Ten Things a Scotsman Noticed about America

There is a booming cottage industry of YouTube vloggers who share and celebrate the cultural differences between the United States and other nations and cultures.  Some of the most prominent, well-subscribed vloggers are British, and their commentaries are a fascinating window into the United States and our cultural differences and similarities.  Since a major theme of our humble blog has been to promote and celebrate the bonds that unite the English-speaking peoples, as Churchill understood the term, we are going to begin posting some of the more interesting and insightful of these.

We start with a very engaging Scotsman, Shaun from Edinburgh, whose enthusiasm and interest in the United States has resulted in his adopting the term "y'all."  We hope you will enjoy!

Americans Name Government as No. 1 U.S. Problem

The Face of Evil

From Gallup

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans continue to name the government (18%) as the most important U.S. problem, a distinction it has had for the past four months. Americans' mentions of the economy as the top problem (11%) dropped this month, leaving it tied with jobs (10%) for second place.

If You Can Keep It

From the Western Standard (Canada)

By Adam T. Yoshida

Certain friends (and, naturally, enemies as well) of mine are eager for the “fall of the American Empire.” They chortle with glee at the present economic troubles of the United States. They delight in the basically declinist views of Senator Obama and imagine an end to American exceptionalism – an America that “rejoins the world” after the Bush years. Well, to borrow from George Bernard Shaw, they may be about to learn that there are two tragedies in this life – one is not getting your heart’s desire, the other is getting it.

Yes, America is down. Yes, the United States has troubles. But what my friends fail to understand is that the present situation is not at all analogous to the fall of the Roman Empire. (Indeed, of course, the fall of the Roman Empire was not even the end of all of that – Byzantium endured for another thousand years). The very real prospect with which we are faced is not the fall of the American Empire but rather of the American Republic.

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