Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
The whole "Scots-Irish" thing is, IMO, really overdone. It MIGHT be there if you really want to reach for it, but I honestly don't think that anything Rosen is talking about is especially "unique" to Americans. If anything I might take the position that our reputed bellicosity has its roots in the (possibly perceived) existence of outside threats to the existence of the nation and from emulating the example of the British in many ways.
Steve, I'm with you.

Americans are a warlike people, which is the only (!?) reason we've had so many wars, and since we've had so many wars we must be a warlike people? And it's all because 300 years or so ago a bunch of Puritans came over, followed by a couple of hundred years of Scottish and Irish, who defined a warlike culture (to the exclusion of Germans, Poles, Italians, Chinese, et. al.)?

The paper seems circular and very simplistic. I expect more from Rosen.