The last time I called him on it, he explained that he was simply arguing a counterfactual…but he keeps coming back to it and picks July 4th for this marvelous sentiment:
Ultimately, I think the United States is a pretty awesome country but it very plausibly would have been even awesomer had English and American political leaders in the late 18th century been farsighted enough to find compromises that would have held the empire together.
Way to be patriotic, Matthew!!
Oh, I get it. Then we’d be South Canada, right? And Canada-envy is an awesome substitute for people on the left who can’t quite stomach the brutality of Cuba or Iran, or the crushing boredom of Sweden.
We’d be a dinky little Brit commonwealth, too – limited to the upper east coast, with secessionist republics not only to the south but to the west, as well. We’d have a socialist half-wit for a prime minister and a bunch of Anglican bishops who are raging Marxists. The rest of the world wouldn’t hate us – they wouldn’t even know where we were, exactly.
Of course we would have no armed forces to speak of. We would have learned our lesson after we sent that battalion of ambulance-drivers to help out at the failed invasion of Normandy.
This would all be good for Yglesias, who would probably probably be the head of the Blogger’s Union.
From what I know of American History (and I can’t claim to have been the best of students) the conflict wasn’t about an unwillingness to compromise. It was about the American colonists being finally fed up with being denied the basic rights they were entitled to as British subjects. And with absolutely no prospect of those rights being restored, there was only an extreme alternative. That doesn’t sound like a “failure to compromise” to me.
The best tongue-in-cheek description I have ever heard about the American Revolution was this: “British subjects, fighting for basic British rights, against a tyrannical German king.”
And when it was all over, we built a better system for ourselves.
Just my $.02
DaveK
Britain literally within the first few months of the war realized that it had made a big mistake, that the war might well be lost, that the risk they were taking in fighting was greater than they were willing to pay, and that they’d have been far better off giving in to the colonists demands than risking losing the whole of the America and in particular the irreplaceable Southern agrian colonies with thier favorable climate.
However, by the time the home country realized that, the colonists had worked themselves up to a point that little other than independence would do. Moreover, politics on the British side of the pond conspired to make the British political and diplomatic responce maddeningly slow compared to its military responce. The ruling party had committed to a military solution, and couldn’t essentially surrender to the rebels so soon without appearing so foolish that it would end up disolving the government. Worse, the King wasn’t so much the tyrant the Americans believed, as a simple blockhead who took the revolt personally.
Had the British responce been radically different, it might have saved the Empire – at least in a form similar to the modern Commonwealth – but conceeding that colonies had a right to self-determination was basically unthinkable in 1775. It would have required humbly submitting to a traitorous rabble of uncultured merchants and craftsman who’d threatened the entire English political system and shot up his majesty’s troops. Before Bunker Hill, it was unthinkable. After Bunker Hill, it was too late.
I’m amazed how many people think that thier patriotism is displayed by imagining the USA defeated, humiliated, destroyed, or ‘wiped from the map’.
#3 from Celebrim at 8:59 pm on Jul 05, 2008
“but conceeding that colonies had a right to self-determination was basically unthinkable in 1775.”
The rebels made it sound like they only wanted rights they would have had back in the UK proper. Were they, in fact, demanding more?
Surely sooner or later Yglesias will just have to admit that what he really wants is an ‘America’ that is anything at all but America. He wants it to be Sweden or Canada South or Cuba North or Western North Korea or Western Zimbabwe or Northern Venezuela. *ANYTHING* but what it is today.
I’m sure he’d prefer it to be The People’s Republic of Columbia, encompasing perhaps the current US from Minnesota down to maybe Iowa, across northern Illinois and Indiana, and taking in most of the Eastern seaboard down to about North Carolina. He’d also include California from Sacramento or so North along with the Western half of Washington and Oregon with a finger reaching along the coast down to Venice Beach.
Everything else would be subjugated like the Soviet client states in the 50s and 60s.
Maybe he’d give back large chunks of the SouthWest to Mexico (or those that could prove they had Aztec ancestors and no Spanish ones). Most of Florida could be given to Cuba. All of Applachia, southern Indiana and Illinois as well as all of Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennesse, Kentucky and big chunks of Georgia and South Carolina would be occupied by troops of the People’s Republic. The Dakotas and the Mountain States would be colonies that raised wheat and cattle for the People’s Republic, along with a few ski resorts with dachas for the bigshots (oops, the loyal servants) of The People’s Republic. Also they would house the gulags.
