From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Tue Aug 21 2001 - 15:21:07 MDT
On Mon, Aug 20, 2001 at 12:34:43PM -0400, Mitchell, Jerry (3337) wrote:
> more then anyone else on the planet (don't even try the slave point, other
> countries had FAR more then we did)? I put forth freedom. Yes, it wasn't
Really? Name those countries. I might give you Brazil. And Russian serfdom
wouldn't have been pleasant -- but not comparable to American slavery, either,
which was one of the more vicious forms in history.
> that was minimal. I recently heard a quote im going to adapt. "Only an
> intellectual could evade the fact that countries with more freedom tend to
> be wealthier and more peaceful".
Yeah. But don't overlook America's geographical blessings. A huge resource
rich land, occupied only by hunter-gatherers, and not many of those when
smallpox was done with them, whom we were willing to kick around. And then we
managed to occupy most of it, effectively gaining the defense advantages of
being an island (Canada being too small to be a threat, and Mexico being too
backward (except in things such as abolishing slavery -- remember why Texans
wanted to secede from Mexico! so they could have slaves) without the normal
economic disadvantages of being an island (being too small.)
-xx- Damien X-)
"America has invested her religion as well as her morality in sound
income-paying securities. She has adopted the unassailable position of a
nation blessed because it deserves to be blessed; and her sons, whatever other
theologies they may affect or disregard, subscribe unreservedly to this
national creed."
-- Agnes Repplier, _Times and Tendencies_
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