Transcript
A threads post saying “There has never been another nation ever that has existed much beyond 250 years. Not a single one. America’s 250th year is 2025. The next 4 years are gonna be pretty interesting considering everything that’s already been said.” It has a reply saying “My local pub is older than your country”.
Edit: swapped image link, RIP lemm.ee
Original link: https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/b4d2f599-1922-4978-9db3-fc7832681c10.png
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My country is 900 years old and my people has inhabited these lands before the romans ever dreamed of set foot here.
That is plain ignorance.
And how long has your current form of governance been in play? Money says not 250 years.
That is not what defines its existence as a country though. If so then the US only dates to the 1990s with its latest constitutional amendment.
sure, but the person in the OP is foolishly conflating nations and states
Are we speaking of government or established nation with defined borders in the original post?
As I understand it, it is refering to nation, not government.
Bro he could’ve done a single online search and disproved himself in literal seconds.
Freedom of expression has morphed into freedom of stupidity.
freedom to flaunt stupidity even.
the u.s. is ‘young’, relative to the world stage, this is true; but its constitution is among the oldest in the world… and it is starting to show its age.
Constitutionalism is a new idea. Pioneered by America. Of course America will have the oldest until it collapses.
England? If we talk about nations that became part of other nations, venice, lots of former city states in germany are even older
England still doesn’t have a constitution. It’s just a pile of old laws.
Just because it doesnt have a single document called “the constitution” doesnt mean they dont have one. A constitution is also just a bunch of laws.
Germany has the Grundgesetz (eng.: basic law) but not a Verfassung (eng.: constitution) but the Grundgesetz basicly is the constitution. A constitution is just the collection of fundamental laws of a state
Edit: and ye some laws are old, doesnt mean they are bad. “Seperation of chruch and state”, “freedom of religion”, “press freedom” “freedom of speech”, “right to gather” aso are old laws from the bill of rights from 1689 and yet they are still good.
Its not just about age, its about how a law is writen, phrased and its place in the modern day and society, that makes a law good or bad.
Germany has a criminal law which forbids the dancing on good friday, and the till 1993 the Schaumweinsteuer for the emperors fleet (a tax on all bubbly alcoholic drinks)* long after it no longer had an emperor nore an empire nore an empirial fleet
*side tangent: Man english is missing out so many great words. Atleast dutch has it as “Mousserende wijn”
Yeah, this is a misunderstanding among conservatives. Our legal system and government structure is woefully outdated, but our country is really young.
It’s like a teen athlete being really proud that he has the oldest sneakers of all the competitors.
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Your analogy has nothing to do with the topic. The topic is about the age of the countries, and their constitutions.
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So it’s like a teen who’s really proud of having the oldest sneakers of all the competitors then.
It was “showing its age” a not long after it was made. Two years later the French based their first written constution on the US one. Then other nations followed suit over the years and wanted their own, and they already thought the French one was the better option as a starting point.
In fairness, given that the French are currently on their fifth attempt at a republic, the other nations were arguably wrong.
I’d say if you measure success by being able to change and try again instead of trying to keep a dead thing alive then maybe they were right
Conversely, if you were to measure success by how long it takes for the whole thing to collapse into a dictatorship, then the US constitution still isn’t looking too bad, in comparison.
But then, who am I to judge? The closest thing we have to a constitution in the UK is a textbook written by Dicey in the late 1800s.
Thomas Jefferson believed the constitution should be a living document.
“let us provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods. What these periods should be, nature herself indicates”
Nature itself dictates so through the length of a generation: If the constitution outlives human, we end up being ruled by the dead rather than by the living, as a democracy presupposes.
One could assume this would mean that they should last a lifetime, but in a letter to James Madison, Jefferson expresses the belief that each generation have the right to their own:
Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right
This was the ideas of a central founding father of American democracy. Yet today, authoritarian tools in the supreme court are using their perceived legislative intent of the founding fatgers to justify all kinds of fucked up shit. The intent of the founding fathers was that the nation should move the fuck on and not be stuck in the past.