I can see it quite easily from his point of view.
…if it were more plausible for Americans to work ourselves up into a fury of anti-British sentiment.
Where in America can the celebration of the 4th reasonably be described as a ‘fury of anti-british sentiment’?
Hmmmm.
When I see sentiments professed such as by Yglesias I always have to remind the individual involved that they would be a **commoner** and not a **lord**.
As in they would be doing the bowing, scraping and “Yes my lord” and “No my lord”.
For some unimaginable reason the most sane people have this weird fantasy that a feudally structured British America would somehow end up with them in the aristocracy. Then I remind them that their ancestors came through Ellis Island totally broke.
The awesomest of them all for Yglesias is: we would be a province of the EU, we would be Euros serving German and French interests instead of American interests.
In fairness, the Canadians acquitted themselves quite well in Normandy at Juno Beach.
And Yglesias is a tool. But we all knew that.
I’ll admit it – had I been alive during the revolution, I would have been a loyalist. While sympathetic to the patriot cause, I would have been convinced that we didn’t stand a chance militarily, and that we would have been better off seeking reconciliation.
I stand by that logic; the colonials were extremely lucky, and the war could have ended in disaster on any number of occasions. Worse yet, had we been led by anyone other than Washington, we could very easily have replaced British rule with an even worse tyranny.
BTW, the left of 1776 would have absolutely spat on Yglesias’ opinion. American independence had broad support from the British left, who in those days were in favor of small government, freedom from taxes and tolls (which paid for the war against Napoleon, which they naturally opposed), disestablishment of the Church of England, and democratic social values.
America having all of this in spades, they would have denounced Yglesias as a tool of Capital, Reaction, Medieval Monarchism, the Class System, and Imperialism.
The timetable was:
April 1775, fighting breaks out at Lexington/Concord.
July 1775: Continental Congress sends the King the Olive Branch Petition, a conciliatory resolution meant to end the conflict.
“Attached to your Majesty’s person, family, and Government, with all devotion that principle and affection can inspire; connected with Great Britain by the strongest ties that can unite societies, and deploring every event that tends in any degree to weaken them, we solemnly assure your Majesty, that we not only most ardently desire the former harmony between her and these Colonies may be restored, but that a concord may be established between them upon so firm a basis as to perpetuate its blessings, uninterrupted by any future dissensions, to succeeding generations in both countries, and to transmit your Majesty’s name to posterity, adorned with that signal and lasting glory that has attended the memory of those illustrious personages, whose virtues and abilities have extricated states from dangerous convulsions, and by securing the happiness to others, have erected the most noble and durable monuments to their own fame.”
August 1775: A few weeks after its receipt, George III declares the colonies in rebellion, and their leaders guilty of treason.
At that, it took another 11 months before the Declaration of Indpendence, with its statement that “In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. “
Roight!
Jorg, that’s pretty dog-bites-man.
Dissent is patriotic, we are told. Treason is the highest form of dissent – you can’t dissent much harder than making war on your own country, right?
Therefore, wistfully longing for your own nation never to have existed is the very highest form of patriotism.
How dare you question Matt’s patriotism…
One could also argue that once defeated the UK figured out that model of overseas colonies they had been using simply didn’t work. They essentially gave Canada, New Zealand and Australia autonomy and used those resources and markets to build a fleet that controlled trade routes throughout the world. And by acquiring this fleet they were able to turn their attention to the “Jewel of the Empire.” India!
So I guess Yglesias would blame the US for making the British a true globe spanning hegemon? By losing we would have protected all the oppressed natives from British imperialism.
And let’s all welcome the phrase “plausibly awesomer” into the English language. I look forward to using the hell out of it myself.
“I think the United States is a pretty awesome country but it very plausibly would have been even awesomer had English and American political leaders in the late 18th century been farsighted enough to find compromises that would have held the empire together.”
Pretty much. England’s and the World’s loss. Bad king.
We’d have sent all our divisions to die in North Africa and the West Coast would be speaking Japanese.
“Treason is the highest form of dissent – you can’t dissent much harder than making war on your own country, right?”
Then we’s the most patrioticest Englishmen every, ain’t we?
Mars:
Yes, and in Sicily and many other places. I was not impugning Canadian WWII heroism.
However, I would not have liked the chances of Canadian expeditionary forces sent to fight Lee and Stonewall Jackson, to save Virginia for Queen Victoria. We would be living in a very different world.
