The Democratic Farce, A Personal Account

Yesterday was the nation's first primary, right here in the state of Texas. This is not usually the sort of thing I bother with but many have argued that local elections are the most important of all and, regardless of that, I had a cousin on the ballot who would be very cross if I didn't drag my bones to town and vote for him (he's bigger than me). So, I went to town, marched into the parish hall and voted in the Democrat primary. They "warn" you on the ballot that you must be a registered Democrat to do this and are not allowed to vote in any other primaries (meaning the Republican one). You may have already noticed the first absurdity in this farce we call the democratic process. Why on earth would someone as radical-far-right-wing reactionary as yours truly be voting for the most leftist of the "two" American political parties? The short answer is; because they are the only game in town. The longer answer is; because demographics have consequences, even more than elections as it turns out. If you want democracy, these are the facts you are going to have to deal with.

Even in the supposedly "deep red" state of Texas, which everyone regards as a bastion of conservatism, pretty much all the urban areas are solidly Democrat and pretty much anywhere up to and including 100 miles of the Mexican border is also solidly Democrat and I would fall deep within that particular area. Because of the demographics of where I live, the vast majority of the population votes Democrat in every election, no matter what the circumstances are, no matter who is on the ballot. This has been the case for so long that the Republicans do not even bother to run candidates anywhere near where I live as it would simply be a waste of resources. This area is lost to them, they know it and they know it is not coming back. Because of this, you also have to be a Democrat in order to run for local office and appear on the ballot. This applies to my cousin who had to run as a Democrat despite being to the right of Rush Limbaugh. If you're not a Democrat, don't even bother trying. So, where I live, thanks to demographics, you have the "freedom" to vote for the Democrat...or the Democrat when it comes to local elections.

For anyone in an area such as this, who is a typical American conservative, it means you will be allowed no part in choosing who the candidate should be for the party you are certain to be voting for in the general election. This actually annoyed me somewhat this time as I would've liked to vote against George P. Bush just to be on the record about that, however, I could only vote for who is Democrat opponent will be and because of the demographics where I live that vote will count for absolutely nothing as it will be a proverbial drop in the bucket, a single grain of sand on the shore. I should probably also point out that the vast majority of Democrats on the ballot, again, because of the demographics of the area, had no opposition. They were not running against anyone, so it was really a waste of paper at the very least. For those keeping score, that means that you have a "choice" of only one party and a "choice" of only one candidate. I suppose those leftist protesters who are always chanting, "This is what democracy looks like!" might have a point, because what goes on at the polls in my area certainly doesn't look like democracy. The damning thing about the entire liberal model is that none of this is out of order, it is all perfectly legal.

Being well acquainted with this farce, I long ago stopped taking any of this seriously. The liberal model is supposed to be well-informed voters making sober decisions based on the merits of the candidates and their own rational self-interest. Human nature, however, doesn't work that way and so you get what we have in south Texas which is tribal voting. And who can say it shouldn't be? With a "choice" between candidates that each belong to a party I despise, neither of whom, in most cases, I know anything about and do not care to, why not simply vote for the name that sounds most similar to my own? You cannot realistically say you expect otherwise. Deep down, everyone knows this I think. Imagine, for example, a voter in southern California who is a Vietnamese-American. The candidates on the ballot are:

   - Alfredo Gutierrez

   - Pedro Ramirez

   - Juan Gonzales

   - Nguyen Van Sam

   - Alberto Garcia

Do you really think there is much doubt about which one he is most likely to vote for? It is a farce, a farce designed to fool people into thinking they have greater control over the government than they would with, oh, say, a king for example. After all, where I live, as you can see, demographics make all the difference and that demographic change was one which neither myself nor any previous generation here was ever asked to vote on. That, I think, says it all.

Is America at Fault for the State of Mexico?

This question came up some time ago, attracting a string of insults directed at your humble mad man for daring to suggest that the Mexicans are responsible for the sad state of Mexico, just as Americans are alone responsible for the sad (in other ways) condition of the United States. Recently, I was pushed on the subject again and it does seem to come up more and more lately and I have no doubts as to why. Immigration is possibly the most contentious issue in America today and the leading source of immigrants to the United States is Mexico, and has been for some time. With one side demanding open borders or, basically, no borders at all; and the other demanding to “build a wall and make Mexico pay for it”, this is obviously something people can get worked up about. The idea that America is at fault for the state Mexico is in has become the argument of last resort for the American advocates of open-borders. First, they denied the problem, arguing that the border was secure and that illegal immigration to the U.S. was practically non-existent. Then, they had to admit that it did exist but that this was not a problem but a benefit. When pressed for evidence on this point, they now often take a sort of punitive view of it, essentially saying that “we” ruined Mexico and so must hand over the United States in compensation. VIVA LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS DEL NORTE!

You could call this the, “you break it, you bought it” approach to international relations. The United States ruined Mexico and so now owns Mexico and the wellbeing of all Mexicans is the responsibility of the American people and their elected representatives. This may be good policy for the local five and dime but it is obviously absurd as national policy as it would condemn almost everyone guilty against everyone else, an endless cycle of victim-hood pandering. As it happens, it is also untrue, at least if one considers the population of Mexico capable of reason and responsibility. Because, that is what this all comes to; responsibility. Are the Mexicans responsible for their own decisions or is the United States responsible? This is important because, the ‘America First’ crowd does have to swallow a hard fact about something the ‘blame America first’ crowd is not entirely wrong about. This is that, if you consider the several most pivotal moments in Mexican history, the United States was consistently on the side of the leftists or the revolutionaries or the “progressives” as you please to call them. This is simply a fact of history.

The “blame America” crowd will say that this was part of a concerted effort to keep Mexico weak, impoverished and helpless. Others will no doubt say that this was the work of ideologues who believed they were helping Mexico, who wanted to push for policies which were long established in the United States to work their “magic” on Mexico. Things like an American-style constitution, republicanism, states rights, separation of church and state were all things American agents pushed for in Mexico. Now, if these were all inherently bad ideas that brought Mexico to ruin after slowly adopting them over time, one would have to wonder why the United States, which had them longer, is not in the same condition as Mexico? All the same, whether these ideas were good ones or not (and, just for the record, almost all of them were not), America would still not be responsible unless the United States alone forced Mexico to embrace them against the will of the Mexicans themselves, assuming they have free will of course which seems to be up for debate at the moment.

This issue matters to us here because at least two of the pivotal events in which the United States came down on the wrong side of Mexican history involved the two efforts to establish a local monarchy in the country. The U.S. was ambivalent toward the first and openly hostile toward the second. However, in every case, the U.S. was backing existing Mexican factions. In fact, this predates the existence of Mexico as an independent country. The land-grabbing schemes by ambitious Americans toward the Spanish empire were invariably done in conjunction with Mexican revolutionaries. The 1812 invasion of Texas associated with former U.S. Army Lieutenant Augustus Magee was a joint expedition. Magee himself had been recruited by the Mexican revolutionary Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara who was the original leader of the enterprise. He executed the local Spanish officials and he declared himself president of Texas. The 1819 filibuster invasion of Texas was, likewise, formed through the partnership of Dr. James Long and Jose Felix Trespalacios, an anti-Spanish, Mexican revolutionary (who, by the way, was released from prison by Emperor Agustin de Iturbide, given rank and eventually made governor of Texas).

