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What Americans Think about Daily Life


By rights we ought to celebrate June 21st as our nation's birthday, but what can you do? July 4th is simply more dramatic.
 
 
 
 
 
 
When I was younger, President’s Day was Washington’s Birthday. A federal holiday. Lincoln’s birthday was noted on all calendars, but wasn’t a federal holiday. Then in 1971, Washington’s Birthday was changed to President’s day. I’d rather they just left it alone.
 
Ditto that, I remember the same and have long thought that changing Washington's Day to President's Day was a big step backwards, we have had some godawful presidents. Of course, I've also long thought that June 21st--the date the ninth state ratified the US Constitution and so it went into effect--is just as important as July 4th and should be recognized as such. Though with that being so close to July 4th we could instead go with September 17th, the day the Constitutional Convention ended with 38 out of 41 delegates signing it. One of the greatest political miracles of all time, Machiavelli would have been absolutely stunned.
 
 
I’d never given that any thought. Yeah, under the Articles of Confederation we still basically weren’t a nation, just 13 colonies or states with each governing themselves. It was a situation where if 12 states went along with something, one state could veto the whole thing. One state or colony had veto power. No one back then looked on themselves as Americans or the nation as the United States, more as a confederation of colonies.

It is a miracle that the constitution as adopted. This short description of the articles of confederation

 
@Perotista, yeah, we weren't so much the United States as we were the united States, the closest thing we had to Americans were some of the former soldiers of the Continental Army and Benjamin Franklin (and Alexander Hamilton, now that I think about it). The Continental Congress wasn't so much a legislature as a collection of diplomats from the thirteen states, each and every one fully sovereign.
 
About the only thing the continental congress was united on was the war against England. Then it was what is best for each colony. Each had their colony’s best interest at heart. I don’t think anyone recognized themselves as Americans until around the Spanish-American War. Until then they always referred to themselves after the revolution as New Yorkers, Georgians, Virginians, Pennsylvanians etc. It was from the state they were from, not the country. If someone was visiting France let’s say, when asked where they were from, they answer with their state, not country.

They’re loyalty was to their state more than country until around 1900. It’s almost impossible today for anyone to understand that today. Even after the constitution the states were aligned regionally, not as a single country yet. You seen this especially in the war of 1812 with New England almost seceding from the union and then of course, the civil war.
 
@Perotista, I think you're mostly pushing the loyalty to state over nation a little too far out, it faded fairly quickly after the Civil War. Though there were naturally regional variations--Utah was mostly more loyal to church than nation at least up to the 1900s (and may still be, though if so it's hidden by a lack of points of conflict), and Texas ... !
 
 
 
You have to sign-in or create an account to read it. Frankly, when reading what Americans like or dislike, I get depressed. With all due respect.
why?
 
Frankly, when reading what Americans like or dislike, I get depressed. With all due respect.
No due respect needed. The fact that 36% of American Adults agree with Smith’s actions after Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife is outrageous and, yeah, depressing.
 
You have to sign-in or create an account to read it. Frankly, when reading what Americans like or dislike, I get depressed. With all due respect.
Because Rasmussen is a business, not a charity? But not all of the reports are mostly behind paywalls (you can see the beginning with the gist of the result), and since I've paid for the membership you can ask me for demographic details. (That assumes you're asking about the paywall and not why HIP56948 gets depressed, of course.)
 
 
 
 
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