Atlantic Crises: Britain, Europe, and Parting from the United States

摘要

Even after the radical changes in immigration and ethnic composition of the twentieth century, the United States is still recognizably the child of Europe. it may have outgrown its parent, moved away, and be determined to go its own way in life, but its constitution and values still reflect its ancestry. They are largely British, indeed English, but also, both through the English heritage and directly, with an admixture of Christian and Enlightenment Europe. A century ago there were those who saw the United States as a part of Anglo-Saxendom, and even later it was seen as an essentially Protestant country. The former could not be said today (and in this era of political correctness would not be said except by those of a French turn of phrase seeking to contrast certain free market tendencies with another more state or society-centric tradition). However, in its machinery of government, its law, even much of the spirit animating its politics, the line of descent is not only obvious but still of practical importance. The Protestant point is more difficult it is clearly true in that the Christian Right in the United States is a formidable force in politics, up to the highest levels. However, there are strong tendencies and other traditions there that make the country very different from what have traditionally been thought of as the Protestant countries of Europe, such as Sweden or the Netherlands, or Scotland; also, the Protestantism of the U.S. Right has little in common with the Methodism of England or the Lutheranism of Germany.