Yet today, authoritarian tools in the supreme court
This isn’t a problem with SCOTUS. In no way were they supposed to “re-interpret” the Constitution in order to keep it alive. The idea that a very small group of unelected Jackasses should have that power is clearly the complete opposite of what the Founders intended.
The normal way it stays “living”, which is what Jefferson is talking about in those quotes, is via the Amendment process. The abnormal way it gets refreshed, which Jefferson also sometimes wrote about, was via revolution.
What SHOULD be happening is that when something needs changed Congress passes a law to do it. If that law turns out to be in conflict with the Constitution then Congress starts the Amendment process. Then it and the States vote to Ratify that Amendment to the Constitution and then the thing is done.
The process is difficult but doable, or at least it used to be. In today’s world our Congress is a lazy pile of decrepit assholes desperately trying to do as little as possible.
Because other countries modernize it. Well America worships it as a god. Even though it has been changed before.
Colloseum: Am I joke to you?
China: lol, lmao
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“lol” —Mao
Laughing out loud my ass off
“rofl” - Mao
Lmao - Mao
The People’s Republic of China will be 79 years old this October.
The OP is wrong because there are a few existing nations older than 250 years, but there aren’t many of them. As far as countries go, the United States is over the hill.
Its nonsense. China as a national and cultural entity is not 76 years old. Changing constitutions does not make it a different country, it is only americans who adhere to that belief system because their country didnt exist prior to their constitution.
Its nonsense. China as a national and cultural entity is not 76 years old. Changing constitutions does not make it a different country,
Yes, it does. Country and Nation are not synonyms. Country refers to Government while Nation is about culture.
China as a Nation, that is a people with a shared culture and languages, is thousands of years old. China as a Country is less than 100 years old.
…it is only americans who adhere to that belief system because their country didnt exist prior to their constitution.
Since you are presumably not American how would you answer this question: How old is Panama?
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Because the concept of a nation state is not much older, no? American Independence and French Revolution were among the first movements.
Isn’t it kinda interesting, that the first nation is still a thing? France is in it’s 5th iteration.
The concept of countries, which is what this is about, are a lot older.
Even ignoring how obviously wrong this is about how old other countries are, America turns 250 in 2026 not 2025 lol
They’re not being precise with their language, but their point is largely true. What they really mean is that the US has the oldest still active Constitution in the world. The UK has existed in a continuous government for far longer, but they don’t have a written Constitution like the US does.
Yeah, it’s easy to shit on Americans about being ignorant of history. But this person’s point is largely true. The US has had the same constitution in effect for nearly 250 years. It is the oldest written constitution on Earth still in effect. Most nations have revolutions or complete rewrites of their foundational legal documents long before they reach this point.
And this is also why the US has such political instability right now. We have a Constitution that was written for the needs of 250 years ago. It was formed from a series of compromises that made sense in the politics of 250 years ago. At this point, we really should scrap it entirely and start from scratch. Having the world’s oldest Constitution really isn’t something worth bragging over; it just means you’re running obsolete software.
Does a constitution define what a nation is?
In the case of the US, yes. The US started out as 13 independent countries. It was only the Articles of Confederation and later the Constitution that defined the US as a country. Disband the US constitution tomorrow, and the US becomes 50 independent countries.
In the case of the US, yes.
Even then, not really.
We celebrate July 4, 1776, the creation of our national identity independent from England, not June 21, 1788, when our constitution took effect.
But July 4th is called “Independence Day”, because it’s the day we got our independence from England. The articles of confederation weren’t signed until November 15, 1777, July 4th, 1776 was just the declaration of Independence
The US didn’t get widely accepted as a country until a good few years later (within 5-10 years though depending on who you ask)
I’m all for giving people the benefit of doubt, but no. They don’t “really mean” that, otherwise they would have written “constitution” somewhere, and not wrote “has had” when they mean “currently active”.
