Posted on 09/19/2010 9:50:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Clearly, if you do a search for "John Keown Catholic" you'll get different results than if you search for "John Keown." If you've got certain prejudices you'll think he's very "vociferous" about his faith.
But that's because you've asked for articles that involve the man's religion. The more neutral search yields a more balanced picture.
More to the point. He's British. And some of them, particularly at Oxford and Cambridge, still haven't gotten over 1776.
Revolutions and civil wars are affairs of passion. Rational and reasonable people will argue that such things should be resolved rationally and reasonably without recourse to violence. But such wars happen because people aren't always rational and reasonable and don't always sit down, calmly discuss their differences, and come to an agreement.
Moreover, the outbreak of such conflicts usually isn't a matter of deliberation. People don't say, "Are we going to rise up militarily or not?" There's some spark of initial, unplanned violence that touches the thing off, and we are at war.
You can come around later and say that it was all unwise and unnecessary, but whether or not it was unjust will look differently to those caught up in the heat of passion and those who come along afterward and dispassionately analyze the conflict.
Unfortunate and foolish it may have been, but in comparison to other revolutions, revolts, and civil wars, the American Revolution wasn't one of the more unjust uprisings. Nor, contrasted with their British counterparts or with other revolutionaries in history, were the American colonists notably in the wrong.
This guy sounds like Yankee Critics of the Confederacy!
Read my admittedly rushed and poorly formatted FR homepage for an increasingly prominent example, the Regulator War, glossed over or ignored outright by historians of more modern vintage, up until the last decade or so.
It was acknowledged by George Washington, a quote from whom I drew my screen name. Former Regulators formed the majority of the Overmountain Men who were instrumental in defeating Ferguson and the British at King's Mountain.
Several historians of note are coming around to view that this NC colonial era conflict comprises the actual first shots fired in the American Revolution ... "Fire And Be Damned!" indeed.
It was according to those who signed the Declaration:
"The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States."
It then proceeds to a long list of "he has" statement accusing the King of oppression.
As far as the article's argument, I believe the author is entirely correct that the Revolution wasn't a "just war" by strict Augustinian criteria.
But then almost no war has met those criteria. Very few wars have an utterly evil aggressor and a completely innocent victim. Most are started with at least some contribution by both sides. But the "mix" between the sides is important.
Per the "oppression" suffered by the Americans, it was by any historical or worldwide standard extremely mild. I believe the Founders revolted more out of a concern for possible future oppression than because that they suffered under was itself intolerable.
True enough. Well before Lexington and Concord and the Declaration, royal authority was in a process of collapse in many areas, with officials subject to public disturbances and unable to do their jobs or even run out of town. Southerners in remote areas also tended to be more rambunctious — and better armed — than their Northern cousins.
The question isn’t whether it was “unreasonable,” although Burke and Pitt disagree with you there, too; it’s whether it constitutes a “just war.” In my opinion it does not, nor can I stretch Aquinas far enough to make it so.
The Declaration of Independence was the greatest moment in history...
But do not deceive yourself to think that the Founders were at all above the use of propaganda, they were thankfully quite the experts at it.
“Yankee Critics of the Confederacy”
The Union Jack, Old Glory and the Stars & Bars are all red, white, and blue...
“Get over it, guys. Our Revolution was a profoundly Protestant act and our Constitution is a profoundly Protestant document, that has led to much good in the world at large.”
It was a Presbyterian War, according to some of the British.
I agree. Unfortunately, not everyone on this Board does. They frequent FR and troll for threads with any connection whatsoever with the Confederacy or even the South.
When they find one they immediatly descend on it to spew their hatred.
I'm not trying to hijack this thread and turn it into a Rebs vs Yankees thread but the comment I respnded to sounded just like the arguments against the Confederacy.
Nonsense. In George III's Britain, today's Tea Party protesters would have been punished severely, just as they would have in Boston in 1774 if they would have been captured.
Remember, the British Army took over Boston, closed the port, and imposed martial law as a result of the first 'Tea Party.' The British march to Lexington & Concord was to not only take away the militia's weapons, but also to arrest patriot leaders such as Handcock and Adams who had fled Boston to avoid capture, deportation to England for trial, and quite possibly execution.
In George IIIs time, people in Britain were still being imprisoned and even executed for criticizing the King or Parliament.
Don't overstate your position. It's not good today, but it is nothing like 18th century Britain.
I can’t think of a single case were a conviction for seditious libel was obtained in peacetime during George III’s reign, and I can’t think of a single execution that took place for the entirety of his reign, wartime or not, merely for criticizing parliament or the King...
The English Test Act kept Catholics out of public life from the end of James II's reign and applied to the American colonies. It was definitively repealed for Americans by the adoption of the Constitution and First Amendment. The English, however didn't repeal it until 1828/29. I suppose the fact he's British explains his tin ear as to why American Catholics and Protestant nonconformists might think the right to participate in their own government worth fighting for.
On the fifteenth of April, 1774, Lord North introduced a bill in Parliament, entitled "A bill for the impartial administration of justice in the cases of persons questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the laws, or for the suppression of riots and tumults in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England." This bill provided that in case any person indicted for murder in that province, or any other capital offence, or any indictment. for riot, resistance of the magistrate, or impeding the revenue laws in the smallest degree, he might, at the option of the Governor, or, in his absence, of the Lieutenant Governor, be taken to another colony, or transported to Great Britain, for trial, a thousand leagues from his friends, and amidst his enemies.The arguments used by Lord North in favor of the measure, had very little foundation in either truth or justice, and the bill met with violent opposition in parliament. The minister seemed to be actuated more by a spirit of retaliation, than by a conviction of the necessity of such a measure. "We must show the Americans," said he, "that we will no longer sit quietly under their insults; and also, that even when roused, our measures are not cruel or vindictive, but necessary and efficacious." Colonel Barre, who, from the fast commencement of troubles with America, was the fast friend of the colonists, denounced the bill in unmeasured terms, as big with misery, and pregnant with dangerto the British Empire. "This," said he, "is indeed the most extraordinary resolution that was ever heard in the Parliament of England. It offers new encouragement to military insolence, already so insupportable. By this law, the Americans are deprived of a right which belongs to every human creature, that of demanding justice before a tribunal composed of impartial judges. Even Captain Preston,1 who, in their own city of Boston, had shed the blood of citizens found among them a fair trial, and equitable judges." Alderman Sawbridge, another warm friend of the Americans, in Parliament, also denounced the bill, not only as unnecessary and ridiculous, but unjust and cruel. He asserted that witnesses against the crown could never be brought over to England; that the Act was meant to enslave the Americans; and he expressed the ardent hope that the Americans would not admit of the execution of any fly of these destructive bills,2 but nobly refuse them all. If they do not," said he, " they are the most abject slaves upon earth, and nothing the minister can do is base enough for them."
Notwithstanding the manifest inexpediency of such a treasure, the already irritated feeling of the colonists, and the solemn warning of sound statesmen in both 1 louses of Parliament, the bill was passed by one hundred and twenty-seven to forty-four, in the Commons, and forty-nine to twelve in the House of Lords. The king signed the bill, and it was thus decreed that Americans might be "transported beyond the seas, to be tried for pretended offences" or real crime.
Source: http://colonialhall.com/histdocs/declaration/declarationanalysis19.php
And how does that passage prove that people were locked up and executed for criticizing the king or Parliament? Murder, riot and refusing to pay taxes are reasonable crimes for which to be put on trial for..
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