Yawn. All the same old arguments. Fact: The Colonists largely provided for their own defense and fielded not insignificant amounts of their own troops in the French and Indian War.
So the author is saying our current libs are not original in their thinking about taxing the wealthy.
A Canadian leftist who just did a stretch in prison for fraud
“The most expensive aspect of the Seven Years’ War — which was in some respects the first world war, as it was fought in North America, the Caribbean, Europe, West Africa, and India — was in North America”
The colonists had no representation. This is what it was about. Taxation with no representation. In reality, if I recall correctly, the whole ‘tea tax’ debacle would have actually reduced the price of tea, BUT to agree to it would have been to agree to taxation without representation. It was about principle, not money, and I’m glad we stood on it.
Everything was kind of pointless though. The UK became a totalitarian police state.... and then so did we.
The two largest battles led by British regulars in North America were near catastrophic losses. They marched straight into an ambush in one and attacked a fort without adequate men in another. The colonists had pretty much won Canada with no help from Britain by capturing, at great cost in fortune and life, the fortress at Louisport during King George`s War, only to watch the British negotiate it away for some piece of land in the Netherlands.
By the time the Declaration was written Royal forces had shelled and burnt down Charlestown During the battle of Bunker Hill, raided farms near water to support their army in Boston, and was in fact planning to subjugate the colonists especially in New England.
Canada`s public screwls must be as poor as ours.
“You been talking about the queen again? On Independence day?”
Little Bill
‘Let me gently remind you not to do that.”
Of course there is a completely different point of view which, IMO, is far more defensible, which makes the colonists case look alot better.
For example its hilarious to imply that the British engaged in the Seven Years War as a favor to the Americans, and that the Americans did not contribute blood sweat and tear themselves to the effort to maintain the British empire in the western hemisphere, yet afterwards still were not treated as full and equal citizens in the eyes of the Crown.
But then, this guy also wrote a book called FDR, Champion of Freedom. So what else would one expect.
George III “evinces [a] design to reduce [us] under absolute despotism;” he has been “waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.”
1. Everything done by the English government is done in the King’s name- the buck has to stop someplace.....
2. Lord North’s ministry owed its existence to a Tory majority in the Parliament, which owed its existence to widespread election rigging sponsored by none other than...King George.
3. The Intolerable Acts were all in violation of well-established English law. What do you do when the government is breaking the law, hm? Protest to Parliament, where you are not represented and just wants your money? Write a letter to the King, who has designs of absolute monarchy of his own?
4. As for the Parliament, the Tea Act was a nice way of trying to bail out the British East India Company by giving it a monopoly on tea - of which the stockholders were often members of Parliament. Can you say corruption?
Nope, the American Revolution was absolutely justified.
A man (Black) claiming the tyrant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who solidly emplaced Communism in our halls of Federal Government), to be a “Champion of Freedom” can’t be all wrong. /sarc
In the pursuit of historical accuracy, here are the ACTUAL charges
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
who the hell would want it? we're already overrun with socialist parasites of our own.
This is laughably false. The British were so cruel to my ancestors that they had to flee the lands that they had work so hard to hack out of wilderness.
Sound like Global Warming. Same paranoid fears, but The Villian changes.