This is brilliant. The Manifesto Club is holding an event in London which celebrates Thanksgiving by provoking debate on America:

“We have invited a range of cultural commentators, journalists, politicos and Manifesto Club members to take part in a ‘balloon debate’. America, we say, is a great balloon that is slowly sinking to the earth. So which of its principles, its rights, its politics and culture, should we keep? And what should we throw overboard so that the great US of A can carry on its upward trajectory in the 21st century?

“Speakers will champion such contested American ideals as: ‘the right to bear arms’, ‘consumer choice and mass production’, ‘bringing democracy to the world’, ‘the first amendment’, ‘Microsoft’, ‘the democracy of popular culture’ and ‘the separation of church and state’. The audience will then get the chance to interrogate their arguments before voting on what stays and what goes.”

Some of the speakers’ arguments can be viewed here, and I have to say they very closely resemble the kinds of things we’ve consistently argued here on this blog; on firearms, on capitalism, on free speech, on large corporations, on religion and government. Well worth reading, and an event well worth attending if you’re in London on Thursday.