, WTF is modern Greece's problem? Or the rest of the world's, for that matter?

Svigor said...

As for scientific and technological achievements, it is not fair to compare because practically everything that has been inented has been invented in the past 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution happened first in England by some fluke of history.

Hahaha, you little bitch. Like the Industrial Revolution fell from Zeus' eye, and had to fall somewhere. Don't hate, congraaaaatulate!

Anonymous said...

I find the Brit discomfort with Obama amusing. Those clowns spent the entire Bush the 2nd administration making jokes about the dumb Americans and their cowboy President, same thing they did when Reagan was in office. Well, now he's gone and you have this lightweight buffoon that likely couldn't find Britain on a map. You wanted change, you got it. So stop complaining.

Pat Hannagan said...

Steve you really are amazing. Charles Blow is a black writer for a Jewish-owned newspaper and yet you use this opportunity to bash the Irish even though it has absolutely nothing to do with them.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

This blog is a constant source of fascinating insight into the workings of the Judeo-American mind. I'm not sure that I'm any closer to understanding it, but one thing that does shine through is this constant need to raise oneself up, by dragging another down.

For every winner, there has to be a loser, and if you're noticing how much you're losing, even though your ancestors were "winners", and you're fearful of pointing out the real cause of that loss, then it seems the Sailer Judeo-Yanks will always have the Irish with which to compare themselves favourably.

It doesn't seem to actually help return one to the winning podium but I imagine it must sure be a hell of a psychic balm. Especially if your whole world revolves around winning, yet it's quite obvious that you're losing, if not having actually lost.

Sailer and his ilk will always have the Irish to compare themselves with. And praise be the Lord for that.

Anonymous said...

Without the American Revolution, the greratest land deal of all time, the Louisiana Purchase, would not have happened. Flyover country would have had to be fought for.

Pat Hannagan said...

Brendan's post encapsulates Irish loserdom.

Great. A post, on an article, written by a White hating black, for a Jewish publication, devolves into kicking into the Irish.

Brilliant.

Simon in London said...

Just watched the Olympics Opening Ceremony on BBC TV - the main impression was dozens and dozens of black actors and actresses in frock coats, cloth caps et al pretending to be 18th & 19th century industrialists, cricket players, factory workers etc. The boys' choir was about 40% white to 60% black.

This is how Danny Boyle and the BBC see Britain and want to present Britain to the British, but what must the rest of the world think of it?

NOTA said...

Harry:

That's a part of the problem, but only a part. Even when they're not spinning a story or missing something that fell into their large ideological blind spots, they are mostly not in the job of informing you. They want to keep your attention so they can sell your eyeballs to advertisers and PR companies and other folks whose job is to manipulate you in various ways.

That's why every 24 hour news channel spends a lot of time playing keep-away with you, putting 30 second teasers in for a story they're going to cover in 15 minutes, and then when they finally cover it, it's the same 2-minute summary they had last time. That's why the talk shows aren't informative--outrage and talking heads/shills screaming at each other is more effective at keeping eyeballs than, say, an hour long conversation with Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Taleb on the future of the Euro. That's why they load down everythign they do with distracting graphics and superfluous (and often misleading) bullet points and titles--it increases the cognitive complexity of the task of listening, and thus makes it feel like you're being informed when you're not.

It is not in the interests of CNN or Fox or MSNBC to have their viewers thinking too clearly or well about what they're hearing, lest they realize "Say, I'm listening to three journalists and a lawyer talk about a big oil spill. Why would any of these guys know anythign about it? Why don't they get a petroleum engineer, a marine biologist, and a geologist on so we can actually hear from people who know what they're talking about?"

Simon in London said...

Olympic Voice Announcer:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Please stand for the national anthem of the United Kingdom, performed by _The Chaos_...
...Signing Choir for Deaf and Hearing Children"

:\

They followed that with what appears to be the theme from The Exorcist!!

NOTA said...

This is becoming like that old Monty Python bit.

Well, yes, but other than parliamentary democracy, the common law, economics, calculus, the theory of evolution, steam engines, and the industrial revolution, what have the English ever done for us?

Matra said...

Finally (and perhaps most importantly) there are lots of girls who self identify as Irish or who at least like Irish bars, Irish beer, St. Patrick's Day, and Irish music. I just don't think that you'd get the same purchase from bragging about your ancestor on the Mayflower

That's because in America the WASPs have been the most dehumanised group whilst the Irish are (or at least were) members of the fashionable left wing victim category. Unfortunately for the Irish-Americans of the 21st century the clock is winding down on that prized status. Soon you'll be seen as just another beneficiary of "white privilege".

BTW that "Irish beer", if you're referring to stout, was developed by Anglo-Irishmen (Guinness and William Beamish) based on porter - an English beer!

Anonymous said...

" (In reality, we admire power and money, same as always.)"