It’s possible they misremembered someone who had a point, true, but they do not.
The problem is they’re mixing up concepts of constitutional government, continuity in government, nationalism vs dynastic control, and the idea of the “natural lifespan” of democracies.
The UK dates back to 1801, when the parliaments of Scotland and Ireland were abolished and the UK Parliament established.
And this is not even true as there have been change. Black people where a quarter of a person at one point. Women couldn’t vote. So to say the US has had the same law for 250 years is also bullshit.
Black people where a quarter of a person at one point.
It’s worse than that. The fraction you’re referring to is 1/5 and they weren’t considered people at all, they were slaves. Slaves were not considered people in terms of rights, but the number of congressmen (and also EC electors) a state had added the slave population divided by five.
So slave states had more power in congress and more voting power to determine who would be president proportional to how many slaves they had. More slaves = more “democratic” power for the slave owners.
Slaves had no rights, but slave owners had more power from that evil 1/5 rule.
I just want to make sure I’m hearing you right on this… 1/5? Where is that number coming from?
It’s 3/5. It was literally called the 3/5 compromise. Please history
What they really mean is that the US has the oldest still active Constitution in the world. The UK has existed in a continuous government for far longer, but they don’t have a written Constitution like the US does.
Even if that is what they meant, and even if the UK doesn’t count for whatever reason, this would still be incorrect. The constitution of San Marino dates from 1600.
Yeah, but does San Marino have a population of more than seven?
More importantly, is your IQ more than seven?
Yes. 9 is good, right?
Don’t put your finger near your mouth, you may bite it.
Yes, and irrelevant.
It’s the weirdest to get pushback on little joke comments, but of course it’s relevant. The US Constitution needs some serious updates but there is no denying it is the oldest for a country with significant population and diversity. San Marino is the fifth smallest country in the world, has a population ~10,000 times less than the US, and is almost entirely monocultural.
The point is that under no measure is it true. If you go for nation as people’s identity, Japan, Egypt or China are millenia old. If by the current form of constitution then us constitution was amended in 1992 (IIRC). If we go by geographical borders, Hawaii and Alaska are 1960s additions. If we go by form of government, the UK is about a hundred years older. If we go by the base form of the constitution, ammendments be damned, either UK or San Marino are older.
There’s a difference between turning 250 and the 250th year, the latter being what was referenced. One year after a baby is born, they “turn one” for their first birthday; but the moment they’re born, it’s their first year since we don’t start counts on zero (yes, I know, unless you’re a computer—insert canned laughter).
You’re right that America would turn 250 in 2026, but OP’s meme is correct in that they started the count on one, inclusively.
I know this not because I paid attention in history class, but because I played Fallout 76 where the vault dwellers celebrate America’s Tricentennial before leaving the vault and find it a wasteland.
Bicentennial Quarters anyone? 1776-1976.
Be right back, those kids are on my lawn again.
If I assume by the word “Pub” that they are in the UK, their country has only existed for 103 years. Obviously, that doesn’t mean the end of the people, or the pubs, just the end of that system of government and/or territorial border.
There’s no shame in it. Constitutions and bills of rights need to be updated as people become more enlightened and civilized. The US would certainly be better off if it had had more constitutional amendments over these 250 years. Maybe then it wouldn’t need a revolution.
JFC American education system
Reading through these comments it isn’t just the American education system. There’s seemingly very few people in here with the understanding that Country and Nation are not full synonyms. The former is primarily about the age of a central government while the latter is mostly about shared culture and language.
So yes, the original tweet or whatever is ignorant but so are most of these comments…even the ones being made by non-Americans.
If you’re going to count every little border change, then the US is only 66 years old - Alaska and Hawaii joined in 1959. If you’re going to count every little constitutional revision, then the US is only 33 - the 27th amendment was finally ratified only in 1992.
Mate, the UK has existed for a touch over 103 years.
