54 ms·

What an irony - the once European colonies which depended on their motherlands to defend them in an alien land, now become a menace or estranged godfather to Eu

by zkmon 3mo ago

What an irony - the once European colonies which depended on their motherlands to defend them in an alien land, now become a menace or estranged godfather to Europe.

alephnerd 3mo ago
At least 25% of us Americans have never had blood or ethnic ties with Europe. African Americans make up around 15% of the US, Asian Americans around 7%, Arab Americans around 1.5%, and Native Americans around 2%. That percentage is likely much higher when you factor Latino Americans - the plurality of whom either have indigenous or African ethnic origins. And some of America's richest and most politically powerful states like California and Texas have some of the lowest rates of European heritage in the nation. This whole "America is European" mentality reeks of West European supremacy and fails to recognize how diverse America is. The only European ethnic groups who still have active blood and ethnic ties with the old country tend to be Central and Eastern Europeans or Irish Americans - large pluralities of whom were forced to leave the old country due to colonial reasons (the Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and British rule in Ireland was equally destructive as colonial rule outside Europe). Alternatively, the only reason Western Europe didn't have a Park Chung Hee, Suharto, or Zia was because Europeans who were naturalized Americans like Brzeziński (Poland), Kissinger (Germany), and Albright (Czechoslovakia) ran policy during the Cold War era. The modern equivalents of Brzeziński, Albright, and Kissinger are all either Heritage (ie. Pre-Civil War), Latino, Asian, or Arab American. Why should European states be given privileges that Japan, South Korea, Phillipines, Taiwan, and others weren't extended until the last 30 years? We are not a European ethnostate. We are America.
- rapidaneurism 3mo ago
  I had the impression that (at least some of) those groups contain people of mixed ancestry including European ancestry. Am I wrong? Is the child of a white person and a black person not considered black in the US? Is that not the case form the other groups too?
  - alephnerd 3mo ago
    Mixed Race is a separate census designation which represents an additional 10% of the US. Either way Europeans overestimate American ties to Europe. If you actually visit America in 2026, most culture is either domestic, Asian, or Latino. Heck, the majority of Americans began viewing Asia and not Europe as America's most important partners back in 2009 [0]. [0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/americans-turn-their-backs-on-europe/ https://www.politico.eu/article/americans-turn-their-backs-o...
    - t-3 3mo ago
      Way more than 10%, because Hispanics are not considered mixed race even though most of us are.
- true_religion 3mo ago
  To be fair, the US is arguably even more of a menace to Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and even the descendent of native Americans who live in other countries (e.g. Mexico). So the OPs point is internally consistent, even generalized past a mentality that 'reeks of West European supremacy'.
  - alephnerd 3mo ago
    As an Asian American I strongly disagree, as do most others of us non-white Americans. You guys don't actually understand how stuff actually works here or how we think. Our (Asian and Latino) ancestral countries economies are heavily tied with the US and leadership in our ancestral countries (excluding PRC ofc) remains either pro-Trump (look at the elections all across Latin America this year) or pro-America but Trump ambivalent (eg. Brazil and India). And unlike Europe, at least in Asia all the states began arming and building strategic autonomy all the way back in the Obama 1 admin as part of the "Pivot to Asia". You guys also don't seem to get the fact that the plurality of Americans have viewed Asia and not Europe as our most important partner since all the way back in 2009 [0]. We (the non-Europe aligned Americans) are increasingly climbing the rungs to become the decisionmaker's now in both parties. Benign Atlanticism is dead in 2026. All that matters now is G2. If that means both us and China squeezing Europe until it pops, so be it - when elephants fight it's the grass that gets stomped on. [0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/americans-turn-their-backs-on-europe/ https://www.politico.eu/article/americans-turn-their-backs-o...
    - constantius 3mo ago
      This is the weirdest rant I've read from you, in all my years on HN, and will colour my future reading of your contributions. Unless I'm mistaken, you seem to view the world in terms of race, tribalism, and might-makes-right: even if those you accept to be the unfortunate bystanders are different from who they were historically, I'll concede that you are fully in line with the American tradition. And same as with the pre-2008 (per your comment) American tradition, it's an ideology that will make the world a worse place. Shame.
- abcdxyz999 3mo ago
  There is no real supremacy for western europeans since they built wealth by looting others. They didn't have to do that. Analogy would be some persons doing bank robbery, chain snatching, slavery etc instead of doing agriculture without slavery or working in a real ethical job which isn't cheating or looting or harming others to earn income or wealth.
  - abcdxyz999 3mo ago
    They could have survived and thrived without colonialism or slavery or imperialism.
- r3trohack3r 3mo ago
  > America is European When I hear this, I think of the philosophy, system of laws, language, etc. in America - and not the percentages we get when we segregate the American population by their ancestors.
  - alephnerd 3mo ago
