Is the US One Nation or Many?

Latest news today "Why is Sweden closing its prisons?

Sweden's prison population has dropped so dramatically that the country plans to close four of its prisons. What lessons can the UK learn?"

How does Sweden's prisoner percentage of population compare to the US?

Tenshinai wrote:

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:You're welcome.

Once they get there, several things might happen.
Some of them stay. Some move on. Some go back.

EU/Europe = important question.
In the sense of nation-state, very dubiously.
In the old-fashioned sense of "people sharing the same
culture, or very similar cultures,
then IMHO yes, very likely, in many ways.
Once upon a time, that "nation" was called Christiandom.
Its political expression was called "Roman Empire."
Cities as far away as Moscow claimed to be "3rd Rome."

Of course, mine is the "expansive" or "liberal" view.
Other's miliage varies.

HTM

*ugh*

Sharing the same culture? Across EUROPE?

Goodness no. I have more in common with someone from New York, California or even Texas than i have with someone from France or Italy, much less Romania, Spain or Italy.

And people can often still see the difference between people from nations as similar as Sweden and Norway.

Is the US One Nation or Many?

I would say the answer to this question is BOTH.

There is a strong and clear national pseudo-unity(people agree very strongly that they agree about being part of USA, even if they all tend to claim that they agree about different things), under which strong regionalisation can be found(often including many of the above differences).

His most mistaken argument is "isolation of regions."
Actually, people have *always* been moving between
regions, exchanging ideas with other people.

Yes, but the areas are so big that most movements still go within them.

You can find strong regionalisation even in different parts of a small nation like Belgium, TODAY, and USA has had a few centuries of digging in, as it´s isolationism extends to regions as well as nationally, more in some areas and less in others, but that also means a reduced amount of exchange.

And of course, just because people move doesn´t mean that they change something where they move to.

Daryl wrote:Latest news today "Why is Sweden closing its prisons?

Sweden's prison population has dropped so dramatically that the country plans to close four of its prisons. What lessons can the UK learn?"

How does Sweden's prisoner percentage of population compare to the US?

Are you sure you want to know?

USA has the highest rate in the world...
North Korea MAY be able to reach an equal level, numbers are uncertain there.

Prisoners per 100.000 population:
USA, 716.
Sweden, 67.
Russia, 484.
Mexico, 209.
Canada, 114.
France, 101.
Japan, 54.
England+Wales, 148.

This is an old map but I've like it for some time because it groups most of Maine together with the western US. Being familiar with both areas, Maine (outside the Portland region) has more in common with the western states than it does with Massachusetts, Connecticut etc.

While the situation has obviously evolved over time, I might suggest an interesting read would be Samuel Huntington's book "Who are We?", which argues that the founding American culture is pretty precisely defined by the origins of the largest groups of settlers in the 1600's and 1700's.

These people were largely English Protestant Dissenters who were emigrating to find free space to practice their religious and social beliefs without interference or persecution, and heavily influenced by ideas coming over from the European Enlightenment as well as the English "Glorious Revolution". Other groups like the Germans, Dutch, Swedes and even Irish and Scottish Catholics who were fleeing the "clearances" also contributed to various regional sub cultures, but were not the dominant cultural group.

The settlers also saw America quite differently than modern people do (not only the religious aspect: the description of America as "The shining city on the hill" dates back to those times), but also as a collection of independent nations cooperating in certain areas for the common good. This idea survived for a very long time, before the Civil War, America was properly called "These United States", and the American's creed was written in 1917:

The American's Creed

by William Tyler Page

I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.

–Written 1917, accepted by the United States House of Representatives on April 3, 1918.

which argues that the founding American culture is pretty precisely defined by the origins of the largest groups of settlers in the 1600's and 1700's.

These people were largely English Protestant Dissenters who were emigrating to find free space to practice their religious and social beliefs without interference or persecution, and heavily influenced by ideas coming over from the European

Due to how this is often extremely idealised and "fluffified", it´s probably worth mentioning that a big chunk of those dissenters, were dissenters because they were fanatics and extremeists.