In its current form, since 1922. The UK was created in 1801, so is 25 years younger than the US.
The UK of GB and NI is presumably what they’re referring to. Whether or not you count changing territory and name as the beginning or end of a nation is subjective, I guess
If changing territory resets the count, then the US is only as old as when Hawaii or Alaska joined (I think Hawaii was the last addition? Dunno, I’m not an American…)
They were both in 1959, but Hawaii was later in the year.
Depends on what you are counting as the start and end of a country like ours. In our current state/make up of countries, it’s 103 years, when the Irish Free State left in 1922.
By that reckoning the US has only been around since 1959.
Honest to god thought this was a Trump quote or some shit. Like read it in his voice and everything.
Are we sure he hasn’t said this?
Dumb people hear something, misunderstand it, and repeat an incorrect version with authority and without any critical thinking. I’m sure this person heard that the US is the oldest existing democracy. The next oldest, depending on the criteria you use, is probably Switzerland at 175+ years. But does this person really think that the US has existed longer than, say, the ancient Egyptians, the Ottomans, the Byzantines, etc.?
If a country has ethnic/lingual, racial, gender/sexual, or wealth requirements is it really a democracy?
I’m not convinced that the USA was a democracy prior to 1964.
When Greeks invented the term they stipulated only free men were able to vote. So depending on how you want to look at it, any country that allows free men to vote is a democracy. We’ve (modern people) just updated the terms of service to suit our current version of morality. We might decide our thinking outdated and misguided in the next 250 years and change things again. Hell we might even give trans people, women and people of colour equal rights to white men, you know, like legal protections and such. We might not try to suppress their votes… idk has anything actually changed since 1964 or did Americans just visit the moon?
Yeah words are a cultural construct, we’re speaking modern English so I don’t really care a ton about the word choices of philosophers 2500 years ago speaking a different language.
We should definitely make sure that our society provides rights for all, and work towards a truly representative democracy.
I think things have definitely changed since 1964.
When do you draw the line then? If 2500 and 250 years ago is too far back for theory and philosophy to apply, when does it?
In that case there wasn’t any democracy up until maybe 100 years ago (no clue what country first ticked all the boxes, or when)
US is the oldest existing democracy
It is not. Not a democracy, at least in it’s modern sense.
It wasn’t one back then either. Women and black people weren’t allowed to vote from the start.
It wasn’t one back then either.
If the Greeks were a Democracy then so was the United States; they both used the same rules.
If Women and Minorities are your defining line then Great Britain didn’t become a Democracy until either 1928 or 1969.
Those are not nations in the modern sense. Modern Turkey and Egypt have only been around since after WWI. Byzantium hasn’t been a nation since they were conquered by the Ottomans.
The post doesn’t say existing nations, it says there has never been one longer than 250 years.
How do you define a nation? Rome, Byzantium, the Ottoman empire, etc., those were all empires. You can debate whether you want to consider them nations.
The US is an empire unless indigenous peoples don’t count
Same for the US, if you want to debate semantics.
The oldest existing democracy is Iceland depending on how you define democracy. But that was around 930 ad and had free men participating in making laws
depending on how you define democracy.
This part of your comment seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting.
According to the ancient manuscript Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland began in 874 AD, when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the island’s first permanent settler.[15] In the following centuries, Norwegians, and to a lesser extent other Scandinavians, immigrated to Iceland, bringing with them thralls (i.e., slaves or serfs) of Gaelic origin. The island was governed as an independent commonwealth under the native parliament, the Althing, one of the world’s oldest functioning legislative assemblies. After a period of civil strife, Iceland acceded to Norwegian rule in the 13th century. In 1397, Iceland followed Norway’s integration into the Kalmar Union along with the kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden, coming under de facto Danish rule upon its dissolution in 1523. The Danish kingdom introduced Lutheranism by force in 1550,[16] and the Treaty of Kiel formally ceded Iceland to Denmark in 1814.