Not me. My favorite blogger is neither rich (no cable!), nor powerful (no mainstream media exposure!), but I admire him more than almost all contemporary journalist. This middle class Irish Catholic has a weakness for martyrs and ascetics.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

anonymous:"Your ancestors were winners. Great. Does that make you a winner? No."

It does make life a bit easier...


The point which gets lost is, play the easy odds: historically, Anglo-Saxons with a sense of ethnic pride and purpose do a pretty damn good job of running a place. They do it so well that people from all over the planet will spend blood and treasure trying to get places where Anglo's are the market-dominant majority. This is why even David Brooks is starting to get worried.

Anonymous said...

"Secession? Don't you wish. No chance. We're going to be swamped."

American future = diversity aka balkanization taken to the point of collapse leading to an authoritarian state that tries to hold it together through force followed by its eventual break-up into a million pieces.

Such a waste.

.
"Meanwhile Samuel Goldman says there is no such thing as an Anglo-Saxon at all."

Yes, but he would say that wouldn't he.

.
"1945. No one wants to be Germanic anymore. That is to say, no one wants to be Evil anymore."

It wasn't just 1945 on its own though. It's only been effective because the even worse evil that was perpetrated from 1917 to 1932 in the Soviet Union has been suppressed.

At least, it's an even worse evil if you believe all the victims of state mass murder are of the same intrinsic worth?

.
"If the English were always so great, why the Revolution? Were we wrong?"

It was a civil war.

I think the right side won although in the current most likely future it doesn't look like it matters.

.
"The misdeeds of the British Empire were the misdeeds of the ruling elite of England, which has not been made up of Anglo-Saxons for nearly one thousand years."

Stop being a whiny little victim-bitch. If you claim the good parts of anglo history then carry the bad parts too. They go together. History is like that.

The Norman ruling class became anglo rapidly and are anglo apart from the surnames. They might be 80% sociopath but that's because the ruling class are always 80% sociopath apart from the last few decades when they've become 99% sociopath.

.
As mentioned already, Ireland today has something like 1 in 7 foreign born and the Irish are faced with immigration genocide the same as Americans and English.

Anonymous said...

Friday night, 2012-07-12, sitting here watching the opening night festivities on NBC [tape delay].

And the level of anti-White propaganda in this thing is simply shocking.

Wow - the elites in the UK must hate their [ostensible] fellow countrymen at least as much as our elites hate us here in the USA.

JI said...

"Hateful" doesn't begin to describe what I feel toward the author of that NYT article. He's a sorry sack of you-know-what who is simply rooting for the death of the USA. If he's a white man then he is praying his kids become second-class citizens to those who have no connection to the history of the US. What a fool.

Anonymous said...

Romney's names - all three of them - are pure Old English, something that is exceptionally rare in England, never mind the USA, and his ancestry is pretty heavily English and I am very pleasantly surprised that he has not taken this opportunity to throw it under the bus. For all Romney's faults, this has made me think well of him.


Yeah, Romney's okay, superficially. Too bad he's so horrible when it comes to substance.

Hans said...

Watching the Olympics opening ceremony- so far it looks like Britain is going the PC route- that is putting on their show with demonstrations of nonsense- guys riding bikes with wings, playing modern songs, crap like that instead of making a show about their profound achievements.

China didn't feel the need to hide their accomplishments (and even exaggerate a bit), nor did Greece, when they hosted it.

Maya said...

I've studied abroad, lived and worked abroad and traveled extensively since graduating from high school. While on foreign soil, I noticed that most of the other Americans would always act apologetic about their nationality, sheepishly referring to themselves as "stupid Americans" or trying to distance themselves from the US all together- "Well... I'm from America, but I'm actually Polish, Irish and Swedish... and a little bit Native American... that means Indian". Meanwhile, without being rude about it, I always proudly declared myself American, usually not even mentioning my country of origin since I didn't see it as relevant. My siblings act the same way when they happen to be abroad. This got me wondering if most people today who proudly admit to being American citizens are actually immigrants and first generation.

So don't worry, you Anglo-Americans who don't want their heritage, because we'll gladly take it off your hands. It's not that we are ashamed of our own cultural heritage (not at all, I keep mine in a drawer somewhere in case I need it for something or other), it's just that we like yours much, much better. All I'm saying is that if you leave it by the curb, don't expect it to be there, still yours, by the time you change your mind and return for it.

Anonymous said...

"In principle, what is the difference between highlighting the value of one's Irish ethnicity and one's Anglo-Saxon ethnicity?"

Anglo-Saxons aren't supposed to have an ethnic identity at all, let alone a positive one. In the age of diversity and multiculturalism, Anglo-Saxon peoples have lost their collective soul and have become the invisible race, a theme explored by Andrew Fraser in his book "The WASP Question".

