Let's see. Lately I've been seeing a lot of ignorance from Americans regarding the "outside world", "foreigners" and especially done in a rather denegrating tone. That includes my people, the Dutch. Who are actually at the very core of the establishment of America, including its core principles and values.
It may be hard to believe for the anglo-centric worldview of the majority of Americans (gee, wonder why that is after a prolonged anglosaxon rule).
But let's look at the influence of the dutch on US society, past and present.
Let's start with the colonies. New Netherlands was a dutch colony that comprised the area today known as New York and surrounding states (yes, states).
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I'll just quote thise from the Wiki
Another interesting article can be found here:
http://www.godutch.com/newspaper/index.php?id=212
Alright, so basically, the Netherlands have largely been responsible if not a model for American core principles and concepts of freedoms: such as freedom of speech, freedom of suffrage, freedom of press and freedom of religion.
Even significant influences on law, like the concept of district attorney. Not to mention capitalism in the form of free trade, again a dutch 'invention': the first stock company in the world was formed in the Netherlands, called the VOC.
Some more reading:
http://roger-saunders.suite101.com/t...fluence-a35630
Contrasting quite starkly with people like Malorn, who think it is inconceivable for a foreigner to 'understand' these principles. Hey we just invented each and every one of them, but what do we know? Everything is invented by Americans, right? Well no. You were late to the party and simply poorly informed by your patriotic and nationalist education system. All your major advancements regarding civil rights were and are copies of Dutch advancements.
And you're actually still lagging behind. >__>
Note that the US is not signatory to all (which for the European ones is logical), but not even to all the non-European ones and still torture exists in places like Guantanamo Bay. Human rights are only conveniencies to the USA government, where many other governments have moved on.
In fact, the US constitution was largely based on the Dutch constitution. And the declaration of abjuration, or our declaration of independence from the Spanish, is also used as a template.
Gee. How about that?
But let's continue:
So you kinda desperately needed us for forming your nation and maintaining it on multiple occassions, but who needs us Dutch for anything, right? You may want to read the entire historical article there:
http://www.11thpa.org/dutch-arms.html
The reason the International Criminal Court (ICC) is housed in The Hague, governmental seat of the Netherlands, is exactly because of this history. A court of international law in the interest of human rights, which is may I remind you, not ratified by the USA. Quite the opposite, as mentioned earlier, the USA deemed itself qualified to enact a law that makes it "legal" to potentially invade the Netherlands and any other country, to spring the detention of US citizens accused of war crimes.
Many internationaly important tribunals, for instance regarding the Lockerbie disaster, were also performed in the Netherlands.
If we continue to look at modern day dutch influence on human rights, you will note that "new" freedoms, such as gay marriage (Amsterdam is considered the gay capital of the world in that respect), abortion (female rights), euthanasia (right to end ones own life under certain medical conditions), legalised soft drugs and prostitution (as a means to control and reduce related crime) and quite a few other "controversial" topics and ideas spring forth from the Netherlands.
Also, if we look at the foreign investors in America, the second largest European investor (after the UK), is the Netherlands. The investment is as large as the investments of 3/4s of
all Asian investments combined.
Furthermore, the human rights and eco-movements are also quite strong in the Netherlands. Eco organisations such as Greenpeace and Shepard have their HQ in the Netherlands for good reason.
So yeah. The idea is that without the Netherlands, the Americas past and present, its concepts, vision and other liberty related things would have looked entirely different. And I mean
entirely different. Probably with a certain British queen as your head of state. Quite likely half your country would still speak Spanish or French, since you'd have had to respect Louisianna's borders (or go to war with France) without our money. Which also means you could not have attacked Mexico by land directly and steal your entire western half of the US.
Either way, we butt-in on your political issues whenever the hell we like, for clearly it's in your best interest. Whether you like it or not. :P Besides, freedom of speech also goes for foreigners!
2012-04-14, 01:53 PM
Hybrid Mode