All of these schemes failed and Spain had been doing a good job at keeping Mexico within the empire until bitter divisions in Spain itself caused the traditional conservatives in Mexico, led by Agustin de Iturbide, to make common cause with their former republican, revolutionary enemies, to break away from the Kingdom of Spain. The result was the short-lived First Mexican Empire. In explaining why this empire was so short-lived, the “blame America” crowd point to the U.S. envoy to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett of South Carolina, a man with extensive experience in Europe, particularly the Russian Empire and South America. He actually had accepted the rank of general and fought against the Spanish in Chile. He was also a Freemason, a strong supporter of the Monroe Doctrine and firmly convinced that liberal republicanism was the answer to the woes of Latin America. Was he truly to blame for the downfall of Iturbide? Hardly. If a single American envoy was sufficient to bring down the First Mexican Empire, any strong gust of wind could have done the same. His influence was damaging to be sure, but not decisive.

The embrace of Iturbide & Guerrero

Poinsett established ties with Mexicans already ill-disposed toward Iturbide, encouraged the further spread of (Scottish rite) Freemasonry and was no doubt a malign influence on the country. However, the division in Mexico between the imperialists and the republicans, the animosity between the uneasy coalition of the former royalist Iturbide and the republican revolutionary Vicente Guerrero, joined later by the man who would become the first Mexican president, Guadalupe Victoria. All of this long predated the arrival of Poinsett and ensured that the Mexican Empire rested on a very unstable foundation. The revolutionaries had been unable to win against the royalists in their drive for independence. Events in Spain, however, prompted the Mexican conservatives to break with Spain and join with the revolutionaries in seeking independence with the plan being that they would be in charge and have a Mexican monarchy that retained all of the best aspects, as they saw them, of Spanish rule. As it turned out, however, the revolutionaries, who had failed to drive out the Spanish, basically used the Mexican conservatives to do it for them and then, promptly, turned on the conservatives to bring down their empire and create the Mexican republic that the revolutionaries had always wanted.

Poinsett did not create the division between Guerrero and Iturbide, he did not create the many factions that forced Iturbide to take strong measures to rule the country, he did not introduce Freemasonry to Mexico (a false claim often repeated, it had existed in Mexico since at least the previous century), he did not force Iturbide to raise taxes on his core supporters, he did not win the battles for Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna against the forces of Iturbide and he did not force the officials to abandon Iturbide when Santa Anna approached. He certainly had nothing to do with the Central American republics breaking away nor was he holding a gun to the head of Iturbide, forcing him to recall Congress and present them with his abdication. Indeed, many have puzzled ever since why Iturbide gave up and went into exile when he did when so many Mexicans demonstrably remained supportive of him. Poinsett certainly did not help the situation, he was certainly not impartial and what influence he did have was negative. However, it would absolutely absurd to credit him with bringing down the abortive monarchy of Iturbide rather than the long-standing animosities and rivalries of men like Guerrero, Victoria and Santa Anna.

In the chaos that followed, Mexican history was subsequently dominated by several figures in succession, between intermittent contests for power. There was Santa Anna, then Benito Juarez, then Porfirio Diaz and finally the decades long tyranny of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). As far as Santa Anna is concerned, he was a vain, duplicitous and cruel man but, nonetheless, was in his time practically the only option for a patriotic Mexican to support. His downfall, again, can hardly be blamed on the United States. The Anglo-American colonists in Texas had originally been supportive of him and, under the leadership of Stephen F. Austin, loyal to the Mexican government. When another filibuster invasion was launched in 1826, the Fredonian Rebellion, Austin rallied his colonists to fight against them in support of Mexico. Later, when tensions rose, culminating in the outbreak of the Texas War for Independence, Austin again urged his fellow Texans to demand their constitutional rights but remain loyal to Mexico. He had supported the candidacy of Santa Anna and went to Mexico City to negotiate a peaceful resolution of the crisis in 1834. He was arrested and thrown in prison for more than a year without ever being charged with a crime or given a trial. It was only after that that Austin agreed that war was the only solution.

As it happened, Austin, Colonel Travis of Alamo fame and General Sam Houston all had at least one thing in common with Santa Anna; they were all Freemasons. In any event, the United States was hardly out to ‘take down’ Santa Anna. Poinsett, still around at the time of Santa Anna’s defeat by the Texans, had previously been an ardent supporter of his. He lived in the United States for a time and when Mexico and the United States went to war over the Republic of Texas voting to join the U.S. it was the American government that plucked Santa Anna from exile and returned him to Mexico. The idea was that he would arrange a peace favorable to American interests. Instead, he led the war against the United States but ultimately failed. Yet, even this, the one time the United States actually dominated Mexico, controlling its ports and occupying its capital, might have been avoided if not for the inadvertent aid the Mexicans themselves gave the Americans.

Battle of Buena Vista

The Mexican-American War is a fascinating conflict (one I have tried to come up with an excuse for covering here but to no avail) and not at all the way most people think. Today, because of modern attitudes, it is portrayed as an overpowering America crushing a poor, weak, Mexico under its boot heel, a sort of armed parade with battles fought like the occasional swatting of gnats. In fact, the American victory was no sure thing and not easily gained at all. Mexico had a far larger army than the United States, many combat veterans, a cavalry rated by European observers as among the best in the world and they would be fighting defensively on their own ground with the Americans considerably outnumbered in every engagement. The battles were extremely hard fought and most American victories were narrowly won. Some battles, such as San Pasqual in California, were Pyrrhic victories, the Battle of Monterrey, while technically an American victory, was actually more like a stalemate. Under Santa Anna himself, at the Battle of Buena Vista, the U.S. forces were excruciatingly close to being totally defeated and routed from the field. Yet, the fight at Buena Vista ended in an American victory because of the internal divisions among the Mexicans themselves. Santa Anna received word that an uprising was under way in Mexico City and he quickly broke off to deal with this unrest in his capital.

Had it not been for the internal divisions of Mexico, Santa Anna might well have defeated the Americans and won the war. Similarly, it was Santa Anna, restored to power by the clerical party, who sold more land to the United States (the Gadsden Purchase) before he was overthrown by the group that soon coalesced around Benito Juarez. In the next major fight, which was probably the most decisive in Mexican history, the United States was more involved than probably at any other point and this was the fight between Benito Juarez and the French-backed Emperor Maximilian, each of whom offered very distinct visions of how Mexico should be organized and what the future of the country would be. The United States was, from the outset, very clearly on the side of Juarez and absolutely opposed to Emperor Maximilian and French Emperor Napoleon III. However, because this struggle coincided with the American Civil War, there was nothing the United States could do about it until late 1865 and forward. From that point though, the U.S. did everything short of massive military intervention which proved unnecessary anyway.

