Thursday, July 1, 2021

1776 Reflections on the American Revolution .

Was the American 
Revolution Justified ?
let's get a closer look .
In 1777 Pitt the Elder said, in the House of Commons; "I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say it, you CANNOT conquer America...As to conquest, therefore, my Lords, I repeat, it is impossible. ... If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never! never! never! " so not all British thought the campaign would be won certainly. 
British faced not only the Americans but the French, Spanish and Dutch too. It was a war that was, by this point, simply impossible to win. Following the American Revolution, the modern world didn't accept an Independent America whole heartedly. Former American allies France and Spain were pretty much in toe with the UK in limiting US sovereignty, one immediate reason why you had the war of 1812. (1)>>Was the American Revolution Justified  ? American founding fathers had some great accomplishments. But I believe that the American revolution was an overrated revolution filled with a lot of hypocrisy.The American  13 colonies under Great Britain were given the name "New England" from it's first English colonists in Jamestown , Salem . There was almost a 100 years of "peace" in North America , though it's tranquility was challenged by skirmishes with the aboriginal people known falsely as "Indians", it would soon be changed when (1.1)>>French and "Indian wars" would would unravel the English Colonies. One thing I always found interesting is the US colonies were not especially economically important to the British Empire. The Caribbean is where they made their real money. The US colonies were mostly a small profit pain in the butt and not as much of a priority to the British as their rivalry with France and keeping the money flowing from the Caribbean... However what started as a nuisance would end up rippling around the world..  (2)>>The idea of American independence starting July 4th 1776 is one of the historical falsehoods , while a "Declaration of Independence " was signed in 1776 ,  the revolutionary war ended in 1783. Remember America had to fight another war of Independence , the war of 1812.Overrated? By whom?
The War of 1812 , the real war of Independence .
(3)>>War of 1812 pitted the fledgling United States It's certainly possible to oversell the American Revolution, just as it's possible to oversell any historical event.  (3.1)>>BUT a New War the final war for American Independence almost coast the nation it's vary meager Liberty . The war of 1812 almost destroyed  the Nation. But the United States was not really ready for war. The Americans hoped to get a jump on the British by conquering CANADA in the campaigns of 1812 and 1813. All the while, support for the war waned in America. Associated costs skyrocketed. New England talked of succeeding from the Union. At the Hartford Convention, delegates proposed constitutional amendments that would limit the power of the executive branch of government.So weak was American military opposition that the British sashayed into Washington D.C. after winning the BATTLE OF BLADENSBURG and burned most of the public buildings including the White House. PRESIDENT MADISON had to flee the city. His wife Dolley gathered invaluable national objects and escaped with them at the last minute. It was the nadir of the war. The War of 1812 ended largely because the British public had grown tired of the sacrifice and expense of their twenty-year war against France. Now that Napoleon was all but finally defeated, the minor war against the United States in North America lost popular support. Negotiations began in August 1814 and on Christmas Eve the TREATY OF GHENT was signed in Belgium. The treaty called for the mutual restoration of territory based on pre-war boundaries and with the European war now over, the issue of American neutrality had no significance.In effect, the treaty didn't change anything and hardly justified three years of war and the deep divide in American politics that it exacerbated. After the war of 1812 , the United States of America was secure enough to expand west & dominate Mexico , Central America and South America.