    What I mean is we aren't going to give European states undue favoritism due to personal ties, which Brzeziński, Kissinger, and Albright all did in some shape or form. After 1945, Western Europe got Pan-Atlanticism but now much more dynamic South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, etc got dictatorships, military rule, and single party rule. Now that we are pivoting to our Hemisphere and Asia due to G2, the gloves have begun to fall off with regards to Europe. US-Asia trade already dwarfs US-Europe trade, and Europe is a secondary concern compared to G2.
    - Milligram 3mo ago
      "US-Asia trade already dwarfs US-Europe trade", that is not really true now is it? Here is a quote from John Hopkins foreign policy institute in their THE TRANSATLANTIC ECONOMY 2026 report: "The facts are straightforward but often ignored. The $9.8 trillion commercial relationship between the United States and Europe is by a wide margin the deepest, broadest, and most mutually beneficial between any two continents in history – and those ties are accelerating despite the headline noise." Source: https://www.uschamber.com/assets/documents/Transatlantic-Economy-2026.pdf https://www.uschamber.com/assets/documents/Transatlantic-Eco... The EU is the worlds largest trading block, anyone is welcome not doing business with us, but it will likely be at your loss.
- jltsiren 3mo ago
  > At least 25% of us Americans have never had blood or ethnic ties with Europe. > African Americans make up around 15% of the US, Asian Americans around 7%, Arab Americans around 1.5%, and Native Americans around 2%. Those are cultural identities. The average African American has ~20% European ancestry. Latin Americans vary by country and region of origin, but on the average, they have more European than Native American ancestry.
  - alephnerd 3mo ago
    Yes, but most do not associate with some form of European identity or solidarity. The overwhelming majority of African Americans do not view Europeans as their kin and vice versa. Same with a plurality of Latinos depending on where they come from as well as their race. OP's comment represents a very common sentiment and implication I've noticed amongst Europeans: 1. That America is inherently "European" and always will be 2. America has an obligation to Europe over other regions of the world 3. Americans view Europe as more important than other regions of the world 4. That Americans from non-European backgrounds are not in policymaking positions or that our opinions don't affect American political discourse The Atlanticist world that existed from 1945 to 2008 only existed because the older generation of national security advisors and foreign policy hands in the US were first-generation European immigrants. Their era is long gone on both sides of the aisle. Culturally, America is much closer now to Latin America or Asia looking at music, television, and fashion. Economically (based on bilateral trade flow), America is much closer to Asia and the Americas than Europe. And even demographically, those with living blood ties to Europe are a fraction of those with living blood ties to Asia or Latin America. And the rise of "Heritage Americans" as an ethnic identifier also highlights how the one subgroup of white Americans who might have been open to keeping ties with Europe is turning their back on the continent as well. Asia and the Americas are prepared for such a world, but Europeans still think America has some obligation to help them or treat their states as equals when they are at best junior partners.
    - jltsiren 3mo ago
      > Culturally, America is much closer now to Latin America or Asia. That's an interesting statement. From my perspective, Latin America is clearly European, in the sense I understand the concept. It feels much like Russia. Major cities and densely populated regions are European, with local characteristics. But there are other cultures around, and they are dominant in some regions. And if you travel in fringe areas, you often find peoples that have not fully accepted the European cultural package. I don't see Europeanness as something associated with specific ethnic groups or states. It's a cultural package that started spreading from the Roman Empire and was imposed upon different peoples at different times. Where I'm from, that happened ~800 years ago, though rural areas often kept to the old pagan ways until the 17th century. That time frame is not too different from what happened in the Americas.
- carlosjobim 3mo ago
  > African Americans make up around 15% Almost all African Americans have some European heritage by blood. If you go to Africa you will see some truly dark skinned people, who haven't any European ancestry. How can you not have noticed this in a world of global broadcasts?
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- eesmith 3mo ago
  Do you not consider Roman Catholicism to be part of the European heritage? I sure do. A lot of Latino Americans and indigenous people are Roman Catholics, so part of European heritage. I don't understand why you mention "never had blood .. ties" when at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48842245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48842245 you reject the relevancy of blood ties. Wouldn't your argument make more sense as just "never had ethnic ties with Europe. As a reminder, Obama, African-American son of a white woman, once visited Moneygall, where an Irish ancestor lived, and said "My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas." Lastly, I see you switched from "blood or ethic ties" to "heritage". Could you elaborate on what that means? Must I be Greek inherit some of the intellectual heritage of Ancient Greece? How is my claim to the traditional European liberal arts education heritage any stronger or weaker than that of W. E. B. Du Bois?
carlosjobim 3mo ago
Now? The last name of the man who conquered Europe through a crusade of enormous bloodshed was Eisenhower.