The United States applied pressure to stop the Austrian Empire from reinforcing Mexico and to push Napoleon III from withdrawing French military forces from the country. The U.S. then sent Juarez every type of assistance from logistical support, loans, weapons, ammunition, equipment, uniforms and even allowed several thousand U.S. Army soldiers (predominately Black troops) to “desert” to Mexico to fight alongside the Juaristas. All of this certainly helped Juarez to win, however, the fact remains that it was the U.S. supporting *Mexican* opposition to the French which had been there from the beginning. It was not the U.S. Army which took city after city, not the Americans who besieged Maximilian at Queretaro and it was not an American firing squad that sent him to his eternal rest. In fact, the United States wanted Juarez to spare Maximilian as their whole narrative had been that he was a puppet ruler, the hapless dupe of the sinister Napoleon III and thus not responsible for everything that had gone on. It also happened he was a genuinely kind and well meaning person but Juarez would not be dissuaded and Maximilian was shot by the Mexican government just as Iturbide had been shot by the Mexican government decades earlier.

If, therefore, Mexico is in a terrible state because of the downfall of Iturbide and Maximilian in turn, it cannot be the responsibility of the United States of America. The U.S.A. had next to nothing to do with Iturbide, preexisting forces obviously brought him down as his reign lasted less than a year. Likewise, with Maximilian and his downfall, the United States certainly helped Juarez but it is an obvious, logical fact that this was only possible because Juarez was there to help. His faction and the conservative faction had been battling for decades. Juarez had won, then the French came in to support the conservatives and Juarez lost, then the French withdrew and America helped Juarez to win. But, that is the point; that the U.S. helped Juarez and those Mexicans who followed him, not that the U.S. took down Maximilian themselves and gave Mexico a republic and forced them to submit to it. On the contrary, despite his efforts to totally sell out Mexico and effectively make the country a U.S. protectorate (which offer was turned by the U.S. by the way), Juarez is still upheld by the vast majority of Mexicans as a great, national hero; the plucky, little Indian who defeated the “evil” Austrian Emperor and his French invaders.

The surrender of Maximilian

To look at it another way, to say the U.S. is to blame for this is to say that, “the Devil made me do it” is a valid defense and, going further, that the Devil didn’t even make me do it but assisted me in doing it at my own request. I doubt such a defense would hold up before the Almighty and it does not here either. Even aside from Juarez and his faction, there are numerous other factors that one would have to discount entirely in order to say the U.S. is responsible. In the end, one of the key factors in bringing down Maximilian was one of his original supporters: the Catholic Church. After he refused to restore their all of the Church’s property and make Catholicism the only legal religion, the Church turned on Maximilian and for more information on that, those interested can look back at this article on The Catholic Church and the Mexican Empire. Who do you suppose had more popular support among the Mexican people in 1866, the Catholic Church or U.S. President Andrew Johnson? The answer seems obvious. It is not very different to those who blame the U.S. for the rise of the P.R.I. tyranny in Mexico, mostly based on the U.S. brokering the negotiations that ended the heroic Cristero Rebellion in 1929. However, setting aside the support of American Catholics for the Cristeros and the safe haven given to fleeing Mexican bishops in the U.S., it is simply absurd to believe that the U.S. government was responsible for the terms of the cease-fire, for both sides agreeing to it and that the U.S. had more influence in bringing this about than the hierarchy of the Catholic Church itself which even went so far as to excommunicate those Cristeros who refused to lay down their arms.

The bottom line for all of this is the issue of free will, which exists for nations as well as individuals. The people who push this line, as stated at the outset, generally fall into two categories; they either wish to blame America as a justification for open borders or because they think Mexicans are simply irresponsible people who cannot be held accountable for their own decisions. It is certainly not my position that America has been blameless in all of this, far from it. The difference is that America is to blame for what America does, not for what Mexico does and the state of Mexico is the responsibility of Mexicans, not Americans just as the state of the United States of America is the responsibility of Americans and not Mexicans. It is all the more pertinent if America has been consistently in the wrong in the entire history of U.S.-Mexico relations. “The Devil made me do it” is not a valid defense, just ask Eve, and, to quote a line from a famous film, “Who’s the more foolish; the fool or the fool that follows it?”

America's Path Not Taken

During the American War for Independence, then as now, a diversity of viewpoints were held by men on both sides. There were those of the Crown forces, adherents of the Whig party, who were quite sympathetic to the cause of the American Patriots. Such sentiments reached all the way up to the commander of the Crown forces in North America, Lt. General Sir William Howe, to HRH the Prince of Wales. Meanwhile, among the American leadership were those who espoused the eventually successful cause of independence in some sort of republican union but also those, not often remembered, who preferred the goal of greater concessions and self-government within the British Empire and under the ultimate sovereignty of the Crown. One of these men was Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania. Born in Maryland, his family moved to Pennsylvania and young Joseph studied law alongside William Franklin, illegitimate son of the famous Ben Franklin, eventually becoming a lawyer in Philadelphia. Originally a Quaker, he converted to the Church of England and married the daughter of a very wealthy and well-connected family. He became a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, later Speaker of the House until 1774 and, again alongside Franklin, was most known for his efforts to have Pennsylvania become a Crown Colony rather than a Proprietary Colony of the Penn family.

As his political career demonstrated, Galloway was no republican firebrand. Indeed, he has more than once been referred to as an Anglo-American nationalist, which would certainly make him unpopular today even if nothing else were known about him. He had objections to the state of affairs in the colonies but, again, like many, his objections were not to the British Empire itself but rather with the subordinate place of the American colonies within it. He believed that the British constitutional monarchy as it was then, was the best system of government in the world and that the British, be they in the home islands or North America, were the best people in the world. He felt that the only problem was that the British subjects in America were not governed in the same way as the British subjects in Great Britain and that if this inequality could be resolved, there would be no further animosity. Indeed, he was convinced that, like himself, most Americans were loyal to the British Crown and were only being driven to disobedience by agitators in America and thoughtless policies on the part of the Parliament in London. In 1774 he had sufficient prominence and popularity to be chosen as a member of the Continental Congress (or Philadelphia Congress) which had no validity as far as the British were concerned but which would be the primary governing body of the colonies during the War for Independence.