There’s the country, and then there’s the swag-bag of “free” stuff one gets from the government. They are two different things.
Too many lefties think the swag-bad _is_ the country, and the heavier the swag-bag, the greater the country. This is where John Rawls blew it…
Good thing we didn’t stay. We’d have bankrupted the Crown with all the CCTV cameras they’d needed to install.
I think people underestimate the effect the US would have had on the British Empire had we stayed. People assume the Empire would have plugged along exactly as is with a few million more members when more likely the strength of the US might have coopted much of the foreign policy giving the US more control and power than it had as an independent nation.
For example: If the Germans ducked WW1 and 2 because the US strength intimidated them, or the allies one quicker because US troops were in far sooner, the English wouldn’t have lost a generation and thus might have fought to maintain their empire rather than giving it up.
The issue isn’t Canadian performance in World War II.
The problem is British misuse of Canadian troops in World War I .
If the British had continued to control North America, there probably would have been more conflict in the course of the Napoleonic War, along the Louisiana frontier. Napoleon selling Louisiana to the UK would, of course, have been unthinkable.
Once that war was over, Britain probably would have seized the Louisiana territory—but not necessarily heavily populated it (recalling that limiting emigration to America was one complaint in the Declaration of Independence).
So, by the time of World War I, it is quite likely that the North American dominion states would have been called upon to provide troops for the bloodletting on the Western Front.
And we would have sent them.
And they would have been slaughtered, as Aussies and Kiwis were at Gallipoli, and Canadians were at Vimy Ridge and Beaumont Hamel.
Quite awesomer, doncha think?
#12 Dave Hardy,
Man, you’re good!
My only woosie input – King George never appreciated the fact that he was facing a country with a mix of stubborn Scotch-Irish and free-thinking fellow Englishmen (I’m French-Canadian, so I have no ethnic axe to grind here).
Maybe the rebels weren’t well-organized militarily (hey, we got our butts kicked over and over by the Lobsterbacks), and were fractured politically, but they had an Anglo “stiff upper lip” and a “Crown be damned” attitude. King George didn’t realize that the Empire and English cultural heritage had spawned a resiliant resistance movement in the New World. In the immediate term, England lost a couple wars. In the long term, they never lost the American’s gut-level connection to their former host nation, which saved them in 2 other wars.
I think the country would be “awesomer” if some immigration official had looked up Yglesias or his antecedents, thought for a moment, pursed his lips, and then said, “Nope. Sorry. Back you go.”
#4 Thomass:
The rebels made it sound like they only wanted rights they would have had back in the UK proper. Were they, in fact, demanding more?
Depends on which historical figure you ask, and at what date. The seeds of the conflict were sown in the French and Indian War, decades before the American Revolution. Between then and the Revolution itself, Ben Franklin traced an arc starting from, “We think we’d rather like our own Parliament(s) under the Crown, thank you,” going all the way to, “Screw you guys, we’re going home.”
British intransigence played a large role in turning a bunch of people with legitimate grievances and a few wild-eyed radicals into a bunch of wild eyed radicals fueled by legitimate grievances.
What a complete ass.
I mean, dude, does someone who uses “awesome” and “awesomer” in his prose really worth the time of day?
Considering the “dude” is one of the official bloggers with one of the better-respected opinion journals of the day?
Yeah, I’d say it matters.
However, I would not have liked the chances of Canadian expeditionary forces sent to fight Lee and Stonewall Jackson, to save Virginia for Queen Victoria. We would be living in a very different world.
Like some Hary Turtledove novel…
The problem is Iglesias isnt a strong enough student of history or human nature, to disregard visions of utiopia ha has dancing beofr ehis eyes. People will still be people regardless fo the background, and even if he got his wish it is still inhis nature to be a contrarian complainer.
Scott
I think it was Eisenhower who said that the Canadians were his best troops man for man. There’s also a study somewhere that in WW1 the Canadians won more victories with fewest lives lost per victory than any other allied power.
George III was the best of a bad family. The English actually liked “Farmer George” and were puzzled by the colonists rebellion. After all he spoke English; a welcome change from the German speakers before him. Did the Brits have a case about the colonists paying for their own protection after the French and Indian Wars? Maybe but they sure did a poor job of making the case. Without an American Revolution the possible course of events such as the French Revolution, Parliamentary Reform in Britain and all subsequent interactions are simply to complicated to make intelligent guesses on.