Influenced by ideals of nationalism after the French Revolution, Iceland’s struggle for independence took form and culminated in the Danish–Icelandic Act of Union in 1918, with the establishment of the Kingdom of Iceland, sharing through a personal union the incumbent monarch of Denmark. During the occupation of Denmark in World War II, Iceland voted overwhelmingly to become a republic in 1944, ending the remaining formal ties to Denmark. Although the Althing was suspended from 1799 to 1845, Iceland nevertheless has a claim to sustaining one of the world’s longest-running parliaments. Until the 20th century, Iceland relied largely on subsistence fishing and agriculture. Industrialization of the fisheries and Marshall Plan aid after World War II brought prosperity, and Iceland became one of the world’s wealthiest and most developed nations. In 1950, Iceland joined the Council of Europe.[17] In 1994 it became a part of the European Economic Area, further diversifying its economy into sectors such as finance, biotechnology, and manufacturing.
It does a lot of heavy lifting when defining the US to be a democracy too.
You’d have to be a white supremacist to think the US was a democracy when slavery existed. Sure some people may have been voting, but there were Lords in a lot of places in Europe voting on stuff for a very long time.
We may as well say the Holy Roman Empire was a democracy because people voted for who would be Emperor. Sure the peasants didn’t get to vote, but it doesn’t matter if not every one gets to vote? Or does it?
And how you define nation/country. You could say the Isle of Mann, but it probably doesn’t meet the definition.
The US didnt become a democracy until the civil rights act in 1964.
‘In the UK, 100 kilometers is a long way. In the USA, 100 years is a long time.’
In the UK we have to ask what that is in miles.
About 62-63, not really that many.
i think the first poster misunderstood a quote and I can’ reproduce it anymore either. it was something about no empire lasted more then 250 years? or no government form or something among these lines? it was not about the contry disapearing in name or anything, but that it damatically changes in one way or another like completly changing the form of government
I remember it as most empires collapse before or around 250 years. If I remember the quote correctly it mentioned most not all, and empire not nation or country.
Even that’s a very obvious fallacy though
Depends on the condition being measured. I’ve heard similar claims about democracies. I know the OG democracy in Athens Greece lasted about 250 years. I’m not aware of another democracy that existed longer than the US … But I’m not an expert in the field, so i welcome examples of longer lived democracies.
I think the US is the longest modern democracy, but it’s a very narrow margin comparatively speaking - it’s only got something like 30 years on Norway and the Netherlands, which are vastly more stable
Is it though? Do you still have one?
I’m not American, so it took me a while to parse wtf you were on about!
How many different countries has your pub survived?
Remember the time we stumbled on an old local church with an American coworker. Yes dude, that thing was over 500 years old when Columbus discovered your continent, allegedly.
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And he didn’t discover shit. He was a bloody wanker and we should all just forget about him
And he wasn’t just an asshole by modern standards, but by the standards of his own time as well!
Everything north of the Darien Gap is considered NA.
TIL Central America is considered a sub-region of North America
Look at it on a world map, one without border lines, and it’s blindingly obvious. It’s not a sub-region, it’s part of a large land mass barely separated from a large land mass to the south.
As a continent, yes
This isn’t a facepalm. As any red-blooded American knows, the only country worth mentioning is America. Since all countries of note were founded after America, this OP is correct.
LoL. There was a comment today from somebody (in Canada) that mentioned “the time in Canada” as if there weren’t multiple provinces in different time zones.
Self-centered exceptionalism isn’t just an American thing, though they may be louder about it in many cases.
So, Ireland is of note, but England isn’t?
I grieve for the death of sarcasm.
Culturally, Ireland is of great importance to the US. From the humble shamrock shake, all the way up to Lucky Charms, we owe a lot of debt to Ireland.
Meanwhile, we’ll never forgive England for the Boston Tea Party. Look at how few Americans drink tea to this day and you’ll see the level of contempt.