From the publisher:

"The WASP Question" deals with the question of Anglo-Saxon life in the United States, Australia and everywhere across the world where they have settled. Having for the most part lost a sense of their own ethnic identity in a time of increasing globalism and international multiculturalism which values nearly every culture except their own, the ‘WASPs’ – White Anglo-Saxon Protestants – are alternatively mocked, attacked and ignored in their own lands. Professor Fraser addresses the many questions involved in the matter with impeccable erudition and proposes possible solutions for the future. Constitutional and legal history, evolutionary biology and Christian theology all come into play as Fraser tackles one of the most burning questions of our time. As an analysis of the problems, and possible way forward, faced by a European ethnic group, the book will be of interest to anyone concerned about the fate of not just the Anglo-Saxons, but any specific cultural and racial identity in the postmodern, multicultural age.

http://www.amazon.com/The-WASP-Question-Andrew-Fraser/dp/1907166297

NOTA said...

Svigor:

It all depends on what rights you think are special vs basic rights. The people pushing for applying antidiscrimination laws to gays overwhelmingly classify the "right" to have legal protection from private discrimination in employment and housing as basic rights--they think everyone likely to be discriminated against ought to have those rights. Note that reverse discrimination lawsuits do go through the courts and sometimes are successful.

If you don't accept that premise, then these look like special rights. A more or less libertarian take on the world says that who you hire is none of the state's business, anymore than who you date or who you go to church with. (Marriages, friendships, church, informal activities--all are quite segregated in all kinds of ways.). In that worldview, saying "I want protection from discrimination for being gay" sounds like "I want special legal protections normal people don''t have."

Formal and informal discrimination against blacks was ugly and nasty in many ways. I understand why people were willing to get the state involved trying to break that up. But it should probably never have extended past blacks, who were a pretty special case, and it probably should have been done with a sunset clause. If all antidiscrimination law went away as of, say, 2015, I don't know if the world would be a better or worse place, but it is absolutely clear that Jim Crow and restrictions on women entering the workplace wouldn't come back.

The problem is, this kind of law is a pretty classic special interest law--a smallish defined group gets the benefit, while the cost (more expensive formalized hiriing and promotion systems in big companies, spurious discrimination lawsuits, places where integration makes organizations work worse) lands on the whole society in a diffuse way. So once those laws are put in place, they have an interest group that will fight to keep them in place, regardless of whether they make any sense.

Anonymous said...

Simon in London:"Not sure about that - Britain would still have been a sea empire not a land empire, would probably still have had a small army. and Germany did declare war on the USA in 1941, after all."

German war plans in World War 1 assumed victory before American troops arrived in substantial numbers; it is hard to imagine the Germans going to war knowing that the USA would would be involved from the very beginning. As for Hitler's irrational decision to declare war on the USA in 1941, without WW1, there would have been no WW2. No WW1, no Hitler.

"Also without US independence the population of North America in 1914 would likely have been much lower, due to reduced expansion (so less room to breed) - the Empire usually discouraged conquest of new territory - and reduced immigration."

The British Empire actually seemed rather keen on territorial expansion: Australia, New Zealand, the takeover of the Boer republics, etc.As for reduced immigration, that is debatable.For example, colonial America witnessed substantial immigration from Germany.

"It would also have been less economically developed, to reduce industrial competition with mainland Britain's industry."

Again, that assumes that North America would have been strong-armed by London from 1776 on. A colonial policy that would have kept North America in the Empire would have been much more solicitous of North America's economic development.

Syon

Anonymous said...

Svigor:"Segregation and Integration are two sides of the same coin. First the gov't unjustly interfered in the rights and affairs of men in the name of White Supremacy. Now the gov't unjustly interferes in the rights and affairs of men in the name of Equality. Same power-hungry vampires, different suits."

Excellent point; the right choice would have been to remove government interference in the economic sphere. Let companies hire the people that they want to hire; let businesses refuse service based on whatever criteria they choose.

B322 said...

It seems like each major type of White on White (or white on White, in one case) infighting is represented on this thread.

I wish that Irish people and Anglo-Saxon were aware of of the interbreeding that has mixed their bloodlines. In fact, I wish they believed it even if it weren't true. "Irish" and "Scottish" were once interchangeable; it's just that when the Irish / Scottish who finally wrested north Britain away from the Picts finally got settled, someone felt they needed a word to distinguish the Caledonian branch from the Hibernian branch.

And you'd think someone would be aware that the English and Scottish are pretty closely related. (I am.)

If I tried to teach Americans that the Scottish word for church (kirk) were "Gaelic in origin", don't you think most of them would believe me?

And wouldn't that be sad? It's enough to make you despair, or perhaps to sin. I forgot which one is which.

The reason Highlanders replaced Scotsmen as America's favorite "type of Briton" is of course ... Christopher Lamb Bear ... The Little Frenchman With A Katana. Americans whose ancestors came from the British Isles mark Irish, Scottish, or American. A few mark Welsh. Very few of them seem to be descended from the little non-province in the UK's lower-righthand part. (I think it's called South Central Britain. Sounds tough, no?)

