Merkel Is Getting Me All Hot And Bothered

Well, I understand the mindset of rabid nationalists. I "get it". But when people criticize rabid nationalists I don't say "you don't understand the mindset".

The resentment occupied people feel isn't some deterministic inevitability that we can just shrug our shoulders and say "that's the way it is". If it's probable it's because too many people are weak and petty.

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Originally Posted by drone

My perspective is atypical, I'm probably a bit more rational about it than most Southerners. I know the history, and my family's role in it, and have pretty much come to the conclusion that the South got what it deserved. The North probably could have handled things better both before and after, but what's done is done. To paraphrase a famous Jedi master, "I don't hate the Yankees, they're just :daisy:" I dislike the North, but for reasons completely unrelated to the war.

I do understand the mindset however, which is apparently something that I'm not getting across.

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Meh. I (think that I) understand it pretty well. Agree it can be hard to elucidate to others.

Guess for me it boils down to my perception that the South can't let go of an uglier part of it's/our nation's past. The insularism, exclusionism, and revisionism are what're most annoying. For the most part it's never an issue, unless one moves there or has regular contact with that region. One can pick and move just about anywhere in the US outside of the Southeast and fit right into whatever community they move into. New Englanders, Midwesterners, Great Plainers, they all have their own somewhat unique cultural backgrounds, but don't actively attempt to socially ostracize new folks like I've seen and experienced in the South. Be nice if that changes some day.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

Well, I understand the mindset of rabid nationalists. I "get it". But when people criticize rabid nationalists I don't say "you don't understand the mindset".

The resentment occupied people feel isn't some deterministic inevitability that we can just shrug our shoulders and say "that's the way it is". If it's probable it's because too many people are weak and petty.

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Indeed which is exactly the reason why rabid nationalism is no longer popular in the South of Ireland.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

All maritime powers are richer than land powers, to trade across land is expensive.

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I'm not sure I can agree with this. Pre-colonial India was hardly a maritime power, but fabulously rich nonetheless. China was also wealthy even though most of its trade up until the 19th century was conducted via the Silk Road. Colonialism was the primary advantage of maritime powers, but the neither U.S. nor Canada had any colonies worth mentioning.

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But crucially Canada real security defense wise due to the Empire and had shared cultural mores with America. Later Canada orientated it's trade to integration with the USA to overcome the disadvantage of effectively being two islands and of course she shares the Atlantic and Pacfic with you making trade from either coastline easier.

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But that's just one trade partner. Not enough.

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Originally Posted by rvg

I'm not sure I can agree with this. Pre-colonial India was hardly a maritime power, but fabulously rich nonetheless. China was also wealthy even though most of its trade up until the 19th century was conducted via the Silk Road. Colonialism was the primary advantage of maritime powers, but the neither U.S. nor Canada had no colonies worth mentioning.

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Pre-Colonial India has a massive all year round ice free coastline and Indian rivers flow through it's agricultural areas to bring goods to port. It actually doesnt matter whose boats they were the key is the wonga the Indains got for things like tea or spices.

China is a special case her problem is the interior is waay waay poorer than her coastline, this has historically fed instability kinda like a stone on a seesaw.
Isolationism is a way to equalise the disparity and balance the seesaw, I'm not saying it's rational just what they did/do to an extent.

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But that's just one trade partner. Not enough.

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Obviously it is to a certain extent.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Pre-Colonial India has a massive all year round ice free coastline and Indian rivers flow through it's agricultural areas to bring goods to port.

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And Russia has the mighty Volga flowing through its heartland and into the Caspian Sea for the lucrative trade with Iran.

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China is a special case her problem is the interior is waay waay poorer than her coastline, this has historically fed instability kinda like a stone on a seesaw. Isolationism is a way to equalise the disparity and balance the seesaw, I'm not saying it's rational just what they did/do to an extent.

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But the point is that you can get rich even as a dedicated landlubber.

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Obviously it is to a certain extent.