by zkmon 3mo ago

What an irony - the once European colonies which depended on their motherlands to defend them in an alien land, now become a menace or estranged godfather to Europe.

alephnerd 3mo ago

At least 25% of us Americans have never had blood or ethnic ties with Europe. African Americans make up around 15% of the US, Asian Americans around 7%, Arab Americans around 1.5%, and Native Americans around 2%. That percentage is likely much higher when you factor Latino Americans - the plurality of whom either have indigenous or African ethnic origins. And some of America's richest and most politically powerful states like California and Texas have some of the lowest rates of European heritage in the nation. This whole "America is European" mentality reeks of West European supremacy and fails to recognize how diverse America is. The only European ethnic groups who still have active blood and ethnic ties with the old country tend to be Central and Eastern Europeans or Irish Americans - large pluralities of whom were forced to leave the old country due to colonial reasons (the Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and British rule in Ireland was equally destructive as colonial rule outside Europe). Alternatively, the only reason Western Europe didn't have a Park Chung Hee, Suharto, or Zia was because Europeans who were naturalized Americans like Brzeziński (Poland), Kissinger (Germany), and Albright (Czechoslovakia) ran policy during the Cold War era. The modern equivalents of Brzeziński, Albright, and Kissinger are all either Heritage (ie. Pre-Civil War), Latino, Asian, or Arab American. Why should European states be given privileges that Japan, South Korea, Phillipines, Taiwan, and others weren't extended until the last 30 years? We are not a European ethnostate. We are America.

