America. One nation, under God?

[gsmoove23]

Got into this completely OT discussion in another thread so I'm bringing it here and assuming I can get this poll to work it might be interesting to see.

Are the American civ traits appropriate and most importantly could America be considered a religious civ.

It would be cool if Firaxis used a poll like this for every civ. That way if someone complains they can't be blaimed.

[One_Brow]

I chose "Commercial" and "Expansionist".

America is practically the antithesis of a "Religious" civilization. There is no state religion, there is no popular mandate for a state religion (hence, no extra-cheap temples and cathedrals), there has only been one government type change (from Republic to Democracy), which had a period of a few years of Anarchy.

I don't dispute the game's use of "Industrial", though, since England is even more "Commercial" civ than we.

[Cyclotron]

I could make a case for any one of these, but game balance aside I would choose Ind/Exp.

[Wernazuma III]

I think America could be considered a religious civ in many aspects compared to European civs, but not enough to justify "Religious" being among the 2 most important traits.
I chose Com/Exp, but religious would have come third.

[gsmoove23]

I think America had one of the smoothest and stablest transitions to democracy ever. Its also been argued that the school voucher system currently being experimented with in many states is specificly geared toward supporting religious private schools.

The most telling point for me though is the recent court ruling which claimed the phrase "one nation, under God" in our pledge of allegiance, which children repeat everyday in our schools, was unconstitutional. IMO this seemed apropriate given the supposed separation of church and state written into our constitution, but there was an uproar all around the country, even George W. protested(although this is no suprise, taking into account his stance on gene therapy research and his administration and appointees) and its expected the ruling won't stand.

I don't know if America today could be called a religious civ but there definately is a strong force in the country trying to make it one and christianity and christian beliefs have been at the heart of American life for most of its life despite what it says in our constitution.

[One_Brow]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
I think America had one of the smoothest and stablest transitions to democracy ever.

Smooth and stable, but not productive on the federal level, much like an Anarchy when you have planty of luxuries and no war.

Its also been argued that the school voucher system currently being experimented with in many states is specificly geared toward supporting religious private schools.

That may be the intent of many of it's sponsers, but it will help secular private schools equally well.

The most telling point for me though is the recent court ruling which claimed the phrase "one nation, under God" in our pledge of allegiance, which children repeat everyday in our schools, was unconstitutional. IMO this seemed apropriate given the supposed separation of church and state written into our constitution, but there was an uproar all around the country, even George W. protested(although this is no suprise, taking into account his stance on gene therapy research and his administration and appointees) and its expected the ruling won't stand.

I don't know where you heard this. From what I've read, everything that was said about the change in the pledge in the 1950's showed the phrase "under God" was added to promote monotheism. There just isn't much to overturn.

I don't know if America today could be called a religious civ but there definately is a strong force in the country trying to make it one and christianity and christian beliefs have been at the heart of American life for most of its life despite what it says in our constitution.

There is a force, but it is more vocal than strong, like small dog with a loud bark. For example, the idea of state-enforced prayer in schools scares almost as many conservative Christians as it pleases, not to mention liberals. The attempt to boycott the army into disallowing Wiccans to practice their riturals has been completely ineffective.

As for the "heart of American life", this has always been a country where you could be anything you wanted (except perhaps a politician) wiothout worry that you were atheist, deist, Muslim, etc., with relatively little discrimination. It's a tradition going back to the founding of the Rhode Island colony. In fact, deists were at least as central to the founding of the country as Christians.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
I think America had one of the smoothest and stablest transitions to democracy ever.

Originally posted by One_Brow

there has only been one government type change (from Republic to Democracy), which had a period of a few years of Anarchy

Which change are you talking about? The war of independence? The civil war?