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Not really, especially since we had little to offer to one another: we didn't need their furs, and they didn't need our furs. Timber? No, plenty of that on both sides. Some agricultural produce from the Deep South, yes, but that's it really.

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

To clarify, I do get it, it just makes me sad.

Sad, though, that our ancestors couldn't find a better way to work out how Ireland and the rest of the British Isles fit together.

I also find it difficult to accept on an emotional level even though I understand it intellectually, and appreciate the Irish viewpoint.

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I'm too awkward to say this myself but that is the viewpoint I would like to think I hold.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

One day possibly I do get the feeling that things are begingin to change but it is still to soon for me at least:clown:(mad as that sounds) When you come to a match an international match in Ireland we only need too separate people because it's the rules of the various international bodies, not because we will kill the opposing fans over percieved slights(excepting the North everything is different there)

Bother has only ever being caused (yet) by hooligans coming into Ireland and I expect that will continue.

I have been at World Cup matches where English people cheered us on and they loved every minute of the match, technically it was cos we were playing Germany though. I'm telling you I never seen a happier racist football hooligan as I did that night in Ibaraki, he nearly fell of the upper tier so he did. Also I have actually sang rebels songs at family gathereings in england in front of English people and they loved every minute of it, they knew that the atmosphere was one of celebration and rememberance not one of anger.

Irish people will one day root for England if were not playing ourselves, I know this to be ultimately a truth but we will always savour the odd victory we get over yous lot :wink:

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...Wanna play CK2?

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Originally Posted by rvg

And Russia has the mighty Volga flowing through its heartland and into the Caspian Sea for the lucrative trade with Iran.

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But Russian habitation is further west and north and and it's really productive agricultural areas are further south and southwest effectively there was no one there to trade with Iran and they faced west and east as a landpower both of them.

Also Russia has always felt and acted like a landpower trading with Iran while possible was not there priority. There priority was ensuring the regime didnt collapse trying to compete with richer western europe or get eaten by the eastern hordes.

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But the point is that you can get rich even as a dedicated landlubber.

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I never said you couldnt it's just generally easier to be rich if you have a maritime coast you can actually use, it doesnt take a genius to figure out a ship load of fur is worth more to a nation than a cartload.

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Not really, especially since we had little to offer to one another: we didn't need their furs, and they didn't need our furs. Timber? No, plenty of that on both sides. Some agricultural produce from the Deep South, yes, but that's it really.

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I said later Canada integrated with the USA as in 19th century early 20th before that all trade went back to the imperial core from her expansive coastlinies and the Hudson river.

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Originally Posted by Greyblades

...Wanna play CK2?

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I dont have it but will get it soon enough funds need minding for the summer in Poland.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

But Russian habitation is further west and north and and it's really productive agricultural areas are further south and southwest effectively there was no one there to trade with Iran and they faced west and east as a landpower both of them.

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That is definitely not the case. Volga passes through major industrial and agricultural regions of Russia. It is quite easily the most important Russian river.

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I never said you couldnt it's just generally easier to be rich if you have a maritime coast you can actually use, it doesnt take a genius to figure out a ship load of fur is worth more to a nation than a cartload.

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Let's not forget that one can get lots of carts for the price of one ship.

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I said later Canada integrated with the USA as in 19th century early 20th before that all trade went back to the imperial core from her expansive coastlinies and the Hudson river.

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But my points stands: Canada was not a suitable trading partner for the U.S.

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Originally Posted by rvg

That is definitely not the case. Volga passes through major industrial and agricultural regions of Russia. It is quite easily the most important Russian river.


Let's not forget that one can get lots of carts for the price of one ship.

But my points stands: Canada was not a suitable trading partner for the U.S.

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Until the early 20th century the US was almost completely self sufficient in every respect. You had both the industiral base and high technology, coal, oil, other materials were not far away, and you had Mexico to trade with for them.

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

Until the early 20th century the US was almost completely self sufficient in every respect. You had both the industiral base and high tehcnology, coal, oil, other materials were not far away, and you had Mexico to trade with for them.