In this capacity, Galloway proposed something quite similar to what Benjamin Franklin had previously suggested at the time of the French and Indian War known as the "Albany Plan" ("Join or Die") which was for the unification of the North American colonies within the British Empire. This proposal became known as the "Galloway Plan" or "Galloway's Plan for Union" which called for what would later be termed "Dominion status" in which the American colonies would unite together under a common colonial government but still under the sovereignty of the British Crown. Effectively, under the Galloway Plan, the American colonies would become a self-governing, autonomous partner of Great Britain within the British Empire. The colonial assemblies would appoint representatives to a parliament of their own which would be on equal terms with the parliament in London and would be presided over by a President-General appointed by the King. The American parliament would have jurisdiction over all domestic affairs, including taxation, but the parliaments in both Britain and America would each have veto power over what the other passed so that neither could impose any action detrimental to the other. The British Empire would thus become an Anglo-American partnership of a sort.

Unfortunately for Galloway, Massachusetts enacted an anti-British boycott one month before his proposal came up for a vote which was a boon for the radicals and put moderates such as himself at a clear disadvantage. Nonetheless, in October of 1774, when his plan was voted on, it was defeated only by a single vote with five in favor and six opposed. Worse still, the radicals were worried that this would display a lack of resolve on their part in dealing with the British and so it was agreed that his proposal and the very narrow vote on it, be stricken from the record. Understandably outraged by this, and seeing little hope for a compromise, Galloway left Congress and made his plan public himself the following year. He could see that there would only be two choices allowed to any American colonist; to support the King or to support total independence and, forced to choose, he would take the side of the King. His objections to British tax policy and trade regulations was not so great as his fundamental loyalty to the hereditary monarch of his nation. In late 1776, early 1777 he joined General Howe and the British army in the campaign to take Philadelphia. Once accomplished, he was made chief of police and head of civil affairs, earning praise for his administrative talents and his organization of loyalist militia forces.

The following year, when the British abandoned Philadelphia, he withdrew with them to New York and from there, with his daughter, took ship to England where he became a prominent advocate for the American loyalists and an adviser to the British government on American affairs. Still thinking that this view of American public opinion was the correct one, he asserted to the British authorities that there were many American loyalists in the colonies who could be instrumental in bringing the conflict to a successful conclusion. His advice may well have influenced the southern campaign in which the British had counted heavily on an outpouring of support and volunteers from American loyalists. In the meantime, the same year he left for England, 1778, the Pennsylvania Assembly convicted him of high treason and ordered the confiscation of all his property. His wife, Grace, had stayed behind in Philadelphia in the hope of saving their property (which was actually her property rather than his) but, of course, this made no difference and she was forcibly evicted from their home. In Britain, Galloway was also called as a witness at the trial of General Howe over his conduct of the war in America in which Galloway had few positive things to say about the general. Howe, to be fair, had little positive to say of Galloway either, accusing him of meddling in military affairs during the occupation of Philadelphia.

When the war ended in defeat for the Crown forces, Galloway settled down to a quiet life in England, devoting himself to religious study and literary pursuits until his death in 1803. His plan has mostly been forgotten today but it is notable that something similar would ultimately become quite common within the British Empire as the colonies of Canada and Australia united to become self-governing dominions in due time. Would his plan have worked? It would certainly have worked in keeping the English-speaking peoples united but as we can see across the British Commonwealth today, may well have fallen victim to the liberal laxity which has affected so many others. Yet, the retention of the American colonies within the British Empire may well have brought about a dramatic change in world history in a myriad of ways one can only speculate about today. That, we can never know, but it remains true today that the view of Galloway, and the basis of his plan, that the people of one language and one nationality should be united, are still not without supporters even while so many push against the notion, just as they did in his own time.

Thanksgiving Day, On the Bright Side

Tomorrow the United States celebrates Thanksgiving Day (though I myself do not) and someone online yesterday came at me with powerful volley against the holiday, probably having read previously that I do not celebrate it and expecting me to concur. I did somewhat but certainly not entirely. This was all the more strange in that this person did celebrate Thanksgiving and will be doing so again. If you think something is as bad as he seemed to, I would think the right thing to do would be to not take part. However, while I, myself, do not, I have said before that I have no problem with those who do and I have no special animus against the holiday. Giving thanks is good, we are supposed to give thanks all the time and these days a great many people have a serious lack of gratitude at every level in my opinion. So, having said before that I do not celebrate it and why I do not, I thought, in the interest of goodwill and truth, I would assuage any anxiety good monarchists might have about it.

The strangest thing the person I spoke to hit me with was the notion that Thanksgiving Day was some sort of Puritanical conspiracy to replace Christmas. Rest assured, there is nothing to such a notion. Thanksgiving was most widely celebrated in various ways at various times by people in New England who, early on, probably were not celebrating Christmas anyway (Puritans tended to dislike the holiday). By the time Thanksgiving became an official, national holiday the Puritans were long extinct and today Christmas (thanks to consumerism) is more apt to displace Thanksgiving Day than the other way around. So, I can hardly see how such an idea could have anything behind it. The Puritan origins are not something I am fond of, thanks to their embrace of republicanism later on, but it is entirely up to you and may depend on where you live if the Puritans had anything to do with it anyway. Ask any native of the Old Dominion state of Virginia and they will proudly tell you that the first Thanksgiving was not celebrated in New England at all but in Virginia by English colonists who were certainly not Puritans (depicted in the image above).

Texans, as I have written about before, know that both are wrong and that the first Thanksgiving in what would become the United States was celebrated in west Texas near what is now El Paso. However, to this day it is still a matter of debate as to where the tradition started in the English colonies, whether Virginia or Massachusetts. I may be biased but it seems to me the Virginians have the stronger claim, having it actually set out in a legal charter from 1619 whereas in New England it was simply a local custom with no official backing that I ever heard of. The New England Pilgrims, as I did mention before, professed their loyalty to King James I of Great Britain though I personally have my doubts about their absolute sincerity. There would, however, be little room for such doubts about the colonists of Virginia who were not Puritans and who even named their colony after England's most famous queen. Virginia, at least up until the War for Independence, was considered rather more on the royalist side compared to some others.

Thanksgiving Day did not become an official holiday until centuries later, even quite a while after the United States had already been established. It was first decreed in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln and this had practically nothing to do with the early English colonists but was supposed to be a day of thanksgiving for the recent victories of the Union armies during the American Civil War. Needless to say, this meant that the holiday did not catch on in the south for a very long time. I might also add that in Canada the Thanksgiving Day holiday has very explicitly royalist origins, being first celebrated to give thanks for the recovery of the Prince of Wales after a serious illness and later moved to its current place on the calendar so as not to detract from the rather more solemn observance of Armistice Day after World War I.

I would say one of the good things about Thanksgiving Day is to call to mind the colonial history of America which is all too often forgotten, that life in what is now the United States did not suddenly begin in 1783 and certainly not in 1776 but goes back to those colonists from the Kingdom of England and the conquistadors of the Kingdom of Spain, the Voyageurs of the Kingdom of France and so on and so forth. It can be an occasion to highlight the European roots of the country, its existence as a product of Western Civilization and that every last corner of this land was once reigned over by hereditary monarchs. America has its roots in the empires of Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain, even Russia and to lesser extent a few others and those roots are not republican or anything to do with the revolutionary claptrap that is still being sold to people today. For myself, family gatherings have lost their appeal as not many of my family are left at this point and I will be spending the holiday alone. However, I do not think there is anything inherently wrong with it, giving thanks is good, focusing on the family is good and if you choose to celebrate it, I wish you all the best and hope you make the best of the occasion.