Yet ... we're all the same, deep down, right? The Englishman is worlds apart from the Scotsman. Just ask Sean Connery, who could never be mistaken for (or cast as) an English (secret agent). On the other hand, the Englishman isn't so different from the Nigerian (except of course that Gregory Cochran has proven that the red wolf is more closely related to the chihuahua than the Englishman is to the Nigerian).

I have no problem with lumpers.
I have no problem with splitters.
I have a problem with people who preferentially lump what should be split, and people who preferentially split what should be lumped. I.e., I have a problem with modern people.

Still, I consider wWhites my bBrothers. I'll hoist an O'Douls high for all of you, and say "Si þin nama gehalgod" and gaze boldly into our future.

Anonymous said...

If the English were always so great, why the Revolution? Were we wrong?

The revolution was the extension of Whiggery minus ancestral loyalty to (or tolerance of) royalism. That is, all the arguments of the Whig Party and their antecedents (even going back to the Magna Carta) when extrapolated out to their radical "conclusion", lead to capitalism, the end of monarchy, the end of aristocracy, etc.

They used to pay the crown to rule the country. Then they decided that was unfair, and decided to pay the crown to do nothing. (This is a terrible way to sum up British history, and I apologize for it, but the point is--be aware of the persistence of this summary.)

One of the interesting things about Britain is the difficulty in pinning down exactly when slavery, serfdom, etc. were abolished. Most countries have a definite year, partly because the abolitions were created by some simple proclamation by a single power figure. In Britain it seems like abolishing serfdom is more like the direction a glacier is heading.

That nasty old hotbed of inequality, the House of Lords, is populated by Peers. Equals. They demanded to be called that so the King wouldn't think he was above them. Nasty old King, thinking he's king or something.

It's easy (and, ultimately, a bad idea) to just say that British history is just one big narrative in which the good guys, of any given chapter, always fight for equality and win. (And they're the bad guys in the next chapter, alas. You wear out your welcome just by running things.)

To answer your question more directly:

Early America copied a lot of British political institutions, but only those institutions associated with commoner took root here. North Carolina had noblemen titles for a little while (look up "Cassique"--it's a wonderful word), but beyond that, we were a big old nation of commoners. Rich ones, smart ones, educated ones. Even well-bred ones! This allowed English Americans to mix with Dutch Americans, Portuguese Americans, etc. as equals, but it didn't actually allow English Americans to view English English as equals. It made the latter seem like oppressors.

America was, in racial, religious, and institutional terms, a pretty good copy of the mother country. We had a Catholic minority, a few Jews, a host of Protestants somewhat more diverse than Britain's. We were Celto-Germanic with some Iberian, Italian, etc. We loved courts and assemblies.

But in terms of social classes, we were different from Britain, especially in terms of timing. Our upper classes one their position partly through business, but also partly through military conquest of Amerindian lands. Britain's inherited theirs from military conquerors dating back to 1066. The analogous period in American history is approximately 1620 to 1890. 1776 is smack in the middle of that.

Our combination of self-made men and inheritors of status conceived of themselves as self-made men. Britain's inheritors of status conceived of themselves as inheritors of status, while her self-made men (logically) did not. Moldbug makes that case that Whigs simply let us go, simple as that.

Svigor said...

The most important takeaway from this thread is that the Industrial Revolution was a fluke of geography. Remember, kids.

Right. But everything the ancient Greeks did was down to Greeks being the Chosen People of God. Having some of the best geography in the world and being a stone's throw from the start of civilization didn't factor into it.

Brendan Eóin O'Shaughnessy said...

Bob:"Oh, and is there anything worse than a Yank who plays up there Irish heritage, which consists of little more than going to Irish pubs and having a vague understanding of Northern Irish politics?"

Well, there's a distinction between Irish culture and Irish-American culture. Sure, the latter is watered down to a greater or lesser extent, but it is still distinct from the rest of American culture. What you're saying is something that some Irish people bitch and moan about all the time. But it doesn't really matter because the distinction is something that is useful to Irish-Americans regardless of what people in Ireland think about it.



VA:"The idea that the Irish have a purer pedigree than the Anglo "mutts''goes against actual history. Ireland, too, was settled by waves of different immigrants. Fomorians, Tuatha De Danaan, Danes, Vikings, the 'Celts', Anglo-Normans etc."

I think that you forgot to mention the Milesians. And, yeah, what you are saying is true to a degree, but most of these incursions occurred in Ireland's very distant past. Further, these invaders had a tendency to go native (the Normans who became more Irish than the Irish rather than transforming the language and culture as they did in England). Also, you don't see articles in the Irish Times about how the Danaans exterminated the Firbolgs, and 90% of Irish men of having the Danaan Y chromosome, and then the complete opposite a few months later. What I find somewhat strange is how some English people seem annoyed that the Saxons might not have actually exterminated the native population.



