Posted on 07/08/2015 1:54:43 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
It really sucks to be a college student.(or a recent grad) I know how true this is, because I happen to currently be a college student. The amount of propaganda that we as college students in America are subjected to would make Ioseb Jughashvili start blushing. So it is with young Dylan Matthews, a writer for Vox Media who has written an absolutely atrocious piece titled "3 reasons the American Revolution was a mistake"
Now, since I have the advantage here in that I have a highly tuned sense of curiosity, wheras Mr. Matthews took what his professors fed to him in total without asking one single question to counter what he was being fed, I would prefer to from this point focus on the three arguments in the article, which are as wrong as can possibly be. In particular, the first and the third are of the most interest. The second is so completely laughable that I'm not going to bother spending more than a half paragraph on it.
To begin, I would like to point out that the opening of the article is a picture, a painting really - That of George Washington Crossing the Delaware. The irony is that there's a black person sitting right there in the boat with Washington. Does that make my curiosity a curse or a gift? I know who that man is, too. But I'm not going to footnote this one. I want you to look it up and find his name on your own, I think that would be very useful.
Since there is a black person sitting right there in the boat with George Washington, what does that say about the rest of the article as written on Vox? He has no clue about his history, he only knows what was on the spoon that he was fed by.
Contention #1: "Abolition would have come faster without independence"
Vox Media is an outlet for leftists, so let's start with a concept that they are well familiar with. Outsourcing. This is an easy thing to grasp, so I will quickly move on. In regards to slavery and its abolition, the American Founding presented England with an opportunity to get rid of the institution of slavery. When the colonies were joined together with the kingdom as English subjects and the slave trade was booming, there is no chance that England would do what it did in 1807 and again 1834 with a united force of slavers. Since the colonies split with the kingdom taking some of the slavers with them, that pressure of the slave trade was essentially(partially) outsourced. This is a contention that is even admitted in the piece to a degree, in that "Britain would have had much more to gain from the continuance of slavery". But we can't let facts get in the way of a good guilt trip. Especially, since I brought up the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. Did you notice how that was omitted from the Vox piece? Of course it was. Why? America abolished the slave trade before England did. Again, why let facts get in the way of a good guilt trip?
Let's examine the NIMBY aspect of English slavery at the time. The English abolished slavery on the homefront in 1772, yet the king did everything he could to see to its continuance in his colonies. This is NIMBYism, not any reliance upon some sort of principle. Slavery made the king a lot of money, and he need that money for all of his wars. There were a lot of anti-slavery laws that were being passed by the colonies, and the king would have none of it. Virginia, for example, passed a law in 1761 that met with a Monarchical veto.(1) The king then issued a decree to the Governor of Virginia that:
"upon pain of the highest displeasure, to assent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed."(1)
When we examine the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, we see a similar situation. The language here is even more striking:(2)
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold
So lets review - in the original article, Lord Dunmore's proclamation is cited. This cite is misused. The king had no interest in abolishing slavery for the specific sake of abolishing slavery. He only was interested in bringing in more soldiers for his fight against liberty. Lord Dunmore's proclamation ends with this phrase "God Save The King". But in reality, those who are against slavery should be saying this: God Damn The King. Not only for what he did to those people back then and for what he prevented from happening(abolition), but for how this legacy is abused today to further the anti-American, anti-Liberty agenda of today's progressives. While we are on this point, it needs to be examined: When the king was leveraging slaves in the American colonies to try to increase his soldier count, what did the king do? He set a precedent that slavery was a bad thing - the very thing he tried fighting against just a few years earlier. This precedent would surely be beneficial to the anti-slavery kind in England, such as William Wilberforce.
The worst part of it is this: the king upheld slavery when it benefitted him, and modern progressives let him get away with it. Hypocrites. All progressives are hypocrites on this point of slavery - for letting the king get away with this.
Note that the first draft is even mentioned in the article, but since all of the anti-slavery colonial laws (and the king's vetos of them) have been wiped from history, that allows progressive writers to cast the original "draught" of the Declaration as merely a response to Dunmore and nothing more, when as can be seen above, it was not. Anti-slavery laws were common in the American colonies(3), but in order to believe what has been written you have to assume that the drive for American Independence only began in 1775. It, of course, did not. Like Lord Dunmore, Lord Norborne Berkeley(Dunmore's predecessor) was also a loyalist monarchist governor. So when the king vetoed colonial anti-slavery laws, it stuck.
Contention #2: "Independence was bad for Native Americans"
A large portion of this section is spent apologizing for Canadian "horrible, indefensible crimes". I could simply just cut and paste the article itself back in here, but that would be a copyright issue. It's a sad fact of humanity that the "big dogs" always pick on the "little dogs". This is probably one of the few areas of agreement I would have since I wish it weren't the case as well, but I am certainly not going to feel guilty about it in the context of America when every society/nation I've ever read about is guilty of this. To point out that Vox is engaging in a futile attempt at navel gazing would be an understatement.