Related Posts:
The Real "First Thanksgiving"
Why I Don't "Do" Thanksgiving

The Crimes of King George III

It was on this day in 1761 that Their Majesties King George III and Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom of Great Britain had their formal coronation. A long-reigning and much beloved monarch who saw his kingdoms through many perils, one would expect King George III to be remembered as one of the greatest of British or English monarchs. He was not severe or lavish, was hard working, prudent and conservative of public funds. He was a devoted father and husband who, unlike his predecessors, never took a mistress. He was a God-fearing man devoted to his duty and who took his obligations to his people seriously.

However, as we know, King George III is not remembered for any of that but rather as the man who "lost" America for the British Empire. If he is ever remembered for anything else it is most likely for being replaced by a regent at the end of his life on grounds of insanity. However, King George III is most remembered as the horrible "tyrant" whose alleged villainy was so great as to force otherwise peaceful and loyal colonists to take up arms against him and ultimately overthrow his authority in the thirteen colonies to establish the United States of America. As part of the propaganda war that ensured this would be the lasting impression of the conflict, the American Declaration of Independence, mostly remembered for a single silly and disingenuous line, included a long list of the "crimes" and examples of the terrible tyranny of King George III which justified the American War for Independence.

Most people, in either America or Britain, do not remember this part of the Declaration or think much on it and that is certainly all to the benefit of the American 'revolutionaries' as their laundry list of the King's misdeeds would certainly not stand up to scrutiny, certainly today. Of course, that is reason enough for us to do exactly that right here and now.

"Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."
Start by casting yourself as the poor, unjustly maligned victim and the King as a horrible tyrant, no one can say that Mr. Jefferson was overly subtle in his style. Upon reflection, one might ask that if the King was so persistent in his crimes, his "repeated injuries and usurpations", why no one in any other part of the empire or his three kingdoms had risen in rebellion before? Needless to say, the word "Facts" should be taken with more than a grain of salt.

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only."
That certainly sounds bad but I cannot be the only one to also find it so vague as to be meaningless. What is being said here basically amounts to, 'he refused to allow good laws to pass and made life inconvenient for legislators'. Care to give any specific examples Tom? No?

"He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures."
This, again, I can only find humorous. It really makes the legislators seem a bit on the lazy side doesn't it?

"He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within."
I must confess, I love the description of opposing the King, "with manly firmness". Jefferson, however, is probably offending a great many homosexuals, feminists and trans-gender people with lines like that. Tsk, tsk, tsk Tom...

"He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."
Aha! Here we come to some real tyranny; the King was trying to cut back on immigration! The horror! The horror! Of course, as soon as the U.S.A. was established, one of the first laws passed was the Immigration and Naturalization Act but no one likes to talk about that nowadays as it restricted citizenship to 'free White persons of good character'. Very problematic these days obviously.

"He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."
Doesn't the second complaint rather contradict the first here? And as for the third, before you feel too sorry for the colonists remember that most of these "swarms of Officers" were assaulted, had their homes destroyed and were driven out of town by the patient and long-suffering colonists when they tried to to their jobs.

"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power."
Yeah, who does he think he is, commander-in-chief of the military or something?!

"He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:"
Yes, he sent troops in to Boston after an armed mob destroyed a huge amount of private property and then allowed a quite fair trial for the soldiers who killed some civilians who were attacking them as part of another angry mob. Far from being a "mock Trial" Tom, one of your own cohorts acted as their lawyer because he believed they were in the right! And he did not cut off trade with all parts of the world unless you mean his closing of the port of Boston which, again, was done in retaliation to mob violence which the local authorities refused to prosecute or even apologize for.

"For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies"
Yes, this is true. It refers to Canada in which, via the Quebec Act, the King allowed the French Canadians to keep their own legal system and allowed them to freely practice their own religion. So what Jefferson is complaining about here is that the King was allowing French Catholics in Canada to administer their province as they wished and to have freedom of religion. What a creep, huh?

"For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."
Again, yes, when you started behaving like criminals instead of loyal subjects, he started treating you as such. Yes, he started waging war on you *after* you killed his soldiers, assaulted his administrators and ransacked the property of those who were loyal to him.

"He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands."
Yes, he is fighting a war, a war which the colonists started by, I repeat myself, firing on government troops. As for the part about mercenaries, virtually every army in Europe employed mercenary regiments just as the United States itself would and still does.

"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."
Here Jefferson is referring to the offer of freedom to any African slaves who escaped their bondage and fought for the King, so Jefferson is blaming the King for any potential slave rebellion. I doubt many would sympathize these days. He also will not win many admirers by referring to the Native Americans as "the merciless Indian Savages". But, it is true, most Indians fought for the British as the King had recognized their right to all the land west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River, lands which the Americans wanted to colonize. So, again, Jefferson is not entirely wrong here. Those merciless Indian savages did indeed fight for their land not to be taken from them.

"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
Not true actually, the colonial petitions for redress, of which there were few, basically amounted to, 'give us what we want or we will break the law and do it anyway and it will be your fault if we do'. It should be clear though why Jefferson was so vague in most of his accusations as, on the rare occasion in which he does give a specific policy or at least be clear enough for the reader to divine what he is referring to, the colonists come off looking more like petulant jerks that "a free people". The King wanted British subjects to buy British goods, to support the British rather than the Dutch economy. He allowed French Catholics to worship as they pleased and he gave Indians the lands they occupied to avoid future trouble with them. When the colonists destroyed property or killed soldiers, the King responded to uphold law and order. That is basically what all of this comes down to but, when all of the Jeffersonian 'spin' is removed, the King doesn't look like such a tyrant, does he?

How New York Got Its Name

Previously, more than once, I have bemoaned the lack of familiarity most Americans have with colonial history. Sadly, I do not see that as likely to change in the foreseeable future given how the population is increasingly becoming less connected to the people who established the colonies which eventually came together into the country that exists today. This is unfortunate as, without the participating European colonial empires there would be no United States (nor any other country as exists today in the Americas) but even among those who are at least vaguely aware of the state of affairs prior to the independence of the “Thirteen Original Colonies”, fewer still are aware of just how many European colonial empires were involved in the settlement of North America. The Spanish, French, English and Russians all played a part as did still less remembered powers such as the Kingdom of Sweden (at the time Sweden and Finland) which established a North American colony in the reign of Queen Christina and, likewise, so did the Seven United Provinces of The Netherlands.