PH:Responding to your post would require a book, but I will make 3 quick points:
1)I don't think the fact that the English outlawed the Irish language and then let the majority of the remaining speakers either starve or emigrate through an act of either criminal negligence or complete incompetence is really a point in their favor in your comparison. Further, while the Irish language is in a pretty grim state, it isn't a dead language by any means. If we can talk about purity in terms of language, Irish has very little influence from any of its neighboring language groups.

2)Examples of traditional Irish culture? The bards, the filí, the harpers. You can hear them in modern bands like the Chieftans. And is there any nation that is more poetry crazed than the Irish? The Irish language, which has about as much in common with English as Persian. The Irish-Catholic church. The Irish sagas and folk tales. People still make movies and comic books based on this stuff. Irish crystal and those amazing wool sweaters.
Somthing similar to a lot of this stuff probably existed at some point in Anglo-Saxon culture, but I think it is much further removed from modern English people than modern Irish people. I hope that is at least a start.

3)My primary interest actually isn't in trading grudges. While I occasionally have to set some facts straight, I would still personally call myself an Anglophile.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2KjCViFbRI

London Olympics opening ceremony.

Fibber McGee said...

I knew I'd heard that "all English musicians are displaced Irishmen" BS before. Here it is, from the comments on Steve's post about 1980s rock music from last August:

"English music is like English boxing in the way that a lot of its stars are actually displaced Irishmen. Off the top of my head, I can think of Lennon and McCartney, Johnny Rotten, Elvis Costello, Shane McGowan, Billy Idol (first mention on an 80's music discussion?)and Gilbert O'Sullivan. Jimmy Page's full name is James Patrick Page which is also somewhat suspicious."

Hmm. Pretty weak tea. There is nothing Irish about Billy Idol. John Lydon has an almost aggressively English identity (and his contribution to English music amounts to what? One decent album and a lot of clever marketing. John Lennon was 1/4 Irish at the most (that quarter having already been living in England for two generations), and half of his nature and most of his nurture came from the abominably Anglo-Saxon sounding Smith and Stanley families (he was also an Anglican, and we all know that Oirish emigres lose their Roman Catholicism but reluctantly). McCartney's most recent Irish-born ancestor on his father's side appears to have been a great-great-grandfather. His mother was relatively FOTB by comparison. Jimmy Page - Irishy-sounding name on his mother's side but again who knows just how far back you have to go to find an actual Irish ancestor... English by birth, name, paternity, upbringing, residence, accent. I wonder how what his answer would be if asked whether he was a "displaced Irishman".

Gilbert O'Sullivan's and Shane McGowan's contributions to English music are trivial and they barely exist in the public consciousness any more.

Anyway, sure some English people have some Irish ancestry (as some Irish people have some English ancestry). But to describe those people as "displaced Irishmen" is melodramatic in the extreme. If that label has any legitimacy then presumably by the same token the simple presence of at least one English parent or grandparent would be enough to justify calling him a (non-displaced) Englishman and saying no more of it (before nurture and acculturation are even considered).

Brendan Eóin O'Shaughnessy said...

Anonymous:"In 2007 "more than one in seven people in Ireland was born outside the country" "

Mostly EU immigrants from eastern Europe. They will become Irish because it is more fun to be Irish than it is to be Polish.



Bob:"Sorry, but the Paddies were a substantial proportion of the emigrants to the new world and of the soldiers in the British Army. They therefore willingly participated in all those naughty things you mentioned."

Look, no one blames Korea for what Koreans soldiers in the Japanese army did during WW2. It just doesn't work that way. What you're trying to say is that some poor schmuck from Mayo who tramped around the British Empire or American west with a rifle on his back is just as culpable as the English and Anglo-American elites who shipped him out. That somehow that makes the Irish people and nation culpable for whatever the English did. And it doesn't work. If you actually want to be an apologist for any of the events that I mentioned and call them "naughty things" and so on that's fine. I don't. I personally consider them indefensible and resent being associated with events that had nothing to do with my own ancestors.


Syon:"5. Ireland: You might also want to look into the role played by the Irish in Britain's overseas dominions.

All peoples are stained with blood, dear boy."

ha, Ireland is a pretty good way down your list, isn't it? Couldn't you even come up with a specific name or event?



Anonymous: "Brendan's post encapsulates Irish loserdom. Notice how Irish Pride always includes a litany of the Sins of Others. Look in the mirror, Paddy. See the deeply flawed humanity."

Well, the point of the original post was that people don't identify with their English ancestry because they don't want to be associated with winners.
It's funny that Sailer and this guy consider identifying as Irish as a mark of "loserdom." That can't be made to bear out in reality. Sure, the Irish lost but that doesn't make them losers. They fought against a numerically superior foe for generation after generation for centuries until, in point of fact, they won.

Anonymous said...

Only 8.7% of English ancestry?

That, right on the face of it, is obviously and hopelessly incorrect.

A bit like that survey where people thought that 25% of the population were gay.

Anonymous said...

Simon in London said - Vile, disgusting hate speech from racist Charles Blow.

