I Am British
Well, almost. I'm an Australian. Australia a former British penal colony settled in 1770 by Captain James Cook and the first fleet, used British style Pounds, Shillings and Pence currency until 1966 when it switched to American style Dollars and Cents. We drive on the left hand side of the road the same as in England and for this reason there are more English cars on Australian roads than American. English cars are more costly but they are built better and are more dependable for longer. Because of the position of the steering wheel on the opposite side of the car American built cars when driven in Australia must display a sign to alert other drivers. You do not see many of them though, Australians consider them to be oversized gas guzzlers. You do see the occasional Buick or Cadillac being lovingly driven by a proud collector but most Australian roads are not wide enough to comfortably accommodate anything much larger than a Ford Mustang. Australia's national anthem was God Save The Queen until 1984. Australia continued to use Imperial Units of Weights and Measurement until it began a progressive conversion to metric units between 1969 and 1988. The post war American influence on Australian culture has been huge. TV opened in Australia in time for the 1956 Olympics held in Melbourne and initially most of the programs were reruns that Americans had been watching for the previous 25 years, black and white Superman, Walt Disney, Road Runner and Coyote, westerns, westerns and even more westerns. Politically it is not a bad idea to be friends with America but the few Americans that I know who have made a home for themselves down under would not even think of leaving a country where nobody carries or wants to carry a handgun and taxpayer funded schools and hospitals are free for all. When my GF would walk to the corner shop after dark to buy smokes I would worry more about her habit than the remote prospect of her being assaulted on the street. Half of the kids I went to school with in the 1960's were the children of postwar English immigrants. Some Australian bands e.g. Daddy Cool who were keen to gain popular acceptance sang with American accents but even the Beatles did that at first didn't they?
We have our problems. Refugees arriving unplanned in leaking fishing boats from war torn Syria and Iraq represent a free-for-all for our immigration officials, and many Australians worry about their willingness to assimilate into a Western style liberal democratic social system. The best thing Australia could give these refugees would be a safe return to their homeland but that would involve us in yet another costly and troublesome foreign war against the terrorists. Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is spruiking an American style Republic for Australia free of any constitutional reference to the British Monarchy but he has yet to convince the voters. The American republic was born in revolution and civil war. I do not think Australians are quite ready for that yet but who knows? Like America Australia's national debt is billions of dollars and growing steadily. Something has to give.
We have our problems. Refugees arriving unplanned in leaking fishing boats from war torn Syria and Iraq represent a free-for-all for our immigration officials, and many Australians worry about their willingness to assimilate into a Western style liberal democratic social system. The best thing Australia could give these refugees would be a safe return to their homeland but that would involve us in yet another costly and troublesome foreign war against the terrorists. Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is spruiking an American style Republic for Australia free of any constitutional reference to the British Monarchy but he has yet to convince the voters. The American republic was born in revolution and civil war. I do not think Australians are quite ready for that yet but who knows? Like America Australia's national debt is billions of dollars and growing steadily. Something has to give.