One of the best bits in Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” is his predicting that if peace is restored with the colonies and they get parliamentary representation proportional to their contributions to the Exchequer (this was long before one man one vote) then in 100 years the capital of the British Empire would move to Philadelphia. Look it up.
The Canadians (or Canadiens, if you prefer) provide some wonderful soldiers. But so few. Their development was slowed by the Crown. The British Crown tried to slow US development too, forbidding movement to the west, and trade with the Spanish colonies.
When I read comments like Yglesias’ I remember that scene from the “Unforgiven†where Gene Hackman is pistol-whipping English Bob for bragging about the Queen on Independence Day . . .
Good times.
Actually, Yglesias’s view would make sense if (and only if) one assumes that the Americans would have swiftly become the dominant center of the British Empire. #23, rjschwarz, gave a pretty good take on this, but I would go farther – the world wars likely would not have occurred given the overwhelming world dominance of the British-American Union. Thanks also to #33, lifeofthemind, for his interesting cite of Adam Smith.
It’s not insane to think that the growth of the American states would have been as irresistible, sweeping to the Pacific and annexing the former Mexican territories, in this alternate history as in the actual one. I think it’s also quite possible to imagine that slavery would have been ended much earlier in this alternate history; that the sufferings of Ireland would have been stopped; and that the common man would have acquired a much better standing in Britain earlier than actually happened, forestalling the growth of socialism.
One united nation, including the current United States, Canada, the British Isles, and Australasia, with a social and political system pretty much like the current USA – that would be fantastically great, and an absolutely unchallengeable power: the Anglosphere, as an actual nation-state.
I believe Yglesias is way off the mark when he suggests that “English and American political leaders [should have] been farsighted enough to find compromises”. I don’t think history supports this at all. The problems were caused by King George, Lord North, et al., not by the Americans; see, for example, posts #2, #12, #17 and #27 above.
_I’ll admit it – had I been alive during the revolution, I would have been a loyalist_
Well I would’ve been a rebel, and I would’ve put a musket ball up your arse.
Anyway, maybe this Yglesias fellow means it would have been awesomer for the UK to keep us than to lose us? which I guess is true.
Otherwise that makes no sense. I mean come on, I work for a British company and go to the UK a lot. Nice enough place to VISIT and all, if you can tolerate the many little frustrations, but… Maybe Julio needs to actually go to the UK sometime.
“Where in America can the celebration of the 4th reasonably be described as a ‘fury of anti-british sentiment’?”
Didn’t you burn your Union Jack on the Fourth like the rest of us? It’s a long-standing tradition, dontcha know. We also usually throw a box of Lipton tea in the pond out back and stomp on a helping of steak and kidney pie. Like I said, tradition. 🙂
We’d be a dinky little Brit commonwealth
Assuming no uncertainties involved with alternate reality, we’d more likely be living in a Germanic, Japanese or Russian annex.
I don’t think any of us appreciate how vital this country has been to preventing the spread of modern totalitarianism. Not me, not you — sure as hell, not Matthew Yglesias.
Edmund Burke, considered the father of conservativism by some, tried to convince the British Parliament to work with the colonists. Is Yglesias now advocating a conservative position on the American Revolution?
Re #33
Ben Franklin had conducted a similar proof at some time, well before the shooting in the War of Independence began and therefore, some time before Adam Smith. Franklin’s point was, IIRC, that the Crown was most reluctant to grant representation in Commons to the American colonies, because in due time those representatives would represent more people, and thus be able to outvote, the entire representation of metropolitan England.
That’s the dilemma of a humanitarian and democratic (or partly democratic, as was England at the time of George III) empire. You make enough barbarians citizens and the barbarians wind up running the castle.
As far as George III was concerned, many Colonials harboured a belief that the King was well disposed towards them, “if only we could get through to him.” They blamed their plight on ministers, notably Lord North.
Far from being the Svengali behind a misled monarch, Frederick, Lord North was a loyal follower of the king, then still a politically powerful personage. But after Cornwallis’s surrender, North was forced out of office by a vote of no confidence. He still held his place in George III’s esteem, but lost that, also, when he later teamed up with Charles Fox. George absolutely hated Fox and all he stood for, and he never forgave North.
Very great events sometimes turn on the personalities and characters of common human beings in uncommon positions and situations. The American Revolution is full of instances of this exact case.
