In Canada the pioneers were led or joined by the police, the newly created Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Law and order arrived either before or with the new pioneers.

In the US, it was the other way around. Pioneers went west without any officials, police or law enforcement. Pioneers dealt with everything by the force of a gun. Whoever had a gun was the one with power and controlled everything ..... you could be a good moral person and lead a community or you could be a gang leader, decrepit, immoral and unjust, as long as you had a gun, you could do whatever you wanted.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

We also had an OP start point

[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago

I don't know, what does "we" mean here? A lot of people colonized America prior to the creation of the united states of America.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

Yeah. The US is a huge area with a relatively low population density and abundant natural resources. It participated in both world wars, and was nearly the only country to not take any real damage from either of them.

There hasn't been a war on US soil since the US civil war. There has barely even been any damage to a US state. In WWII they bombed Pearl Harbor before Hawaii was a state, invaded the Aleutian Islands before Alaska was a state, and one floatplane launched from a sub tried to set fire to the forests around Oregon and failed.

The countries that had been superpowers in 1900 were recovering from mass casualties and massive damage after 2 world wars.

It's no surprise that in Europe one of the only countries not to participate in WWII was Switzerland, and they're also rich today.