"We think in English"

So said Founder Alexander Hamilton to George Beckwith, the unofficial British envoy at the time, "and have a similarity of prejudices, and of predilections." If you're so inclined, there's an interesting string over at the No Left Turns blog about language and, among other things, its connection to culture and whether or not, for example, a democratic culture requires a particular language to support its successful institutionalization.

I've never read Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, but was always intrigued by the title. Its implication about language, as well as that suggested by Hamilton's comment to Beckwith, has always struck me as true. It's also true that in the study of Western political philosophy, we typically distinguish the Anglo-American tradition from that of Continental Europe. For what it's worth, I'll take ours over theirs. They talk funny.