[qalmakka]

To be fair a lot of it had also to do with the sheer immense amount of vast, mostly unused ,fertile land available in north America. I sincerely doubt the American experiment would have worked this well if they had rowdy neighbours and infighting due to resource constraints. For almost 200 years the solution to most things in the USA was to get a chunk of either their people or immigrant to move to the neck of the woods to find fortune

[returningfory2]

But the success hasn't ended since the unused land became taken; in fact, the US became a superpower after the westward expansion era. My point is that looking at conditions today, the US still continues to succeed (by some definition of success) and other countries should try to emulate the aspects of the country that leads to that success. IMO one of the big factors is how well immigrants assimilate in the country, and birthright citizenship is a part of that.

I do agree with you that US success in the 19th century was due to many factors that are not relevant today.

[Windchaser]

Not getting wrecked in major land wars during the 1800s and 1900s also helped

[matthewdgreen]

We got wrecked in a major land war in the 1800s, just to be pedantic.

[insane_dreamer]

> sheer immense amount of vast, mostly unused ,fertile land available in north America

it was not "available", it only became "available" after we killed off nearly all the inhabitants and stole their land

[factcheckr]

This exaggerated lie always gets posted, but it's entirely inaccurate.

The Indians were nomadic hunter-gatherers who were sparsely distributed around the US and moved seasonally. Diseases killed the majority. Inter-tribal warfare was the second leading cause of death (tribes that had been fighting for generations with rocks and sticks got access to horses, steel blades and guns and became much more lethal) and deaths attributable to European settlers were negligible compared to the first two causes.

[insane_dreamer]

stop whitewashing it

yes, diseases killed the majority, but the diseases didn't come out of nowhere, they came from the European occupiers. and inter-tribal warfare killed plenty. but we're talking about theft of "available" land: the Europeans took the land from the remaining inhabitants, killing those who resisted, and deceiving those who submitted through treaties which they repeatedly broke, leaving the natives, by design, with the worst, most infertile land in the country

don't try to gloss it over and hand-wave it away -- yes, the natives were greatly diminished through the causes you mentioned, I never said the European occupiers killed them all, but it was genocide to finish them off and take all the land from anyone who resisted, effectively destroying their civilization

and stop calling them "settlers", they did not "settle" the land, they took it by force and deception