[gsmoove23]

One_Brow, I don't think whether the federalists won out or not is any indication of whether it was anarchic or not. Production, research and trade still continued with revenue being collected by the individual states. The lack of a strong centralized government might have limited efficiency but it certainly wasn't anarchic. Its more representative of an overlarge civ without an FP or perhaps even a palace. (These conversations all sound so geeky)

The most major hitch to the government change was the Civil War which came almost a century later but was primarily fought over the still unresolved question of centralized government or no. Whether you want to call this anarchy due to government change or not its really up in the air.

You're right about the school vouchers, but the religious backers of these bills are the important point. They also influence our current policy on gene therapy research and have a strong influence on US support of Israel, the logic being securing the right of the Jewish people to their homeland as stated in the Bible. This isn't an insignificant voice, its quite strong and pointing out insignificant losses they've suffered will not change that. Take a look at recent appointees in the Bush administration, and consider that a couple supreme court Justice positions should be opening up pretty soon, its very worrysome to me at least. Here is one article that I found interesting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Sto...820528,00.html

As for my statements on the pledge of allegiance ruling I'm sorry I didn't back them up. Here is the day of the ruling story on cnn.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/06/26/pledge.allegiance/

'Outraged lawmakers on both sides of the aisle blasted the ruling as "outrageous," "nuts," and "stupid." The U.S. Senate was so outraged by the decision that it passed a resolution 99-0 "expressing support for the Pledge of Allegiance" and asking Senate counsel to "seek to intervene in the case."'

But even more interesting is the day after...

"Just one day after he stunned the nation by declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, a federal appeals court judge on Thursday blocked his own ruling from being enforced indefinitely."

from
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,56367,00.html

and here is an article discussing why the pledge decision may be reversed.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...ledge-hold.htm

The scary thing is the ruling makes perfect sense, as you stated. Certainly more then an insignificant force.

[Gangerolf]

you forgot scientific

[Gangerolf]

Scientific: They've invented alot of stuff.

and

Commercial: It's the high castle of capitalism.

[One_Brow]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Which change are you talking about? The war of independence? The civil war?

The change from being the Civ equivalent of Monarchy to Democracy, under the Articles of Confederation.

I'm not saying that this was an anarchy in real life, but it was a very good approximation of Anarchy in Civ III.

[One_Brow]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
One_Brow, I don't think whether the federalists won out or not is any indication of whether it was anarchic or not. Production, research and trade still continued with revenue being collected by the individual states. The lack of a strong centralized government might have limited efficiency but it certainly wasn't anarchic. Its more representative of an overlarge civ without an FP or perhaps even a palace. (These conversations all sound so geeky)

I think we agree here. Remember, I used "Anarchy", not "anarchy", to indicate the Civ III government. Every city supports itself in Anarchy, and growth continues, but there is no support for Civilization-wide projects and development. This sounds very much like the US under the Articles of Confederation.

You're right about the school vouchers, but the religious backers of these bills are the important point. They also influence our current policy on gene therapy research and have a strong influence on US support of Israel, the logic being securing the right of the Jewish people to their homeland as stated in the Bible. This isn't an insignificant voice, its quite strong and pointing out insignificant losses they've suffered will not change that.

On issues like gene therapy and Israel, I think you'll find a lot more popular support for their causes, and that is why they seem to lead the nation. The most vocal group opf the majority opinion, so to speak.

When they stand alone, they have little influence.

The scary thing is the ruling makes perfect sense, as you stated. Certainly more then an insignificant force.

Again, the reaction to PoA ruling shows a w-de-sprectrum support for reversing, with consevratives merely being a loud voice in the response. I doubt Kennedy and Wellstone voted in favor of the Senate resolution from the pressure of religious conservatives.

[ruby_maser]

someone suggested in another thread way back when that you should be able to choose any civ's 2 traits from a list of 3 possible traits. At least you would get some choice in the matter of what aspects of a civilization you really wanted to maximize.

[gsmoove23]

Oops, big gaffe on the scientific, sorry. Knew I was missing something.