Contention #3: "America would have a better system of government if we'd stuck with Britain"
As I have consistently written, progressives do not like individual liberty. This article is no different. A parliament is inferior to the separation of powers that exists in the United States Constitution. One of the big reasons why progressives going all the way back to Woodrow Wilson love the English style of government is that their constitution, the UK Constitution, is a living and breathing document.(4) I wrote a paper about this already, which will save me time here.(4) The difference between the US Constitution being a "living and breathing" document is de-facto, that is, it is only true because the courts have made it so through force, coercion, and deception. It was never inherently such. But the UK Constitution is de-jure "living and breathing". You can't even print out a copy of it! Go ahead, go to https://www.google.com and give it a try. Try printing a copy of the UK Constitution.
Since England is still a monarchy(even limited), its people are still subjects. They are not free citizens. They may have been free from subjection for a short time, at some point after the American Revolution, but their government has controlled their healthcare for generations. This is pretty simple - when the government controls your healthcare, the government controls your body - they control you. Your body is you.(Surprise surprise!) If the government controls you, then you're not a free citizen. You're a subject. (And yes, sadly, I know that I have been a subject myself since March 23, 2010. I do put myself in that lot.) So if the subjects of England did have freedom, they lost it on July 5th, 1948. Mark the date.
And yes, let me make this clear: If the king would have controlled the Founding Fathers' healthcare, there would not have been an American Revolution. There would have been even less of an interest in independence, since government controlled healthcare is in reality all about dependence.
Now, as to the progressives' rejection of individual liberty, I will cite a few here. I have gone in depth with them in the past both in my blog, and there are examples as well written in my paper on the UK Constitution.(4) Both Woodrow Wilson and John Dewey(for example) have quite explicitly rejected individual liberty. John Dewey wrote that liberal schools and the philosophical doctrines that underlay it:(5)
served to break down the idea that freedom is something that individuals have as a ready-made possession
Dewey also wrote that:(6)
The emancipated individual was to become the organ and agent of a comprehensive and progressive society.
Dewey is talking about "emancipating" individuals from the evils of 18th century ideology. That is, the beliefs of the Founders and all of this "Nature" stuff that they(the Founders) kept talking about.
Woodrow Wilson was even more elitist about his rejection of individual liberty. He wrote:(7)
a great deal of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle.
For people who would prefer not to be slaves of progressivism, yes, individual liberty is indeed a "fundamental principle". You can quote me on that. Finally, one of Wilson's most famous quotes is where he says that "If you want to understand the real Declaration, do not repeat the preface."(8) Make no mistake about it, progressivism is all about government that works "more efficiently" - meaning fast government, faster and faster and faster government. For progressives, they don't mind that authoritarian government exists, as long as they are the ones controlling it. Even monarchism, progressives will support. That's better than individual liberty for them.
King George got a lot of things done. He was very efficient. The irony is that the English people themselves fought for nearly a thousand years to do something about out of control, efficient, fast government. See the 1100 Charter of Liberties, the Magna Carta, the 1628 Petition of Right, the 1642 Grand Remonstrance, and the 1689 Bill of Rights for more details. And yes, this history does matter in the context of American History, see Federalist #84.(9)
Parliamentarian government is "faster government", as has been admitted in the original article. That's what makes it tyrannical. People need time to read, think about, and digest laws. Not pass them to find out what is in them!
In closing, there is only one reason why more conservatives cannot push back against this extreme misuse of the travesty of slavery against America, and it goes right to the heart of progressivism and back to the opening sentences of my writing. Colleges are pushing out nothing but propaganda, so very, very few people even know the king's true role in upholding slavery as well as the Founding generation's valiant efforts to get rid of it.
It's time to start pushing back. Any time the issue of "slavery" comes up, who should be running for the tall grass is progressives. There's no reason why anybody should be afraid of this when it is used. We don't own this. The king does.
God Damn The King
(1) The History of North America, Volume 6; 1904
(2) Jefferson's "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence
(3) The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America: 1638–1870, by W.E.B. DuBois (Note: DuBois makes many of the same errors as are written on Vox)
(4) Honestly questioning the notion of a Living and Breathing Document - The British Constitution
(5) Progressivism: Individuals don't inherently have this thing called "liberty"
(6) The aim of progressive education is explicitly to indoctrinate
(7) Progressivism: nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of individuals
(8) Woodrow Wilson absolutely hated the principles of the Founding Fathers
(9) English history is American history - Alexander Hamilton and John Adams
Ping.......
Dylan Matthews doesn’t like an independent USA? Then GTFO and go to England or China or wherever he thinks is better.
It really sucks to be a college student.(or a recent grad) I know how true this is, because I happen to currently be a college student.
__________________________________________
I should have stopped reading right there. Because everything I read after that only served to drive home the fact that college students (or recent grads) are dumber the dirt.
At least this dumb ass is.
No kidding. That was pretty bad.
Makes me wonder whether my thinking and writing were that bad when I was his age. (They probably were...And no more worthy of publishing than this article.)
It's quite possible that Emancipation would have come sooner under British Rule -- it did for the other British possessions in the New World -- and that something like the Trail of Tears could have been avoided.