Indeed, the venom was almost visibly dripping.

Anonymous said...

SFG: "What you say is true, but winning wars with Napoleon and exterminating the indigenes so they could spread across a continent didn't hurt either."

Which indigenes were exterminated?

Native Americans: Not exterminated. Check!

Native Australian: Not exterminated. Check!

Im not sure the Brits colonised any other continents. Not counting India because that was a matter of control, not colonisation.

Anonymous said...

The mythical connection to England, mostly promoted by a small WASP elite, led the US to take the wrong side in World War I, leading to a host of modern calamities.

Mythical?

All of your comment sounds like the official scots-irish narrative to me. You probably believe that 8.7% number too.

Anonymous said...

Actually, what I see happening is that the various ethnic factions will self segregate - that is, if the government doesn't take a nasty authoritarian turn and become like the old USSR, with requirements that one have an internal passport and government permission to live in a particular place.

Presuming there is still freedom of movement, you can expect whites to move away from the southwest as it becomes more Mexicanized, and away from places like south Florida, the black majority cities of the deep south, and whatnot.


Only if whites get tough.

IF smaller liberal white enclaves are established they will be swamped all over again.

Anonymous said...

Brendan, you talk about English music being "significantly" (whatever that means) the work of "displaced Irishmen" (ditto), and simultaneously sing the praises of U2. Perhaps you should remind yourself of that band's biography.

U2 by birth, ancestry = 25% Irish, 25% Welsh, 50% English.

Anonymous said...

People don't speak English in India because of the wonders of the British parliamentary system.

Mostly they dont speak English at all.

Anonymous said...

I'm Irish- love Steve, think he was accurate about Ireland being a mediocre country.. As we joke in my family- it's an island that had a famine bc potatoes didn't grow? Pick up a f#cking fishing rod.

The English did a hell of a lot more good than harm and we have them to thank for our cushy lifestyle.

That said, still love the niche culture we have in the US, and it's easier to enjoy if you don't feel you have to defend every imagined slight.

Slainte, or whatever it is us Micks say....

Dan in DC

Anonymous said...

http://blogs.suntimes.com/foreignc/2012/06/unspeakable-act.html

Will we hear about incestosexuals, incestophobia, incest marriage--aka 'same family marriage'--, and etc. soon?

Anonymous said...

It's funny that Sailer and this guy consider identifying as Irish as a mark of "loserdom." That can't be made to bear out in reality. Sure, the Irish lost but that doesn't make them losers. They fought against a numerically superior foe for generation after generation for centuries until, in point of fact, they won.

That sounds so much like the Armenians. Does that make them "losers" too?

Anonymous said...

Pat H - this English guy would like to distance himself from any actual/perceived anti-Irish sentiments here.

For me, now I have woken up, the real divide is white vs non-white.

Londoner said...

Simon in London: "Just watched the Olympics Opening Ceremony on BBC TV - the main impression was dozens and dozens of black actors and actresses in frock coats, cloth caps et al pretending to be 18th & 19th century industrialists, cricket players, factory workers etc. The boys' choir was about 40% white to 60% black.

This is how Danny Boyle and the BBC see Britain and want to present Britain to the British, but what must the rest of the world think of it?"

The frustrating thing is that the pastoral "Jerusalem" section, and the forging of the Olympic rings in the industrial revolution section, were moving and magnificent, respectively. There was a lot in the ceremony that was good.

But of course it was only ever going to be a massive exercise in multicultural propaganda. The idea seemed to be to give the world the impression that Britain's population is ~50% African. Blacks front and centre, at all times and in all contexts - the more ahistorical and anachronistic the better.

Conservative MP Aidan Burley dared to say what most of us were thinking. I wonder if his career will survive.

Anonymous said...

Brendan Eóin O'Shaughnessy said: "Mostly EU immigrants from eastern Europe. They will become Irish because it is more fun to be Irish than it is to be Polish."

I dunno. All the Poles I know seem capable of having a good time already. They also seem very proud of their Polishness.

In any case, I suspect changing economic circumstances may lure many Poles back home - the Irish economy is in a downward spiral, while the Polish economy is going from strength to strength.

Anonymous said...

As an Irish American who has been reading Steve since the 90s,if he is Anti -Irish, I haven't noticed. Does he discuss the English often, of course, but let's face it England has a much bigger body of work. Just look under his labels entry for Ireland and the related columns - not exactly hostile letters.

I think that the reason that politicians can get all warm and fuzzy about being Irish is that the general population sees it for what it is, harmless. I don't think anyone seriously believes that a quaint Irish relationship will lead America into a war which may or may not be in its interest. If a Jew does ever run for the US presidency, he/she will be very careful how cozy he/she appears to be with Israel, because the entire country knows that place is always steering us into questionable policies.

History proves that Presidents can be coerced by London and Tel Aviv, the same can't be said for Dublin.

