OLD WEST VS. OLD EUROPE - You say we're cowboys like it's a bad thing

SF Chronicle ^ | 3-9-03 | Andrew Bernstein

[tillacum]

There are still some around, we've just been inundated with a bunch of Citizens of the World, newcomers, in the last 50/60 years. They have not the background of being truly independent as the "Old Time Americans had to be. Prior to WWII we didn't have all the government hand outs we do today. Americans of prior WWII had to be industrious, and truthful. Most Americans lived in small towns where everyone knew each other including the skeletons, no one spoke of, in public. Even large cities had their "neighborhoods" where everyone knew everyone by name. We still have among us independent souls, ready to stand up for what they believe in, our volunteer military, for instance. Our police forces, firemen, doctors, nurses, dentists, and medical technicians who take a week or two each year to perform necessary medical and dental work on our native reservations, who travel to Africa and South America to help those less fortunate. We're still a pretty independent country, all we need to do is get rid of our socialist congress and senate.

[tillacum]

When we think of Europeans and their questions about us, questions we think are dumb, remember, each country is Europe is smaller, the same size and slightly larger than any one of our states with the exception of Russia. When they ask questions of the violence in our cities, we can thank the red presstitutes of our primetime media who love to make America appear uncaring, violent, loud and impolite, with the exception of the presstitutes, of course. I really dislike our media barons.

[homeagain balkansvet]

Actually I should have used a slightly different term, not 'Crusader knight,' but rather 'Chivalrous knight.'

Distinction is important, although perhaps the closest to a 'crusading knight' we have are our folks who are about to go to Iraq and bring freedom to the slaves there. But a knight chivalrous was, at the time, very close to the lawman in spirit and in fact. To bear arms and mete justice meant that, as the lord of your manor, YOU settled disputes between your villeins, YOU had the power to punish, by death if necessary, violent criminals within your fee (a term meaning not a sum of money, but the extent of feudal lands granted you by the King).

In fact, the development in England, of royal courts, with trial by jury, was accellerated because peasants would rather by judged by a 'jury of their peers' who didn't have an interest in the outcome of the case rather than a lord who might judge you to be guilty just so he can tumble your cottage, be rid of you, and use your land for something else.

A lawman with the power to kill, in a lawless and jury-free world, is a fearsome thing to be, a fearsome power to have. As our Euro buddies are trying to tell us. Some of them, that is, the ones that are not choking on their own anti American bile.

[jammer]

That's a pretty darned good point about the legacy of independence not being in many immigrants. I hadn't thought of that. Thanks.