Apparently, dissent from the Crown wasn’t the highest form of patriotism …
Idiots. The one thing of consequence to come of the Revolution is so important that every one of you take it for granted. America is the only country ever founded on a creed. No Revolution would have meant *no Declaration of Independence*. No government of, by, and for the people. No endowment by the Creator. No unalienable rights. No first or second amendment. No Locke, Jefferson or Adams; just Filmer, Hobbes and Hegel. Fools. Phony Patriots. RTFD, Dammit. READ THE F’N DECLARATION! And thank God better men before you laid it in your lap. Americans-in-name-only. Wake up AINOs.
Yglesias attitude I submit is not atypical of most Liberals/Democrats. That he’s said this twice is not an accident.
Yes I question their patriotism. As Hanson says, the love of country that characterizes itself as “I love you only when you do X” would not amount to love applied to family.
c’mon mr yglesias – we’d all be talking’ Texan by now.
Oh yeah, we are (at least in the WH HAHA)
I could be wrong, but I always understood that _
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_, published in 1776, wasn’t intended by Smith to be some sort of “Capitalist Manifesto,” but was in fact an anti-colonialism tract. The Mercantilist economic beliefs of the time held that only access to more resources was the key to increasing the wealth of a nation. Smith wrote his treatise to demonstrate how this was not the case, that people prospered by trading, and that conquest only made a few wealthy at the general expense of the people.
yours/
peter.
#41:
bq. That’s the dilemma of a humanitarian and democratic (or partly democratic, as was England at the time of George III) empire. You make enough barbarians citizens and the barbarians wind up running the castle.
We are seeing this now as the UK and all of Europe slowly become muslim territory.
As a Canadian, I actually happen to think Canada is a pretty nice place. Before Trudeau got a hold of it, it was even a pretty serious country. I consider myself a loyal subject of the Crown, not just be birth but by the oath I took on entering the Army, and because overall the British monarchy has been a force for good over the last 200 years. I think a lot of Canada’s troubles began when the government turned away from our Anglo-Scots heritage in favor of multi-culti – I fondly remember singing God Save the Queen in elementary school; I learned later it can also be turned into a pretty cool drinking game.
All that said, I really cannot imagine how the world would be better without the USA. The British Empire would have wound down eventually, and without Pax Americana to replace it, god only knows what the world would be like. The British Empire was certainly the most humane of the European colonial empires, but it certainly wasn’t all peaches and cream (think Amristar). It was also done on the cheap, which also doomed it. Frankly, too many Brits were just too nice to maintain an unwilling empire for long – there would have been no Ghandi had he not been educated in Britain and given a chance to practice law in South Africa.
This week I celebrated July 1 Canada Day, proud that my country is doing its duty in Afghanistan – last Saturday I was drinking with an old friend who is will be heading over there soon. On Friday I reminded myself that the USA is the best champion that the west could wish for, and that without it the world would be a much colder, meaner place. I still revere Britain for what it was and the gifts of modern democracy, but a semi-autonomous United Colonies of America would have been thin cruel compared to the real thing.
I’ll give the Scots the last say on this, from “Trainspotting”:
“It’s SHITE being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don’t. They’re just wankers. We, on the other hand, are COLONIZED by wankers. Can’t even find a decent culture to be colonized BY. We’re ruled by effete assholes. It’s a SHITE state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and ALL the fresh air in the world won’t make any fucking difference! “
Well, Mr. Carroll, you call the English effete. This, the country that saw off Spain (and thus stopped the domination of all Christendom by the Inquisition); that saw off Napoleon – twice; that gave birth to America, Canada and the USA; that ended slavery; that first gave votes to women; that fought the worst dictator in human history, all on its own, for two years. If that makes us effete, I would hate for the USA to be up against anyone who’s tough.
And make no mistake, I am convinced that given the need we would find that sort of toughness again. Several of the dwindling band of WWII vets, along with one of the handful of WWI vets, when interviewed on TV thought so too.
Here’s hoping, Mr Christian. I offer a genial toast to the merits of the Anglosphere, and the UK as progenitor and primus inter pares.
Fletcher:
This may be off the topic of US patriotism but I would like to respond to your comment:
“And make no mistake, I am convinced that given the need we would find that sort of toughness again. Several of the dwindling band of WWII vets, along with one of the handful of WWI vets, when interviewed on TV thought so ”
Most of your laws have been superseded by the EU. You no longer control your foreign policy and even your trash laws are tied to the EU.