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Russia is also blessed with resources though. Yet, their outlook on history differs from ours.

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Originally Posted by Whacker

Meh. I (think that I) understand it pretty well. Agree it can be hard to elucidate to others.

Guess for me it boils down to my perception that the South can't let go of an uglier part of it's/our nation's past. The insularism, exclusionism, and revisionism are what're most annoying. For the most part it's never an issue, unless one moves there or has regular contact with that region. One can pick and move just about anywhere in the US outside of the Southeast and fit right into whatever community they move into. New Englanders, Midwesterners, Great Plainers, they all have their own somewhat unique cultural backgrounds, but don't actively attempt to socially ostracize new folks like I've seen and experienced in the South. Be nice if that changes some day.

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You obviously have never to the north. Northerners and the damn yankees in new england are the most close minded rude, uninviting, cold and classless people in north america...

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Originally Posted by rvg

That is definitely not the case. Volga passes through major industrial and agricultural regions of Russia. It is quite easily the most important Russian river.

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Indeed but the Missippi Missouri Ohio river system is practically an integrated highway system and it flows to the correct population centers or to the Gulf to allow transport by sea to New York

The Volga however does not have the same advantage.

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Let's not forget that one can get lots of carts for the price of one ship.

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Ah come on now your just being silly here during the time people used carts for moving trade goods the roads were also either non-existent or few and far between. It wasnt until the 19th early 20th that we had the technology with trains to overcome these disadvantages, but I cant think of a country that didnt already have most of it's cultural tics by then.

And thats what we were talkin about initially anyway.

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But my points stands: Canada was not a suitable trading partner for the U.S.

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Thats interesting but that wasnt the point I was making to begin with Canada could trade from her martitime cores on either side early on. Then later she had the ability to trade with Detroit an Chicago cities that developed industry due to there proximity to the great lakes and rivers of the American heartland.

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Originally Posted by rvg

Russia is also blessed with resources though. Yet, their outlook on history differs from ours.

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Their history is also more bloody, and there's more of it.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Indeed but the Missippi Missouri Ohio river system is practically an integrated highway system and it flows to the correct population centers or to the Gulf to allow transport by sea to New York

The Volga however does not have the same advantage.

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Sure it does. Most of European Russia's important industrial centers are situated on the banks of Volga or its tributaries.

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Ah come on now your just being silly here during the time people used carts for moving trade goods the roads were also either non-existent or few and far between. It wasnt until the 19th early 20th that we had the technology with trains to overcome these disadvantages, but I cant think of a country that didnt already have most of it's cultural tics by then.

And thats what we were talkin about initially anyway.

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Except that you're not taking into account that an overland journey would be much shorter than a transoceanic one. A couple of hundred miles on bad roads vs a few thousand miles across the ocean.

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Thats interesting but that wasnt the point I was making to begin with Canada could trade from her martitime cores on either side early on. Then later she had the ability to trade with Detroit an Chicago cities that developed industry due to there proximity to the great lakes and rivers of the American heartland.

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All of that is good and such, but the U.S. commodities still have to cross an ocean to be traded.

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Originally Posted by rvg

Sure it does. Most of European Russia's important industrial centers are situated on the banks of Volga or its tributaries.

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You said it yourself who would they trade with Iran?? You need access to the sea an Russia never had proper access to secure blue water ports with which to trade from.

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Except that you're not taking into account that an overland journey would be much shorter than a transoceanic one. A couple of hundred miles on bad roads vs a few thousand miles across the ocean.

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All of that is good and such, but the U.S. commodities still have to cross an ocean to be traded.

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I think you will find sending a barrel or whatever from America by boat to England will beat a barrel sent by cart from Russia plus they can carry more stuff reducing price and thereby reducing the cost of the voyage.


