1. You state that modern forms of American governance owe more to Viking influence that to Greek-"Representative government in Britain and the US owes far more to the Vikings than to Greece."
1a. My reply is that the Vikings influence on any culture has been fleeting-even in England where they gained the most dominance. OZB states that Anglo Saxon and Viking culture are rather interchangeable-which to some extent I agree, but the truth of the matter is that the Vikings just melted into the societies where they settled, with little impact on the culture, outside of DNA and place names. Anglo Saxon governance reigned supreme until modified by the Norman invasions with their more Latin dominated legal and governmental codes. I also add that the founders relied much more heavily on the ressurected ideas of Citizen farmer of Rome and Greece that become popular during the Enlightenment.
2. You state that the rights of free men is a dominantly Northern European idea: "Magna Carta arises directly from the northwest European cultural idea of the existence of the "rights of free men". You then state you did not mean this to be an exclusive idea of only North Europe. We have debated this already, I think the Greek and Roman influence is far greater than any ideas espoused by German tribes.
"THAT one is easy. The first true parliament was the AllThing in Iceland--established 920AD. There is absolutely no doubt that the British parliament is a direct descendant of same"
I won't buy that as proof of direct descendant of the English Parliment, which as OB pointed out in his attached web site in post 80 that after the conquest Continental legal and governmental law forms became ascendant (superseding but not completely replacing) Anglo Saxon law codes-based on Roman legal codes. I think you may have a point as I debated that myself last night-I'll need some reference material though-please provide if you have any-scholarly works as opposed to the internet if at all possible.
Finally,
I will give that the Anglo Saxon, and by extension Viking influence on our legal and government system may have recieved bad press, but to state that their systems are dominant to the creation of modern US legal and governmental systems is incorrect. Our entire government is modeled rather closely to Rome, with a good dose of England's Parliment (we are NOT a copy of English law, we tend to go on a rather seperate course). Our law is dominated by Latin, and common law is derived more from continental law, with a healthy dose of AS law intermixed. Bottom line: are we influenced by German legal systems-definitely, but Latin and by extension Greek legal systems reign supreme. By the way all those books I mentioned are available on Amazon, I got them all for my birthday and are good reads, with much of the content we have discussed reviewed to some degree in them.