My ancestry is from the North Sea areas -- primarily border ridings of Scotland and northern Netherlands. My patriline is from Groningen, which was the first place artificial land areas were wrested from the sea -- and this probably is why all of my ancestors were in the New World before the Revolutionary War -- they would rather deal with nature than deal with people. We're definitely not good politicians (at least not for our own interests) or very good schmoozers. But if people insist on exploiting our weaknesses to grab our resources with which to deal with nature -- there is always war. Its not that guys like me like war -- its just that we're very good at it due to our understanding of the way civilizations arise from the natural world via efforts of men who can tame nature. 1