Russia is and always has been a landpower geography and security considerations have always made it so and it's lack of development has also hampered it.
But this does not mean Russia cannot be powerful chiefly again due to pure size.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

You said it yourself who would they trade with Iran?? You need access to the sea an Russia never had proper access to secure blue water ports with which to trade from.

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Why wouldn't they trade with Iran. They'd trade with whoever would be willing to pay.

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I think you will find sending a barrel or whatever from America by boat to England will beat a barrel sent by cart from Russia plus they can carry more stuff reducing price and thereby reducing the cost of the voyage.

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What holds true for England wouldn't hold true for, say, Poland.

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Russia is and always has been a landpower geography and security considerations have always made it so and it's lack of development has also hampered it. But this does not mean Russia cannot be powerful chiefly again due to pure size.

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If size was all that mattered, Russia should have been more powerful than anybody else simply because it's significantly larger than the competition.

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Originally Posted by rvg

Why wouldn't they trade with Iran. They'd trade with whoever would be willing to pay.

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Could they afford it Iran I mean by the time Russia could trade in 19th early 20th there industrila development was primitive at best. Later there products were not required because until the Shah was toppled as Iran was outside there orbit. Afterwards what did they have to give them only weapons a typical obsession of a land based power.

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What holds true for England wouldn't hold true for, say, Poland.

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Interesting and this proves what exactly that you can send a cartload of barrels to Poland it will still be more exspensive and awkard to trade this way. A horse needs feeding and it can only travel in daylight, while a ship can move all day an night and can carry it's crew supplies and trade goods together.

Land based trade required the train and the further east you went the less developed and integrated a rail network you had. By the time the Soviets arrived to get rail moving they were behind in the goods we might buy from them and crucially they isolated themselves from potential buyers though communism.

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If size was all that mattered, Russia should have been more powerful than anybody else simply because it's significantly larger than the competition.

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I said Russia can be powerful due to it's size I did not say they would or even can be all powerful.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Could they afford it Iran I mean by the time Russia could trade in 19th early 20th there industrila development was primitive at best.

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Russia has traded with Persia for a lot longer than that.

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Later there products were not required because until the Shah was toppled as Iran was outside there orbit. Afterwards what did they have to give them only weapons a typical obsession of a land based power.

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It wasn't an issue of orbit. Shah's dollars were just as green, and Russia traded extensively.

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Interesting and this proves what exactly that you can send a cartload of barrels to Poland it will still be more exspensive and awkard to trade this way. A horse needs feeding and it can only travel in daylight, while a ship can move all day an night and can carry it's crew supplies and trade goods together.

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Don't sailors need to eat and sleep?

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Land based trade required the train and the further east you went the less developed and integrated a rail network you had.

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If the land based trade required the train, then how was it possible to conduct land based trade before railroads came to be?

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I said Russia can be powerful due to it's size I did not say they would or even can be all powerful.

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And I didn't accuse you of saying that. My point all along has been that neither size nor population nor coastline can account for the success of the US as a nation: Russia has far more land, China has far more people, and Britain historically had a far better maritime trade network.

Now RVG I have really had enough of this continual back and forth were way off what the original statement I was trying to make.

This is that America was influenced in it's national character by it's size, because there was room to develop and crucially the means to do so both from a geographic and technical point of view.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Now RVG I have really had enough of this continual back and forth were way off what the original statement I was trying to make.

This is that America was influenced in it's national character by it's size, because there was room to develop and crucially the means to do so both from a geographic and technical point of view.

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So...here we go again: if size is so important, why isn't Russia or China further ahead? You keep mentioning the size, and I keep thinking about how the small nation of Japan, with barely any land or natural resources managed to first whip Russia in 1905 and later on make a mess out of China.

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Originally Posted by rvg

Russia has traded with Persia for a lot longer than that.


It wasn't an issue of orbit. Shah's dollars were just as green, and Russia traded extensively.


Don't sailors need to eat and sleep?


If the land based trade required the train, then how was it possible to conduct land based trade before railroads came to be?