The national government in the UK and every other country in the EU has been relegated to the status of what? paper pushers for the EU.
In the UK you are stuck with all forms of government tied to a lessening of the importance of the British way of life.
Consider what might have happened if, when Churchill became Prime Minister during WWII, not only the majority of his party (Who were against Churchill’s leadership), but the overwhelming majority of the shire,city,town councils and the unions were against his leadership and policies. Not only against Churchill’s policies but agreed that Hitler’s way was the right way.
This is what you have today regarding Britain’s history and uniqueness. Education is such that British history is being gutted to allow for other histories. What do you fight for if you have no foundation?
I would hate to think all that is left to fight for the British way of life is the National Party.
Sorry. Left out the end of a sentence:
Education is such that British history is being gutted to allow for other histories.
[Fixed for you. Shall we delete this post & reply? Please advise. –NM]
PS:
This from the July 6, 2008 edition of the Times Online:
Sniffer dogs to wear ‘Muslim’ bootees.
Stuart MacDonald writes that Police sniffer dogs will have to wear bootees when searching the homes of Muslims so as not to cause offence
HatTip Gates of Vienna.
Mr. Christian: Without a doubt, Britain has much of which to be proud. The Anglosphere dominates the planet, and it all came from that tiny little island, which many of us regard fondly as our ancestral home. The question of ‘what have you done for me lately’, though, appears apposite. Is Britain sinking further into decline, as its population ages, its wealth shrinks, and its socialist policies enacted at the high water mark further drain its former imperial might and majesty? Gazing Eastward from this side of the pond, things don’t look so good.
What might have been, had the US never declared its independence? I think there are far too many variables to be able to predict with any certainty. As it was, things worked out pretty well. The past is the past. Our future, to be perfectly trite, is in our own hands.
There was a bit of this meme going around when the left decided it was against any war. If we had waited it out, we’d have been independent (re: like Canada and Australia) without the war.
The criticism seems spot on though. We were a revolutionary society that brought liberalism to the world. Then again, progressives were never really impressed with classical liberalism…
And by luck or circumstance, we did without the tumbrels or the man on horseback. Or so it appears, so far.
Ah, but Thomass – if we hadn’t acted, what would the Commonwealth look like? Would it have liberalized – or become more of a tightly-run Empire. Would England have granted more rights to it’s citizens? There certainly would have been no French Revolution to force their hand.
A.L.
Fletcher:
WRT to my earlier post. It took me a while to find a link to my trash reference but here it is:
Via Express on line- UK NEWSFORTNIGHTLY BIN COLLECTIONS SPARK RAT PLAGUE – Menace: Rat population is on the increase. Thursday July 3,2008 By John Ingham.
“…Critics say the new collection rota – with household waste like food collected one week and recyclables the next – means that bin bags full of rotting food can lie outside homes for up to 14 days, attracting maggots, flies, rats, squirrels and foxes. Families that forget to put their bins out face having the waste festering for a month…”
Couple this with the two finger rule – if the trash collector canot move the bin with two fingers he/she does not have to take the trash.
Say what you like about the British, but no former colonials are as fond of the mother country as are Britannia’s. They taught us the most essential lesson of all: when confronted with a moral/political dilemma, go back to the founding principles and decide according to them. We Americans, asserting our rights as Englishmen, harkened back to the English Bill of Rights of 1689. The American Bill of Rights is mostly a restatement of the earlier Bill. The Declaration of Independence lists the violations of these rights as the cause of our rebellion.
I live in New England. The English part of this region derived from the Parliamentarian side of the English civil war. In fact, two or more of the “regicides” were sheltered here after the Restoration. It is from the traditions of the English themselves that we that we learned the right of the people to overthrow an oppressive monarch. England was the first place on earth that a king was tried and convicted of treason against his own people. We learned from the best.
He’s a little unclear on the whole liberty thing.
You will find that Carter made a similar statement last year or so. My question is, if expressions of Loyalist sympathies 200 odd years after the event are not enough to make one literally and explicitly “anti-American” just what does it take?
Cite on the Carter statement? I’d love to see it…
A.L.
“””””This would all be good for Yglesias, who would probably probably be the head of the Blogger’s Union.”””””
There would have been no blogger’s union because there would never have been an Arpanet from which to derive an Internet.