A little anecdote about how deep that Irish influence really runs: When the pressure was on to have (the great) Joe Sobran fired from National Review, Joe told Buckley that the little old Irish Catholic ladies were praying for him; Buckley replied,"they can't help you."

Anonymous said...

I'd like to add that when Steve argues for the preservation of NYC police and fire department exams, on whose behalf is he arguing? I'm asking my Irish kin not to be ungrateful.

Anonymous said...

British columnist Ed West asks: what's wrong with America having Anglo-Saxon heritage?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100172809/whats-wrong-with-america-having-anglo-saxon-heritage/

West:

America’s vast contradictions and hypocrisies concerning race still rest on the idea that some groups are supposed to be post-racial, while others are encouraged to celebrate their identity, and to fight for the interests of their group. For example, lots of self-appointed Hispanic leaders want America to be more Hispanic, to have more of their countrymen. No one in the media accuses them of racism or chauvinism, and instead presents people wishing to maintain the status quo as hatemongers. Yet why is it necessarily more wrong for Anglo-Americans to want the country to be more full of people like them? Some people advancing the interests of their group are racists; some people advancing the interests of their group are anti-racists.

And why is it acceptable for every ethnicity in America to take pride in its roots, apart from the ethnic group that founded the 13 colonies, bequeathed it their language and laws, and established the political philosophy and liberal institutions?

Anonymous said...

Brendan:"ha, Ireland is a pretty good way down your list, isn't it? Couldn't you even come up with a specific name or event?"

MMM, I don't recall ranking anyone in that list by any kind of order of precedence.

As for specific events, the Irish butchering Blacks in the Civil War Draft riots springs to mind...one might also add the way that the Irish excluded Blacks from jobs in the USA while simultaneously fabricating stories of discrimination (cf the mythical No Irish Need Apply Sign).

Syon

Anonymous said...

Brendan:"Look, no one blames Korea for what Koreans soldiers in the Japanese army did during WW2. It just doesn't work that way. What you're trying to say is that some poor schmuck from Mayo who tramped around the British Empire or American west with a rifle on his back is just as culpable as the English and Anglo-American elites who shipped him out. That somehow that makes the Irish people and nation culpable for whatever the English did. And it doesn't work. If you actually want to be an apologist for any of the events that I mentioned and call them "naughty things" and so on that's fine. I don't. I personally consider them indefensible and resent being associated with events that had nothing to do with my own ancestors."

Ah, the good old "they were just following orders" line of defense....a particular favorite of the guilty.If the Irish do have a besetting national flaw, it is surely hypocrisy.

Syon

B322 said...

Gregory Cochran has corrected me on what I asserted above. He had nothing to do with the assertion about red wolves and chihuahuas. That was my interpretation of something James Serpell wrote.

Mea culpa; this was lazy fact-checking on my part.

Anonymous said...

anonymous:"History proves that Presidents can be coerced by London and Tel Aviv, the same can't be said for Dublin."

MMM... looking back at the 19th century USA (Fenian raids on Canada launched from the USA, Anglophobic Irish political bosses in the big cities), one can certainly say that the Irish tried pretty hard to foment war between America and Britain.

Syon

Anonymous said...

What you're trying to say is that some poor schmuck from Mayo who tramped around the British Empire or American west with a rifle on his back is just as culpable as the English and Anglo-American elites who shipped him out.

Koreans were conscripted into the Japanese military.

The British only began conscription in WW1 but, expediently, it was never applied in Ireland.

I dont doubt that all sorts of unpleasant realities caused Irish men (mnd other Brits) to join the imperial armies but they were, nevertheless, volunteers.

Part of the problem with Britain and Ireland is that its not just an ethnic conflict, its a religious one.

After all Irish Catholics who joined the Church of Ireland or became Protestant seemed to be to be regarded as sell outs but their selling out worked, restrictions on them as Catholics lifted and that was largely it. Seems to me their harsh treatment by the Brits was more about religion than ethnicity.

Anonymous said...

In any case, I suspect changing economic circumstances may lure many Poles back home - the Irish economy is in a downward spiral, while the Polish economy is going from strength to strength.

Already happened in the UK. New Poles are still showing up but their net numbers seem to have declined. There was a shift in exchange rates - while they still earn more in real terms in the UK than at home the difference isnt as great.

Pretty straightforward, at some point the tradeoff between separation from home, family, friends etc starts not be worth it.

A lot seem to be settling in for the long haul though, having babies or children now in school, Im not sure they want to go back.

I cant explain it but the Brits and Poles just seem to get on quite well. There is some friction regarding certain jobs - builders, plumbers, carpenters etc but that doesnt seem to be causing major stresses.

Anonymous said...

"MMM... looking back at the 19th century USA (Fenian raids on Canada launched from the USA, Anglophobic Irish political bosses in the big cities), one can certainly say that the Irish tried pretty hard to foment war between America and Britain."

