The Anglosphere rules

We live in an age in which few important conflicts can be described accurately and economically, which is to say, bluntly. Race and religion are obvious examples of domains in which condescension-masquerading-as-sensitivity must be employed.

So too, the realities of world power. Ask any journalist, almost anywhere, and she will tell you that the world is a lamentably “unipolar” power construct, with hyperpower America lording it over the rest of the world’s nations, all of them consigned to second-class (or worse) membership in the community of man. Such an arrangement is deemed unnatural, exploitative, unduly hierarchical, and inherently unstable. By our allies. Our enemies use far harsher terminology.

The world’s future lies in the hands of a surprisingly open coalition of countries, regions, cities, and individuals, all of whom are members of the Anglosphere. Anyone, potentially, can join.

The Anglosphere is a state of mind, a set of market-centered economic institutions, a philosophical understanding of the role and danger of government power, and a vast, dynamic, and almost universal popular culture, beloved of ordinary people and abhorred by elites.

More than anything else, the Anglosphere is a set of rules, a paradigm of state and society, which creates freedom for dreamers and strivers to imagine and create the future. It provides property rights and courts, so that innovators can have a reasonable assurance of reaping the benefits of their genius and hard work. It affirms human dignity and certain inalienable rights, although the application of these is often problematic in practice.

"not it's skin color"

Anglo is not a term for skin color (despite what they want you to believe in El Paso)

Anglo is a term for an ethnic group that originates in an area of the world called England.

My city wasn't even founded by the English, they took it in 1763 as part of the French surrender. The South is primarily a Celtic-Latin society (when I say Latin, I mean in terms of the Mediterranean countries like Italy, France, etc)

Also, not every part of the English intellectual heritage is a good thing, for example, the reason our country is so screwed up today is because of common law and stare decisis. There is one state in this country, which for all it's faults, takes the right approach to their law code.

Also, in general, I had always thought that England always had a sort of condescension for "popular culture". I've always had the image of the English as pretensious snobs, because that is usually how they are portrayed.

The Tidewater South, from the Potomac River southward to the St. Mary's River, which is the genesis of the Southern low country through East Texas, was primarily settled by English settlers from the north and west of England. Despite the strong French presence in south Louisiana and parts of the Gulf Coast and the German and other Central European influence in central Texas, including the Hill Country, the predominant origins of the settlers in most of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi were from the Tidewater areas of Virginia and the Carolinas. These three Deep South states were the principal source of the settlers of north Louisiana, as well as East and Central Texas, excluding the Central European and Hispanic areas.

The Upland South, from the Shenandoah Valley westward to Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, was largely settled by the Scots-Irish, who were partially Celtic by ancestry. However, the Scots-Irish predominantly derived from the Scottish Lowlands and northern England, where the Celtic languages had been dead for centuries prior to the Protestant plantation of Ulster. They were culturally different from the Gaelic speaking Scottish Highlanders and the Old Irish and, being Presbyterians for the most part, religiously different from the Old Irish, who were predominantly Catholic. (There was a minority of Old Irish among the waves of Scots-Irish settlers. They converted to one or another Protestant denominations after arriving in America. Thus, names like Kelly, Murphy, and Bryan are frequent in the Upland South.)

Further, the Scots-Irish, when arrived in America, were not reluctant to intermarry with other groups. The initial Scots-Irish heartland of the Shenandoah Valley received English settlers from the Tidewater, German settlers from Pennsylvania, and even Dutch settlers from New York and New Jersey. White indentured servants, often Scottish or Irish, fled to the backcountry to escape servitude nearly as harsh as that experienced by blacks. Intermarriage with the Indians was not uncommon either, especially in places like western North Carolina and Oklahoma.

The South is neither "Anglo-Saxon" in the sense that New England once was, nor Celtic-Latin. While French and Spanish settlement was important in south Louisiana and other Gulf areas, Huguenot influence was significant in the South Carolina low country, and there were pockets of Italians in places like New Orleans and northwest Arkansas, the Latin influence is not predominant overall. If any term would describe the principal ethnicity of white Southerners, it would be Anglo-Celtic.

The key to understanding Southern, and American, culture is to understand that there were four major nodes of settlement in what became the United States: New England and its progeny westward through most of New York and the Great Lakes region to the Pacific Northwest; the Delaware Valley, the origin of the culture of Pennsylvania and much of the Midwest; the Tidewater, or Lower, South, and the Upland or Upper South, which influenced not only the Upper South, but also the Border States of Missouri, West Virginia, and Kentucky, Texas, Oklahoma, the southernmost parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and much of the Intermountain West. Each region had a different British regional and religious origin. New England is predominantly a product of Puritan East Anglia. The Delaware Valley was largely settled by Quakers and dissenters from the west of England and Wales. The Lower South derived from Anglicans with origins in northern England and the Midlands. The Upper South is the product of Presbyterians (many of whom became Baptists, Campbellites, and Methodists in America) from northern Ireland and Scotland.

Despite the fact that descendants of British Isles settlers currently represent less than 30% of all Americans, the fundamental elements of American culture - language, law, religion, and even a large segment of popular culture - are still traceable to the British Isles of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer is a good and comprehensive study of these origins. The Cousins' Wars by Kevin Phillips explains how most of the political alignments in America even to the present day, are largely a continuing development of the political and religious disputes of the British Isles of more than 300 years ago.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.