Dutch West Indies Company

Although mostly centered on what is today New York, the Dutch colony covered parts of what is today New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut and even small areas of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. The Dutch got their start with the employment of Henry Hudson, an Englishman, by the Dutch East India Company to try to find the elusive northwest passage to Asia. In his famous ship the Half Moon, he explored much of the coast of northeast America, giving his name to a river and a large bay in Canada. He did not make it to Asia but he returned to Holland with glowing reports of land ripe for colonization. More expeditions followed to survey and chart the area in greater detail and to trade with the native population all of which were funded by the New Netherland Company. In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was granted a charter to gain for The Netherlands a piece of the lucrative fur trade in North America. It is also noteworthy (though often forgotten) that their charter forbid them to take possession of any land that was not legally purchased from the native inhabitants.

Peter Minuit

Today, this presents a problem to the egalitarian crowd as even many who know practically nothing about this period will remember that the Director of New Netherland colony, Peter Minuit, purchased Manhattan Island from the natives for 25 Dutch guilders worth of trade goods. Many, keeping in mind that today Manhattan is home to some of the most highly valued property on the planet, portray this as Minuit cheating the Indians out of a fortune in real estate with a chest full of trinkets. This, however, runs counter to the argument for egalitarianism since, if this was such a huge swindle and if all people are equal, the Indians should have known they were being cheated. One cannot, on the one hand, demand that everyone be treated equally and then, at the same time, demand that special allowance be given to the ignorant. The truth, however, is that the Indians were not so ignorant and the Dutch did not swindle them. Yes, the land is worth a huge fortune today but, at the time, it was empty wilderness, no different than the other vast tracts of empty wilderness that covered the continent. Land was something that seemed endlessly plentiful whereas the manufactured goods offered by the Dutch were items which the Indians did not have and could not make for themselves, thus each gave up something they had in abundance for something the other could not obtain on their own, the very definition of a successful business transaction.

New Amsterdam, capital of New Netherland, soon became a busy hub of trade, settlement and privateering. The Dutch brought in colonists from Europe and, in an act for which they have been condemned since, also brought in the first African slaves to North America. However, operations were still more expensive than the Dutch West India Company liked and they tried various methods to cut costs. In an act that should be considered an educational moment, the very business-minded and technically republican Dutch authorities found it beneficial to revert to a sort of feudalism. This became known as the patroon system by which a major investor would be given the title of patroon, a large tract of land and extensive control over it with powers quite similar to those held by feudal lords in the monarchies of the Old World. The patroon was, for his part, expected to bring in at least 50 families of colonists within four years of receiving his title. This did result in growth for the colony, though still not as much profit as was hoped for.

Peter Stuyvesant

There were also conflicts to deal with as well as commerce such as the two-year long war fought with surrounding native tribes by Director Willem Kieft as well as, in 1655, the conquest of New Sweden by a Dutch force of about 700 led by the feisty, one-legged Director Peter Stuyvesant. He was a more hard-line figure than New Netherland was used to, cutting back on religious freedom in favor of adherence to the Dutch Reformed Church, trying to limit Jewish immigration, encouraging Jewish settlers to leave and becoming increasingly anxious about the rapid growth of the neighboring English colonies and their competition with the Netherlands. Stuyvesant was accused of being rather on the tyrannical side and opposition to him sprang up in the colony. Unfortunately, it was at precisely this same time that New Netherland faced its greatest crisis. That crisis arose when King Charles II of Great Britain, recently restored to his throne, determined to conquer the Dutch colony. Although Charles II had been sheltered in The Netherlands during the Interregnum, his preferred foreign policy was one of friendship with France and hostility toward the Dutch.

James, Duke of York

An expedition of four ships and 450 men, led by royalist civil war veteran Richard Nicholls, set out from Plymouth and arrived to besiege New Netherland on August 27, 1664. As was his character, Stuyvesant wanted to put up as much of a fight as possible but, by this time, he lacked the support of many of his own colonists, some of whom were angry about his policies and others who simply wished for nothing to interfere with their business. They preferred trading their Dutch flag for an English one rather than have a destructive battle that would disrupt commerce. This lack of cohesion meant that there was no chance of the Dutch, under Stuyvesant, standing a chance against the English forces and so, on September 8, 1664 Stuyvesant formally surrender the colony to the King of England and New Netherland was no more. The royal connection in all of this was that King Charles II had promised this area of North America to his brother the Duke of York (later King James II) and Richard Nicholls was Groom of the Chamber to the Duke of York and it was the Duke who had chosen him to command the expedition. It seemed only natural then that New Netherland should be renamed New York in the Duke’s honor.

Even though this episode of American colonial history is not well remembered, the evidence of it still exists in New York City today if you know where to look. Perhaps the most famous landmark is St Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery which was built by Stuyvesant and is where he is buried. His family later sold the property to the Church of England (under conditions) and it is the oldest church in continuous use in New York City. It also features a bust of Stuyvesant which was sent over by Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands in 1915. The flag of New York City is based on the orange-white-blue tricolor of the Netherlands, “the Prince’s Flag” and even the famous financial center of Wall Street, has its name because that site was formerly where a road was along the palisade surrounding New Netherland and thus came to be referred to as Wall Street. The Dutch population and language persisted in parts of New York longer than most probably realize. President Martin Van Buren, for example, grew up speaking Dutch as his first language and many Dutch words, names and even some traditions still survive in parts of New York to this day.

In any event, that is how New York went from being a Dutch colony to being named after the heir to the English throne and Britain’s last Catholic monarch.

The Rocky Record of Anglo-American Relations (Part II)

Continued from Part I

During the inter-war years, American isolationism became the popular position and this was seen very much as an anti-British attitude. There were disputes over arms agreements and a succession of American administrations that were less than friendly to Great Britain. A critical moment came when the United States made it a condition of good relations for the British to break off their alliance with the Empire of Japan. The British Empire was itself divided on the issue. Canada, heavily dependent on trade with America, wanted Britain to ditch the Japanese in favor of Anglo-American solidarity. The Australians, however, near to Japan and far from Britain, wanted the Japanese kept on side. The British government decided to end the alliance with Japan, even though America offered no similar alliance in return, which caused the Japanese, who had long entertained anti-colonial enemies of the British Empire in Asia, to view all British possessions in the Asia-Pacific region as ‘fair game’. When Japan finally joined World War II alongside the other Axis Powers it would be with the claim that it was fighting to end western colonial rule, for “Asia for the Asians” and to eradicate the White population in East Asia.

Ready to fight the U.S. invasion?

In 1930 the U.S. military drew up “War Plan Red” in preparation for an eventual war with the British Empire. Earlier, in 1921, the Canadians had also drawn up a plan in case of war with the United States. The British had given the matter some thought as well, though not along the same lines as Canada. The British viewed Canada as a lost cause and planned to instead focus on a naval war in which Britain and America would be fairly evenly matched. Nothing came of it of course, and these were only contingency plans, but they do reveal that such a thing was not considered totally beyond the realm of possibility. Anglo-American relations were at an overall low point during the historically lengthy administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. President Roosevelt totally opposed the existence of the British Empire and made little effort to conceal that fact. As the first world leader to recognize the government of the Soviet Union, FDR seemed friendlier toward Moscow than London. Yet, both countries often found themselves on the same side of the fashionable causes around the world in the 1930’s. Both were critical of the Japanese in China, both sympathized with Ethiopia against Italy and both favored the republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. Neither liked the look of Adolf Hitler.