rapidaneurism 3mo ago
I had the impression that (at least some of) those groups contain people of mixed ancestry including European ancestry. Am I wrong? Is the child of a white person and a black person not considered black in the US? Is that not the case form the other groups too?
- alephnerd 3mo ago
  Mixed Race is a separate census designation which represents an additional 10% of the US. Either way Europeans overestimate American ties to Europe. If you actually visit America in 2026, most culture is either domestic, Asian, or Latino. Heck, the majority of Americans began viewing Asia and not Europe as America's most important partners back in 2009 [0]. [0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/americans-turn-their-backs-on-europe/ https://www.politico.eu/article/americans-turn-their-backs-o...
  - t-3 3mo ago
    Way more than 10%, because Hispanics are not considered mixed race even though most of us are.
true_religion 3mo ago
To be fair, the US is arguably even more of a menace to Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and even the descendent of native Americans who live in other countries (e.g. Mexico). So the OPs point is internally consistent, even generalized past a mentality that 'reeks of West European supremacy'.
- alephnerd 3mo ago
  As an Asian American I strongly disagree, as do most others of us non-white Americans. You guys don't actually understand how stuff actually works here or how we think. Our (Asian and Latino) ancestral countries economies are heavily tied with the US and leadership in our ancestral countries (excluding PRC ofc) remains either pro-Trump (look at the elections all across Latin America this year) or pro-America but Trump ambivalent (eg. Brazil and India). And unlike Europe, at least in Asia all the states began arming and building strategic autonomy all the way back in the Obama 1 admin as part of the "Pivot to Asia". You guys also don't seem to get the fact that the plurality of Americans have viewed Asia and not Europe as our most important partner since all the way back in 2009 [0]. We (the non-Europe aligned Americans) are increasingly climbing the rungs to become the decisionmaker's now in both parties. Benign Atlanticism is dead in 2026. All that matters now is G2. If that means both us and China squeezing Europe until it pops, so be it - when elephants fight it's the grass that gets stomped on. [0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/americans-turn-their-backs-on-europe/ https://www.politico.eu/article/americans-turn-their-backs-o...
  - constantius 3mo ago
    This is the weirdest rant I've read from you, in all my years on HN, and will colour my future reading of your contributions. Unless I'm mistaken, you seem to view the world in terms of race, tribalism, and might-makes-right: even if those you accept to be the unfortunate bystanders are different from who they were historically, I'll concede that you are fully in line with the American tradition. And same as with the pre-2008 (per your comment) American tradition, it's an ideology that will make the world a worse place. Shame.
abcdxyz999 3mo ago
There is no real supremacy for western europeans since they built wealth by looting others. They didn't have to do that. Analogy would be some persons doing bank robbery, chain snatching, slavery etc instead of doing agriculture without slavery or working in a real ethical job which isn't cheating or looting or harming others to earn income or wealth.
- abcdxyz999 3mo ago
  They could have survived and thrived without colonialism or slavery or imperialism.
r3trohack3r 3mo ago
> America is European When I hear this, I think of the philosophy, system of laws, language, etc. in America - and not the percentages we get when we segregate the American population by their ancestors.
- alephnerd 3mo ago
  What I mean is we aren't going to give European states undue favoritism due to personal ties, which Brzeziński, Kissinger, and Albright all did in some shape or form. After 1945, Western Europe got Pan-Atlanticism but now much more dynamic South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, etc got dictatorships, military rule, and single party rule. Now that we are pivoting to our Hemisphere and Asia due to G2, the gloves have begun to fall off with regards to Europe. US-Asia trade already dwarfs US-Europe trade, and Europe is a secondary concern compared to G2.
  - Milligram 3mo ago
    "US-Asia trade already dwarfs US-Europe trade", that is not really true now is it? Here is a quote from John Hopkins foreign policy institute in their THE TRANSATLANTIC ECONOMY 2026 report: "The facts are straightforward but often ignored. The $9.8 trillion commercial relationship between the United States and Europe is by a wide margin the deepest, broadest, and most mutually beneficial between any two continents in history – and those ties are accelerating despite the headline noise." Source: https://www.uschamber.com/assets/documents/Transatlantic-Economy-2026.pdf https://www.uschamber.com/assets/documents/Transatlantic-Eco... The EU is the worlds largest trading block, anyone is welcome not doing business with us, but it will likely be at your loss.
jltsiren 3mo ago
> At least 25% of us Americans have never had blood or ethnic ties with Europe. > African Americans make up around 15% of the US, Asian Americans around 7%, Arab Americans around 1.5%, and Native Americans around 2%. Those are cultural identities. The average African American has ~20% European ancestry. Latin Americans vary by country and region of origin, but on the average, they have more European than Native American ancestry.
- alephnerd 3mo ago
  Yes, but most do not associate with some form of European identity or solidarity. The overwhelming majority of African Americans do not view Europeans as their kin and vice versa. Same with a plurality of Latinos depending on where they come from as well as their race. OP's comment represents a very common sentiment and implication I've noticed amongst Europeans: 1. That America is inherently "European" and always will be 2. America has an obligation to Europe over other regions of the world 3. Americans view Europe as more important than other regions of the world 4. That Americans from non-European backgrounds are not in policymaking positions or that our opinions don't affect American political discourse The Atlanticist world that existed from 1945 to 2008 only existed because the older generation of national security advisors and foreign policy hands in the US were first-generation European immigrants. Their era is long gone on both sides of the aisle. Culturally, America is much closer now to Latin America or Asia looking at music, television, and fashion. Economically (based on bilateral trade flow), America is much closer to Asia and the Americas than Europe. And even demographically, those with living blood ties to Europe are a fraction of those with living blood ties to Asia or Latin America. And the rise of "Heritage Americans" as an ethnic identifier also highlights how the one subgroup of white Americans who might have been open to keeping ties with Europe is turning their back on the continent as well. Asia and the Americas are prepared for such a world, but Europeans still think America has some obligation to help them or treat their states as equals when they are at best junior partners.
  - jltsiren 3mo ago
    > Culturally, America is much closer now to Latin America or Asia. That's an interesting statement. From my perspective, Latin America is clearly European, in the sense I understand the concept. It feels much like Russia. Major cities and densely populated regions are European, with local characteristics. But there are other cultures around, and they are dominant in some regions. And if you travel in fringe areas, you often find peoples that have not fully accepted the European cultural package. I don't see Europeanness as something associated with specific ethnic groups or states. It's a cultural package that started spreading from the Roman Empire and was imposed upon different peoples at different times. Where I'm from, that happened ~800 years ago, though rural areas often kept to the old pagan ways until the 17th century. That time frame is not too different from what happened in the Americas.
carlosjobim 3mo ago
> African Americans make up around 15% Almost all African Americans have some European heritage by blood. If you go to Africa you will see some truly dark skinned people, who haven't any European ancestry. How can you not have noticed this in a world of global broadcasts?
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
eesmith 3mo ago
Do you not consider Roman Catholicism to be part of the European heritage? I sure do. A lot of Latino Americans and indigenous people are Roman Catholics, so part of European heritage. I don't understand why you mention "never had blood .. ties" when at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48842245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48842245 you reject the relevancy of blood ties. Wouldn't your argument make more sense as just "never had ethnic ties with Europe. As a reminder, Obama, African-American son of a white woman, once visited Moneygall, where an Irish ancestor lived, and said "My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas." Lastly, I see you switched from "blood or ethic ties" to "heritage". Could you elaborate on what that means? Must I be Greek inherit some of the intellectual heritage of Ancient Greece? How is my claim to the traditional European liberal arts education heritage any stronger or weaker than that of W. E. B. Du Bois?

carlosjobim 3mo ago

Now? The last name of the man who conquered Europe through a crusade of enormous bloodshed was Eisenhower.