One_Brow, I was referring to the Anarchy government form. I don't think the initial period could be argued as that form for the reasons I stated. The central government was not strong yet but as I said this is like a Democracy with no FP or even no palace, which would stand to reason since DC wasn't there yet. Not only did the cities and states take care of themselves but they fielded a significant federal army to challenge the British Empire. Anarchy is a drastic example where 0 production or taxes can be harnessed by the federal government. This was not the case.

Your reference to wide spectrum support for the obviously unconstitutional addition of "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance seems to support my arguement. Its this wide spectrum Christian support for many policies that makes the Christian Right such a power, of course the large number of christians in the country are their powerbase.

You suggested earlier that because of freedom of religion through much of American history (there are some significant periods of persecution of certain religions) it could not be a religious civ but I wouldn't define willingness to persecute antoher religion as a religious civ. The Arab civ is certainly religious but through much of its history it was relatively tolerant to other religions, certainly compared to its contemporaries.

ruby_master, I agree actually. I would prefer that you could choose any of the traits in the beginning of the game, no matter what your civ.

[One_Brow]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
One_Brow, I was referring to the Anarchy government form. I don't think the initial period could be argued as that form for the reasons I stated. The central government was not strong yet but as I said this is like a Democracy with no FP or even no palace, which would stand to reason since DC wasn't there yet. Not only did the cities and states take care of themselves but they fielded a significant federal army to challenge the British Empire. Anarchy is a drastic example where 0 production or taxes can be harnessed by the federal government. This was not the case.

Under the Continental Congress, I would agree it was not the Civ equivalent of Anarchy. I was referring to the periord of the Articles of Confederation, which saw a different currency in every state and virtually no national agenda.

Your reference to wide spectrum support for the obviously unconstitutional addition of "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance seems to support my arguement. Its this wide spectrum Christian support for many policies that makes the Christian Right such a power, of course the large number of christians in the country are their powerbase.

The thing is, they don't have a large number of Christians within their powerbase, rather, probably less than 10% of the poplulation. There are a large number of Christians, but far more are liberal/moderate than conservative. I agree that a wide spectrum of Christian support on certain issues translates into political power (such as the "under God" phrase), but the conservative movement here is simply the most vocal component. They are not directing the issue.

Again, note their complete lack of influence on issues that liberal/moderate Christians do not support (such as suppression of Wicca in the Armed Forces).

You suggested earlier that because of freedom of religion through much of American history (there are some significant periods of persecution of certain religions) it could not be a religious civ but I wouldn't define willingness to persecute antoher religion as a religious civ. The Arab civ is certainly religious but through much of its history it was relatively tolerant to other religions, certainly compared to its contemporaries.

I was responding to a comment about the "heart of American life". I just don't see any religion as being the "heart of American life", unlike Islam would be in an Arabian civ. Tolerance is but one measure of that. However, given tolerance, you need to have some strong positive reason for a civ being "Religious", which I don't see for the USA.

[Beren]

America is a hard one. I think it has been argued enough that America shouldn't be religious. At this moment they are more religious than Europe, but if you take that for a measure, everybody but Europe is religious (except the communists, well maybe they religiously believe in communism. Ok, the former communist states, I don't think they believe anything? Poland does..... How about the rest of Eastern Europe. Anyway, back to topic.)

All the other traits have a reason.... I wouldn't go for expansionist. Ok, they expanded into Indian country, but they also supported decolonisation and gave the Philipines independance. The US are not seeking expansion now (who is? Well, Saddam is... Osama is.... And all other freaks.....) Or is expansionist meant to represent going into unknown areas to explore and make settlements...... Maybe, but I am not convinced. The expansionist trait is not really of applicance to twentieth century America.

Scientific, well I think this trait was only circumstantial. America is such a good economy and thanks to that science concentrates in America.

Commercial and Industruous would represent the American dream. Commercial trait is a bit strange, it gives gold from cities. You could maybe see it as taxes. How do you represent a tax cut? Or a tax raise? I think industruous is more for hierarcic civilisations where the people are virtually slaves to the government (such as Egypt, in a less degree China/Japan/Korea (Confucius)).