Yet, once again, when Britain went to war against Germany a second time in 1939, the United States again declared neutrality. The American public was more isolationist than ever before, felt they had been burned by participation in the First World War and wanted no part of another one. Yet, Britain scarcely had a prayer of winning without American participation and so tried to rekindle the fires of Anglo-American kinship and solidarity. To some extent, this worked but they were opposed by the likes of the “America First” committee and by the socialists and communists who denounced the war as a capitalist crusade to benefit European imperialism. Naturally, they completely reversed themselves as soon as Germany invaded the Soviet Union at which point they became more interventionist than anyone else.

Charles Lindbergh, America First Comm.

President Roosevelt, also became noticeably more warlike after the Axis invasion of Russia. America was neutral but not impartial and FDR began a number of schemes to aid Britain, the Soviet Union and China (in their war against Japan) while remaining officially “neutral”. Roosevelt squeezed British gold reserves dry in exchange for the food, medicine, supplies and weapons that Britain desperately needed just to hang on. Roosevelt wanted to get involved but the American public did not. FDR’s attitude was certainly not because of any real pro-British sentiment as he would make clear. He would fight to defend Britain but not to defend the British Empire which he was determined to see come to an end. Churchill, of course, was outraged by this attitude but by going to war against Germany and Italy, the British government had placed themselves in a position they could not escape from without American help and Roosevelt knew that no matter what he demanded, Britain would have no choice but to agree.

The American public, however, remained stubbornly isolationist and Roosevelt realized he could do nothing unless he could provoke one of the Axis powers to attack the United States. Germany and Italy were in a position such that it was impossible to do any more to them than was already being done but Roosevelt could put the squeeze on Japan. After the Japanese occupied French Indochina, Roosevelt put sanctions on Japan which the British government and Dutch government-in-exile had no choice but to go along with. Japan would either have to back down or attack and the Japanese decided to attack. On December 7, 1941 the bombs rained down on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. declared war and the Axis powers were officially doomed. By 1945 it was all over and Britain and America were victorious. However, Britain was also so heavily indebted to the United States that the relationship had practically come full circle in terms of the power and influence of each. Thankfully for Britain, FDR did not live to see the end of the war, being succeeded at his death by President Truman who was at least not as anti-British as FDR had been.

Prime Minister Clement Attlee

Unfortunately, the beginning of the Cold War, in which Britain and America were allies in the United Nations and NATO also saw the start of an unfortunate situation in which British and American leaders were seldom on the same page at the same time. So, while Harry Truman was more anti-communist than FDR had been, Truman at least wishing to see communism ‘contained’, his British counterpart, Prime Minister Clement Attlee, was farther to the left and was intent on abandoning the British Empire and reducing British military strength, depending more and more on the United States for defense, in order to fund the social welfare programs he envisioned. So it was that the Attlee government saw the creation of the National Health Service and the British welfare state along with the abandonment of India and Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, Jordan and Palestine. Still, the U.S. supported the British campaign against communist revolutionaries in the Malayan Emergency (which was successful) and Britain provided the second largest military contribution to the Korean conflict, a UN effort led by the United States.

Once Attlee was out, Churchill returned and he favored holding on to the British Empire but things became sticky under his successor Sir Anthony Eden in dealing with U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower. There had been talk of maintaining a smaller “third British Empire” focused on Africa but that was squashed when the Eisenhower administration undercut the British effort to hold on to the Suez Canal in Egypt. Eisenhower thought that by backing the Egyptians against the British, he could win their loyalty in the fight against communism. It did not work and this wishful thinking by American leaders would be repeated in numerous countries all to the same effect. The loss of Suez also seemed to completely break the morale of the British and ended any further desire to try to hold on to any vestige of the empire. The U.S. had also been rather put off with Britain over the refusal of London to back the French fight against communism in Indochina the previous year. However, Eisenhower later admitted that his bullying of the British over Suez had been the greatest mistake of his presidency. Too bad no one learned from it.

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had a good working relationship with U.S. President John F. Kennedy and this is not surprising given that both agreed that the British Empire needed to be cast into the dustbin of history. British colonies in Africa were abandoned, often to communist dictators and there was some U.S. grumbling that Britain refused to support the American fight against communism in Vietnam (Australia did but no one now considers this to have been a good thing, the prevailing wisdom of the liberal west being that communism should never be opposed). Democrat President Lyndon Johnson, who inherited the Vietnam problem, pleaded with Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson to send even a token, symbolic force to Vietnam to show a united front against the communist bloc but Wilson refused because leftist anti-war fervor in Britain was so high. It was a mutually harmful relationship in this period with the Americans refusing to help maintain British colonies and the British refusing to help American military campaigns against communist expansion.

Personal relations were better between President Nixon and Prime Minister Heath, but overall Britain became more anti-American and America became, in turn, more anti-British. When Heath took Britain into the EEC (forerunner of the EU), Nixon saw this as a move toward Europe and away from the USA and Anglosphere. When Heath later said he had to consult Europe on defense policies before America, the U.S. stopped sharing military intelligence with the U.K. for about a year. In the Middle East, during the Yom Kippur War, America backed Israel while the British refused. Britain stopped allowing America the use of British bases on Cyprus and in retaliation the U.S. again cut off intelligence sharing with the British. Things did improve after that though, particularly moving into the 1980’s when Britain and America each had leaders who liked each other and seemed to be on the same page in regard to their politics and worldview, these were, of course, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan. Nonetheless, a generally anti-American attitude continued to entrench itself among the British public and this showed itself in some rather absurd ways.

Maggie & Ronnie, BFF's

For example, when war broke out between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands, the United States offered to mediate the dispute. The offer was not accepted and America supported the British in the war, though saw no need to intervene militarily. The USA provided, instead, supplies, logistics and intelligence to the British. However, presumably because of the original offer for mediation, many in Britain accused America of not taking their side and doing nothing to help them. On the other hand, when Grenada (a British possession) was taken over by communists and the Queen’s Governor-General overthrown and imprisoned, President Reagan sent in the U.S. Marines in a surprise attack that subdued the communist guerillas (backed by Cuba) and set the Queen’s representative at liberty again. Reagan expected the British would be overjoyed at this but instead the British media, public and many in positions of authority expressed their fury at the whole operation, denounced the U.S. for not discussing it with them beforehand and even calling it an act of aggression against a Commonwealth nation, even though, as the Queen’s representative was being kept in a prison cell by the communists, the British were certainly not in control at the time of the invasion -which was the whole point!

