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”.
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.
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 Our legal system and government structure is woefully outdated, but our country is really young.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.
Worse, it’s like a teen athlete being really proud that he has the world record for best stickballer, so he drops out of school to play stickball full time.
Then when everybody else wants to play an actual sport with actual rules where people wear helmets and don’t die, suddenly the teen starts starts swinging his stick through people’s windows and at people’s heads.
Your analogy has nothing to do with the topic. The topic is about the age of the countries, and their constitutions.
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
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
‘In the UK, 100 kilometers is a long way. In the USA, 100 years is a long time.’
So, yeah, that first person is a dumb-ass, but that second comment doesn’t really prove anything. I live in a 400 year-old town in this 250 year-old country,
Yeah, we have bars in the USA that predate the founding of the country as well. White Horse Tavern in Newport, Rhode Island had been operating since 1673.
Even ignoring how obviously wrong this is about how old other countries are, America turns 250 in 2026 not 2025 lol
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There’s a restaurant near me that’s been in business since 1472.
They went bankrupt in 2023. Weird kind of feel.
Man, the final owner of the business must have some interesting feelings being the one that drove it into the ground after 550 years.
Didn’t realise we’re living in 2225 already, damn
Edit: math no longer adds up to 2225 ad after op edited year to 1472 ad.
The Hudson Bay Company was founded in 1670 and went bankrupt this year. To think a company that indirectly formed an entirely new culture 300 years ago is now going under is wild to me.
I think it’s a shame. It did some awful things in its early years, and it was mismanaged lately. But, I wish there had been a way to allow it to continue to exist as a business, even if it was just a single store and more museum than business. Who knows, maybe it could have had a renaissance at some point. Now it’s just something in the history books as one of the longest-lived companies.