Maybe America should be militaristic. Don't get me wrong: militaristic does not mean agressive, it means you buy a lot of military.

Conclusion: I haven't made my mind up, but I wouldn't go for Religious and Industruous. And I feel I should reject expansionist (for modern America, at least...) Commercial should be in, I think... and militaristic or scientific. I am not sure.

[gsmoove23]

Well I'll give in on the religious bit I guess. Perhaps I should say its more religious then I would like(In saying that I mean religious in its politics, I have no problems with religious people or christians) and it certainly IMO has a clearly christian heart but its done so many other things that perhaps this wouldn't be considered a primary trait.

I disagree with militaristic because we have a long history of being non-militaristic, a position of strength or leadership in the world due to our economic power has put us in the position of intervening in different areas in the world. I don't think we have a very large military compared to how much money we have either and we certainly don't have a very military culture compared to say Germany who still has a national service although their militarism has been largely expunged.

Industrious is a tough one, I guess I don't really understand the trait but I don't think there is anything special about our workers. The really amazing feats we have made I think are more due to revolutionary management techniques then anything else, plus normally we are famous for using immigrant workers, slaves.

So we come to commercial, our revolution was fought over taxes after all and I think this is the key. Our history is full of innovative business techniques even up to the present day.

Scientific is much like religious, certainly played an important part in our history but it is overshadowed by other aspects and more due to the commercial succes then anything else.

Expansionism, true we are not expansionist today but what country is? Iraq? It is an integral part of the first half of our existence, even beyond the conquest to the west coast to our success in the Spanish American War which turned us into colonialists in the truest sense of the word.

Yeah Commercial Expansionist even though I think this is way to simplistic to really describe our civ.

[Serb]

Commercial and... commercial. Best choice.

[Beren]

It's too bad they didn't include extra traits in the expansion pack. I had some ideas:
Nationalistic: when conquered your people will easier revolt against their oppressor, also less likely to be deposed (definately for Greece and some European nations as well.)
Cultural: Reduces border expansion from let's say 10 to 9. Your cultural affect region expands more rapidly (I don't know what civ this should be.)
Cosmopolitistic (or something like that): Counterpart of nationalistic. Other nationalities will integrate easier and conquered people are less likely to revolt. This last one should be for America (one big melting pot) in combination with commercial. This one is definately for the Romans as well, so we can replace commercial (it doesn't make sense with the Romans.) Romans were true masters in integrating conquered nations in their empire and make them feel 'Roman'.

If anyone has any alternative ideas for new traits throw it into the groop discussion. (Maybe we should start a new thread.)

[Serb]

Cultural: Reduces border expansion from let's say 10 to 9. Your cultural affect region expands more rapidly (I don't know what civ this should be.)

France.

[Beren]

I have thought of another trait, but I don't know a correct name for it. Something like agricultural or fast-growing: reduced grain ammount needed to let cities grow (Once again, I cannot think of a civ who would be like this)

Someone suggested in a different thread that the Incas should be able to build on mountains. Maybe you could make that a trait as well.

[Apep]

As an outsider (a Kiwi). I would think of America as militaristic (In 300 or so years look how many wars America has been involved in) & expansionist (Goes hand in hand with militaristic really) after all it is known as 'America' even though it's a relativly small portion of the American Continents.

[Apep]

There is also that high-and-mightydom which everyone outside America so despises, could that be a trait? Extreme nationalism perhaps?

[Serb]

Extreme nationalism means nazism btw.

[Beren]

Apep, thank you for your anti-Americanistic intermezzo. You are right, the current American foreign policy is a plague to the world and solely based on America's industry interests. (And I don't just mean the wars. I also mean all the treaties they refuse to acknowledge. But let's end this here and now. I don't feel like starting a 500 reply forum again.... today at least.)

But if you look at the large view of America, I wouldn't call them expansionistic. I think it is meant to refer to the 19th century expansion against the Indians, but I don't see 20th century America has done great things since the Second World War for dekolonisation, which I would consider anti-expansionistic.