But the other side of the coin is that when you cut the heart out of Britain's New World Empire, you change the dynamics in the remaining parts of the system.
Cut out the greatest number of slave owners in the Empire and you cut out the opposition to Emancipation, making it easier and less controversial. Cut out the rowdiest colonial populations and the remaining colonists will be more submissive and more easily ruled and contained in a smaller area.
Leave the largest part of British North America with the slave owners and the land-hungry and rebellious colonists in the Empire, and the Empire will behave differently, both in Britain and in the colonies. You can't guarantee that America under British rule would behave in the same way that Canada did after its neighbors achieved their independence -- or that the Empire itself would behave in the same way either. Conceivably, a civil war was still likely over slavery or expansionism some other question.
And if you don't have the experience of the American revolution, is it likely that people in America and other parts of the world would be more docile and more willing to put up with arbitrary rule? We like to assume that there was some mechanism at work that led to what we have now, but changes at one point would affect everything else that came later.
If the American Revolution hadn't happened, would the hand of government in the new world have been much heavier upon the citizenry? Would democratic government have evolved along the timetable familiar to us? France wouldn't have had its revolution. European monarchs would have felt more secure in their exercise of power.
Something similar applies to the Civil War. Slavery was on the way out. Some people think slavery would have disappeared even without war. But the timetable of emancipation around the world that we are familiar with was strongly affected by the Civil War itself. Spain and Brazil might not have freed their slaves when they did, if war hadn't ended slavery here and made slavery look like an anachronism.
So I don't know. Without the revolution would the US and Canada be one country? Or a multiplicity of smaller countries? Would what we had be more like Canada now? Or like the very different Canada before the 1960s -- deferential and monarchical? Or would the rebelliousness of the settlers have found a way to express itself even under British rule? There are certainly a lot of different possibilities.
For that matter, if Britain kept all the North American colonies, they might have been less willing or able to meddle in India, China, and Africa, and world history would have been very different indeed.
Another interesting question might be, what if the country had gotten independence later (either peacefully or through violence)? If we wrote our Constitution when political party systems were already established in Britain and other countries, how would it have differed from what we have? If we knew from the outset that two parties would likely dominate our politics would we have tried to prevent that or accommodate it in our Constitution?
You meant the guy “Dylan Matthews, a writer for Vox Media who has written an absolutely atrocious piece titled “3 reasons the American Revolution was a mistake” right?
This author only countered the three points from Matthews’ original thesis.
Those group of people gathered at the time were the most enlightened, and had the most brilliant minds. If not the whole human history. But no matter, progressives 'need to progress' backwards.
The dumb ass is the dude who wrote the article in Vox. Not the highly intelligent sourced student with the rebuttal. The rebuttal is quite literally on target.
Unless of course one is a progressive RINO in tune with their inner “feelings” of the living breathing document that is the US Constitution.
Try the google look up of a printable UK Constitution. The writer is correct.
Here is a quote from wikipedia on the UK’s Constitution- which cannot be found in written form, and it is quite telling. Obamaumao agrees with the “new” kind of Constitution, having parsed his Oath to serve that meme.
“Unlike many other nations, the UK has no single constitutional document. This is sometimes expressed by stating that it has an uncodified or “unwritten” constitution. Much of the British constitution is embodied in written documents, within statutes, court judgments, works of authority and treaties”
If we allow the current system of agencies, laws and executive actions to flaunt our WRITTEN Constitution, we are like the UK at a minimum. Govt. is giving us our rights— which is how our dictator in chief sees it. He decrees and we obey king obongo of the lower jomokenyatta. Deo Vindice.
Want to run through that again— WHAT was pretty bad— the content of the rebuttal or... the rebuttal. Are we grading on grammar.
What WAS really bad is the Vox article— which, if you read that is one ridiculous claim after another, straight out of some lib prof’s greasy mouth for the apparat.
The young person’s rebuttal is quite refreshing, considering what moron’s exist enrolled in college today. Deo Vindice.
But getting back to the author, Dylan Matthews, of the original article... he is like a lot of leftists who wish the world would have been perfect from the start. God save us from the progressive's idea of a perfect world.
Poorly reasoned, poorly argued, and poorly written. (Yes, the Vox article was probably worse.)
I understand that young people have to practice writing in order to improve. Fortunately, most students toss their early attempts in the round file rather than publish them.
OK so it was a composition critique. Or do you disagree with the well supported points in the rebuttal. I fact checked every point— they are all spot on. This is to be encouraged and nurtured.
The article they were responding to was not the soul of wit with brevity, and was in fact a rambling idiotic screed. The vox article was bilge spew from commie lib professors who source “historians” like Zinn.
The article they were responding to was not the soul of wit with brevity, and was in fact a rambling idiotic screed. The vox article was bilge spew from commie lib professors who source “historians” like Zinn.
I thank you for confirming the facts the author presents. I was edified by the article, and thus recognize my utter unworthiness to be in the presence of Responsibility2nd and LearsFool.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.