Cool, I'm glad to see, at one time, we were pretty cunning. I doubt many Presidential candidates were exaggerating their Irish roots while that stuff was going on. Didn't it really start with Kennedy and then kind of became a trend after that?

Brendan Eóin O'Shaughnessy said...

Syon:"As for specific events, the Irish butchering Blacks in the Civil War Draft riots springs to mind...one might also add the way that the Irish excluded Blacks from jobs in the USA while simultaneously fabricating stories of discrimination (cf the mythical No Irish Need Apply Sign). "

Well, those are at least examples, but they are bad examples. (And you must realize that I could write you a book
in response?) You are comparing the actions of a mob of various ethnicities and some nebulous group of Irish businessmen to the actions of a nation's legitimate government. If we start talking about the respective scale of those actions, it becomes completely ridiculous. Do you really want to compare the actions of a mob (as brutal as they were) to an international slave trade or the Boer concentration camps?

"Ah, the good old "they were just following orders" line of defense....a particular favorite of the guilty.If the Irish do have a besetting national flaw, it is surely hypocrisy."

No, that isn't even addressing the point. If some theoretical Irishman committed a war crime while serving the British Army, that is on him. I take no issue with that. What you want to do is somehow extend that guilt to the Irish nation and that doesn't work.

Anon:"Koreans were conscripted into the Japanese military.

The British only began conscription in WW1 but, expediently, it was never applied in Ireland."

They actually gave it their best shot. Some Koreans did in fact enlist, but my main point is that Korea isn't responsible as a nation for individual Koreans who committed war crimes in the Japanese army, regardless of whether they were conscripted or enlisted freely. Finally, it's worth mentioning that recruitment officers had a very black reputation in throughout the British isles. By way example, this 1840's era
Irish song, Arthur McBride , which had variations in England and Scotland as well.

Brendan Eóin O'Shaughnessy said...

FM: "Hmm. Pretty weak tea. There is nothing Irish about Billy Idol. John Lydon has an almost aggressively English identity (and his contribution to English music amounts to what? One decent album and a lot of clever marketing. John Lennon was 1/4 Irish at the most (that quarter having already been living in England for two generations), and half of his nature and most of his nurture came from the abominably Anglo-Saxon sounding Smith and Stanley families (he was also an Anglican, and we all know that Oirish emigres lose their Roman Catholicism but reluctantly). McCartney's most recent Irish-born ancestor on his father's side appears to have been a great-great-grandfather. His mother was relatively FOTB by comparison. Jimmy Page - Irishy-sounding name on his mother's side but again who knows just how far back you have to go to find an actual Irish ancestor... English by birth, name, paternity, upbringing, residence, accent. I wonder how what his answer would be if asked whether he was a "displaced Irishman". "

I think you're taking this a lot more seriously than I do. But I'm actually legitimately pleased that someone remembered something that I wrote half a year or so ago well enough to hurl it back in my face. Here's your list back at you:

Billy Idol's mother was from Cork.

John Lydon is generally credited for launching the punk rock thing in England. Early PIL was okay; they were better than the Sex Pistols.

Yoko says that John considered himself Irish.

So, yeah, McCartney is pretty Irish.

Page looks Irish and called himself "celtic" in an interview, but who knows.

"Anyway, sure some English people have some Irish ancestry (as some Irish people have some English ancestry). But to describe those people as "displaced Irishmen" is melodramatic in the extreme. If that label has any legitimacy then presumably by the same token the simple presence of at least one English parent or grandparent would be enough to justify calling him a (non-displaced) Englishman and saying no more of it (before nurture and acculturation are even considered)."

Well, that may be so. However, when it comes to the Jewish diaspora, people with much less Jewish ancestry than the Irish ancestry of those on the list above are recognized as Jews. I don't see why this shouldn't apply to the Irish diaspora as well, if a given person self identifies as Irish.


"U2 by birth, ancestry = 25% Irish, 25% Welsh, 50% English."

Wikipedia has Bono (1/2 Catholic and 1/2 Irish Anglican) and Mullin as being of Irish ancestry and upbringing.
And let's be honest, the band would not be all that much without its frontman.
But, look, I might not be as big of a fan as you, so it's possible that you know something that I don't. However, it seems to me that the band's sympathies and inclinations are overwhelmingly Irish.

Simon in London said...

anon:
"After all Irish Catholics who joined the Church of Ireland or became Protestant seemed to be to be regarded as sell outs but their selling out worked, restrictions on them as Catholics lifted and that was largely it. Seems to me their harsh treatment by the Brits was more about religion than ethnicity."

Yeah, it must have worked for my McBride Irish ancestors on my grandfather's side - they must have converted from Catholicism at some point. BTW I have just now googled Carey, my grandmother's name, and discovered that it is not a planter name, but indigenous Irish also - http://www.careygenealogyhub.com/history.php - so I'm twice as Irish as I thought!

Brendan Eóin O'Shaughnessy said...

Steve, I'm late, but I did want to give condolences. There was no disrespect in any of the critical posts above.