British and American forces cooperated in the First Iraq War and NATO campaigns against Yugoslavia, both of which were quick and victorious missions that came and went with little lasting fuss. However, British and American public opinion was about to be laid bare. In America, those on the right tended to like Britain for what it was but dislike Britain for what it is while those on the left tend to like Britain for what it is and dislike it for what it was. The British, on the other hand, just dislike America in general. Usually, Americans have lived in blissful, unconcerned ignorance of what other countries think of them but British, and European generally, views of the country came into public view in a big way after the 9-11 attacks and the subsequent “War on Terror”. While the government and Royal Family showed proper sorrow and solidarity, the American public saw that this was not a reflection of the British public. In the immediate aftermath, during a popular BBC political talk show, a former American ambassador was driven to tears by the British audience which was almost unanimous in basically saying that the United States had got what it deserved. The BBC was so embarrassed by this accidental reveal of British public opinion that it apologized and removed the episode.

Bush & Blair, the toxic twosome

Britain participated in the U.S. led (nominally NATO) campaign in Afghanistan and, more controversially, in the Second Iraq War which was highly unpopular with the left in America and everyone in Britain. U.S. President George W. Bush was hated by the left in America and by everyone in Britain. When Prime Minister Tony Blair emerged as his closest ally in the “War on Terror”, he immediately became the most unpopular political figure in Britain, a plummeting fall from his earlier years in power. He received thunderous applause and glowing praise from Americans for his speech to a joint-session of Congress but it only made him more unpopular, even positively despised, in his own country for doing so. When Bush left office and was succeeded by President Barrack Obama, the British public cheered in approval but this was all the more odd given that Obama, doubtless because of his background, was the most anti-British president America had had, probably since FDR. When Obama’s administration seized on a BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as a ‘defining moment’ (wishing to contrast Obama with the Bush reaction to Hurricane Katrina, which was ridiculed in the U.S. and Britain) the left and environmentalists pushed an anti-British line which only increased anti-American sentiment in Britain.

The praise and adulation Obama had been given by the British public upon his election seemed to be fading. Aside from the oil spill fiasco, there were arguments over the release of a Libyan terrorist from prison by the Scottish government, British criticism of American treatment of captured terrorists and even the banning of a number of prominent Americans from British soil on the grounds that they were deemed “Islamophobic”. By the end of his presidency, when Britain was voting on whether or not leave the European Union, Obama had become so unpopular that his intervention, urging British voters to stay in the EU, was seen as a great boost for the “Leave” campaign. Obama even went so far as to threaten British voters with being put “at the back of the line” in trade agreements with the U.S. if they voted the wrong way. Right-wing Americans objected to this but also felt little sympathy, knowing that Obama was the President the British public had wanted. In the end, they voted to leave but Obama himself was soon gone as well.

President "The Donald" Trump

A clearly less-than-friendly U.S. President was gone and the new U.S. President was the son of a British (Scottish) mother, a man with business interests in the U.K. and who often spoke of how his mother kept a portrait of the Queen in their house and how pro-British he was. One might expect this to have been the start of a renewal of Anglo-American friendship and one might be correct were this president not Donald J. Trump. Trump came to office praising Great Britain as America’s most trusted ally and promising to give Britain pride of place in the new trade negotiations which will be required if and when Britain actually leaves the EU. The White House even received, “positively” we are told, a proposal for the United States to join the British Commonwealth, an idea reportedly approved by the Queen and put forward by the Royal Commonwealth Society. However, for all of Trump’s pro-British statements, the British public has responded to him with all of the hysteria and vitriol of the American left. Anti-Trump demonstrations were held in Britain and there were even votes in Parliament on the possibility of banning President Trump from the country, a truly unprecedented step.

The British public, media and political class has been almost unanimous in their condemnations of President Trump with even the most favorable not expressing support but simply arguing that condemning and banning the leader of your closest ally and most powerful country on earth is not prudent. The U.K. was originally at the top of the list of countries Trump wished to visit but the vitriol against him in Britain, particularly combined with the vote to ban him from the country and threats of huge, potentially violent, demonstrations if he set foot on British soil, have caused his visit to the U.K. to be quietly and indefinitely postponed. Traditionally, new U.S. Presidents go to Britain to visit the Queen (I like to think so she can inspect them) but opposition to Trump has put a stop to that custom. Originally, the White House was still insisting that the visit would go ahead at some point but the summer is almost gone and no more is being said about the matter, nor have there been any further effusions of pro-British sentiment from the President.

The Queen addressing Congress

That is where things stand today and I think it is worth keeping in mind both the ‘ups’ and the ‘downs’ of the Anglo-American relationship and to note how different the two countries have become. Once upon a time, despite occasional difficulties, each side viewed the other as family; family you did not always get along with but family nonetheless. Today that is increasingly not the case and if current demographic trends continue will certainly not be true (already, children of European-descent are a minority in the United States). There did seem to be a real chance at the beginning of the Trump presidency for the two countries to become closer than they had ever been before but that seems impossible at this point. In Britain, anti-Trump hysteria has blinded people to the potential repercussions of their behavior and this, I think, points to a deeper problem.

The British public, judged by the generally negative view of the United States, seems to think the “special relationship” was either never real or, if it was, is of no value, perhaps even detrimental. Likewise, the American public, increasingly sees no benefit to the current arrangement and isolationism seems to be on the rise. Whether one looks at Trump during his campaign, the views of the Libertarian movement or that of the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democrat Party, America seems to be moving in the direction of disengagement from its current commitments and network of alliances. In each country, I think this fits in with the overall disconnect felt by the people and their supposedly “representative” governments. Yet, contrarily, at the same time there is also the problem, I think caused by “representative government” that people seem largely incapable of differentiating between a country and its government. For America, this seems less of a problem to me because of the British monarchy, prime ministers come and go but the monarch remains and so illustrates that Britain is more than its government but for Britain, given the American system of government, this seems to be more of an issue.

I would say though, as advice to those who value Anglo-American friendship, despite what its prospects may be, you must take care to keep in mind what you are arguing for and who you are arguing with. I have certainly seen this in the case of other countries. If, for example, you are an Anglophile in America, you are never going to convince your audience to accept your argument if your attitude is one of, “Britain is always right and we are always wrong”. That is an anti-American argument rather than a pro-British one and no average American is going to be won over if they think you, the pro-British person, are anti-American as it can naturally be assumed your argument is intended only to benefit the British and not the United States. On the British side of things, anyone with pro-American opinions can only have my sympathy given the current state of public opinion but, in that direction, my only advice is that it is an unavoidable fact that America would not exist without Great Britain and it because of this fact that Americans have never been able to view Britain as just another country in the world. America would never have involved itself in two world wars had Britain not been imperiled and, as I’ve often pointed out, when you ask any American what he or she thinks about “the Queen” they will instinctively understand that you mean the Queen of the U.K. and not any other country. That is material to work with though, as mentioned above, that will be impacted by demographic changes going forward so it is material with a finite shelf life.