And I didn't accuse you of saying that. My point all along has been that neither size nor population nor coastline can account for the success of the US as a nation: Russia has far more land, China has far more people, and Britain historically had a far better maritime trade network.

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Because before real sea trade got going everyone was landbased which removed any cmopetitive adavantage they might potentially have.
A cart driver needs to stop at night and change horses to contiue the journey safely, while a boat has a crew that can eat and sleep in shifts.

As already discussed once colonialism got really going the ship massively boosted trade and the train while good back then was not nearly good enough to go from China to France.


Crucially Russia and China also have problems with both restive populations and with greater actual security threats to the core. This has encouraged expansion to give strategic depth to secure there cores. There economies are landbased and while that was fine in the 14th century it was not fine in the 16th century and as discussed already China shut itself off which negatied it's own maritime advantage.

This has all combined to give them the typical landbased mindset always looking west and east in Russias case or inwards in Chinas case.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Because before real sea trade got going everyone was landbased which removed any cmopetitive adavantage they might potentially have.
A cart driver needs to stop at night and change horses to contiue the journey safely, while a boat has a crew that can eat and sleep in shifts.

As already discussed once colonialism got really going the ship massively boosted trade and the train while good back then was not nearly good enough to go from China to France.


Crucially Russia and China also have problems with both restive populations and with greater actual security threats to the core. This has encouraged expansion to give strategic depth to secure there cores. There economies are landbased and while that was fine in the 14th century it was not fine in the 16th century and as discussed already China shut itself off which negatied it's own maritime advantage.

This has all combined to give them the typical landbased mindset always looking west and east in Russias case or inwards in Chinas case.

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Okay, so if size and rivers and trade are so important, then how do you explain the success of Meiji Era Japan? No land to speak of, no resources to speak of, no colonies, almost completely isolated until the 1850s, and yet by 1900 Japan was a world class imperial power.

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Originally Posted by rvg

So...here we go again: if size is so important, why isn't Russia or China further ahead? You keep mentioning the size, and I keep thinking about how the small nation of Japan, with barely any land or natural resources managed to first whip Russia in 1905 and later on make a mess out of China.

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They whipped them in maritime Russia at a time when they were probably one of the weakest large European powers and crucially they beat them in Asia not Europe.

As discussed already China was behind in development and shut itself off leaving itself ripe for an aggressive power like Japan.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

They whipped them in maritime Russia at a time when they were probably one of the weakest large European powers and crucially they beat them in Asia not Europe.

As discussed already China was behind in development and shut itself off leaving itself ripe for an aggressive power like Japan.

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They beat Russia on land just as well. And while the battles took place in Asia, those were the same Russian soldiers as the ones that were stationed in European Russia.

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Originally Posted by rvg

Okay, so if size and rivers and trade are so important, then how do you explain the success of Meiji Era Japan? No land to speak of, no resources to speak of, no colonies, almost completely isolated until the 1850s, and yet by 1900 Japan was a world class imperial power.

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Indeed and what did they do as a result they opened up of course and then traded what little they had from there ports. There small size meant the new rail networks could cover them more easily to transport goods such as they were to port.

China is really only doing that now and hey presto look at that China is gettin massively rich harvesting a competitive advantage in numbers allied with global sea trade.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Indeed and what did they do as a result they opened up of course and then traded what little they had from there ports. There small size meant the new rail networks could cover them more easily to transport goods such as they were to port.

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Which means that the importance of size and resources has been highly overstated. Q.E.D.

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Originally Posted by rvg

They beat Russia on land just as well. And while the battles took place in Asia, those were the same Russian soldiers as the ones that were stationed in European Russia.

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Still in Asia and also far away from the european core the logistical nightmare of supplying from Europe as opposed to a short hop in a boat back to Japan does not compare.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Still in Asia and also far away from the european core the logistical nightmare of supplying from Europe as opposed to a short hop in a boat back to Japan does not compare.

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Difficult logistics can hardly account for tactical defeats though. The Battle of Mukden comes to mind.