[gsmoove23]

England also went through an anti-expansionist period and they certainly haven't expanded much since WWI, but what defines them is empire and I would have to say what partly defines America for me is manifest destiny and the idea of "taming" the frontier.

But expansionism and militarism do not have to go hand in hand. America through most of its existence has actively tried to avoid foreign entanglements and has not been known maintaining a very impressive military. Its main advantage in this area is its ability to outspend opponents and its extremely efficient and strong industrial base.

[Beren]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
England also went through an anti-expansionist period and they certainly haven't expanded much since WWI, but what defines them is empire and I would have to say what partly defines America for me is manifest destiny and the idea of "taming" the frontier.

England anti-expansionist period was much later than America's. Remember the Suez-crisis in 1955. England choose to attack a former colony for their economic advantage. America choose idealism (Ok, honestly: fear that all former colonies would choose for communism did play a part.) and supported Egypt. Anti-expansionism was never so strong as in USA. They saw themselves as a former colony and thought all these colonies in the world all have the same potential as we have. The expansionism in America in the 19th century against the Indians does not really mean much to me. They expanded in a period when all European countries choose to expand their colonies. The territorial gainage in the ninteenth century as a result of expansionism was much higher in France and Brittain (or even Belgium or Germany) than it was in the USA.

Originally posted by gsmoove23
But expansionism and militarism do not have to go hand in hand. America through most of its existence has actively tried to avoid foreign entanglements and has not been known maintaining a very impressive military. Its main advantage in this area is its ability to outspend opponents and its extremely efficient and strong industrial base.

I think militaristic is a different point and I haven't made my mind up about that one. Today America, I think, can be considered militaristic. But that doesn't count for long periods in American history. On the other hand a lot of the American dream is pretty recent (in originated in the last decades of the ninteenth century.)

[gsmoove23]

19th C? It started in the 18th C. One of the issues of the American Rev was the British desire to limit the expansion of the colonies which is part of the reason many native tribes allied with the British and it wasn't only what we did to the natives. Americans also out-expanded the Mexicans, pulling off a nifty little cultural conversion of sorts. When the "Wild West" died in the late 19th century America also tried its hand at colonial ambition with the trophies of the Spanish American War, Phillipines, Cuba, Puerto Rico(still a colony of sorts) and was seriously involved in divying up China. Post-WWII their has been little in the way of expansionism in the traditional sense anywhere, but the Cold War has been a nifty little excuse to bring as much of the world as we can within our sphere of influence, placing military bases all over the world and protecting the interests of our capital investments.

[Athitis]

I think America's traits should be either: Industrous/Militaristic

or:
Commercial?Expansionist

Exp/Scientific would work too. What do u thinl

[Beren]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
19th C? It started in the 18th C. One of the issues of the American Rev was the British desire to limit the expansion of the colonies which is part of the reason many native tribes allied with the British and it wasn't only what we did to the natives. Americans also out-expanded the Mexicans, pulling off a nifty little cultural conversion of sorts. When the "Wild West" died in the late 19th century America also tried its hand at colonial ambition with the trophies of the Spanish American War, Phillipines, Cuba, Puerto Rico(still a colony of sorts) and was seriously involved in divying up China. Post-WWII their has been little in the way of expansionism in the traditional sense anywhere, but the Cold War has been a nifty little excuse to bring as much of the world as we can within our sphere of influence, placing military bases all over the world and protecting the interests of our capital investments.

OK, at the end of the eighteenth and start of the ninteenth century you Americans were pretty expansionist. The example of the colonial ambition doesn't really count, because it was at a time the great European powers had much more expansion/ambition. I think we can say it was just America's modest response.
Since World War II America is a superpower and has to act sometimes, because they wanted to stop communism. But there is no denying America did have an anti-colonial policy. I don't think you should see the military bases as a form of expansionism.
So the only thing that pleads for making America expansionistic is the revolution story.