Revolution after more Revolutions.......
It's worth comparing the American Revolution to the other Atlantic Revolutions of the 1770s-1840s. The American Revolution was the catalyst for various revolutions that happened in Mexico , Central , and South America . They idea of exporting a revolution was not part of the founding fathers of this nation . But certainly the American revolution inspired possibly every Communist revolutions later on.  (3.1 )>>The French Revolution was followed by centuries of political instability and violence. France had the Reign of Terror, the Thermidorean Reaction, numerous rebellions, and Napeolon's coup. From 1792 until now, France has had five republics. The Haitian Revolution was marred by orgies of barbaric violence by revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries (including troops sent by Napeolon to crush the insurrection). And it in the near-term, it resulted in a series of short-lived monarchies, like Dessalines' Empire, Henri's splinter Kingdom of Haiti, and Faustin's Empires. The Latin American revolutions had mixed results, some producing relatively stable republics others ... not so much. Many revolutions outright failed. The Canadian Revolutions in 1837-1838 were crushed, as were the revolutions of 1848 in Europe.The fact that the American colonists won a war against against a world power and unified fractious colonies into a country and established a liberal, constitutional form of government that has lasted for 232 years is genuinely exceptional.Yes and no. I do not think one can point a single reason for anything in history, let alone an event like a revolution. Like most things, it happened because of a lot of intersecting reasons, some more obvious than the others.It's clear that economy was a major cause in the american revolution: the rallying cry, after all, was "no taxation without representation", and the accepted narrative revolves around British taxes on the colonies. This makes sense: no one likes to have money taken from their pockets and food from their table, and when you piss off enough people from both the commoners and the richer folk, you tend to get an uprising.However, you cannot just say it was because of the economy, and I don't think the ideas discussed by the founders were just "whitewashing". If you read the  (4)>>Federalist papers and follow the way those men tried to create a new system of government you can see how genuinely concerned they were at the prospect of tyranny and how they were trying to apply to reality these new ideas and philosophies.The point is, a revolution doesn't just happen because "a lot of people became convinced with a certain agenda". Almost any revolution I can think of had an ideological side and an economic side, and they coexist without contradiction - making someone poor makes them mad, and feeding them ideas gives them a solution to apply and a direction to follow when they march on the capital.In many ways what the revolutionaries argued was similar to the "slippery slope" argument presented today. Yes, they were upset about taxes, but the point was that unless their interests were represented, a monarch could tyrannize at will. Many colonials considered this idea a ludicrous overstatement, but when British soldiers suddenly imposed martial law in Boston and took up residence in civilian housing, many quickly changed their minds. This action directly opposed the accepted notion that "an Englishman's home is his castle."
 The BIG FAILURES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
 (4.1)>>The Founding Fathers wanted a "more perfect government under God " , but instead quickly after the war of 1812 the country went the other way . The expansion of the American state on the Continent had serious consequences . The expansion west was due to conquest , the acquisition of territories , the suppression of native populations . WE KNOW THAT history  ,Of course, evaluating the wisdom of the American Revolution means dealing with counterfactuals. As any historian would tell you, this is a messy business. We obviously can't be entirely sure how America would have fared if it had stayed in the British Empire longer, perhaps gaining independence a century or so later, along with Canada.The new republic started advancing life and liberty by keeping a substantial part of its population enslaved. (This, at least, proves the frequent British put-down that Americans don’t have a sense of irony.) By contrast, in British-controlled Canada, the abolition of slavery began almost 20 years before the War of 1812, sometimes called America’s “Second Revolution.” A good number of free blacks fought with the British against the United States in that conflict, even participating in the burning of Washington. And if, as some scholars argue, the (5)>>Civil War was the unfinished business of the American Revolution, then Americans On to liberty. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics show that more than 2 million people were incarcerated in 2011; that includes federal, state and local prisoners, as well as those awaiting trial. To put that total into perspective, the International Centre for Prison Studies ranks the United States ranks first in the world in the number of prisoners per 100,000 residents. That’s well ahead of Canada (which ranks 136th) and even Russia. The U.S. incarceration rate for African American men, which is about six times higher than that of white men, according to 2010 data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, points to yet more unfinished business.The American Revolution was fought to create a sovereign nation free from the arbitrary taxation imposed by Britain. All the same, Americans’ opinion of the fairness and effectiveness of the US tax system has declined markedly over recent years. Some of the change corresponds to party lines. Republicans’ and Democrats’ views have diverged, with Democrats increasingly skeptical and Republicans more positive, especially since the 2017. The big question also how much freedom of the press , freedom of Religion existed in this country . BY CONTEXT the press right now under BIG TECH is crunching information in the is country . BUT the nation always had limited the First Amendment through out it's history . There too long examples even (5.1)>>of religious persecution that have gone under the radar . AS a whole the American Revolution is nothing more than a giant Fallacy. First of all, you can't link link a 200+ year-old event to any situation today and call it a direct correlation. That's ignoring all the history that has occurred between those two time periods, which is something that a historian should probably not do. 

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION & THE ILLUMINATI .
Most of the supposed Illuminati connections are the influences of Freemasonry on the Revolution. A lot of pre-Revolutionary masons became revolutionaries, and some lodges turned into clubs.Masonic lodges were a safe place to spread and develop egalitarian ideas, so it's not surprising that many who were attracted to it would later join the Revolution. The lodges also influenced the creation and function of networks of clubs across France. (6)>>By the late 1790s, conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic had become certain that this unprecedented plan — this mother of all conspiracies — was well at work, and that at its center, controlling and manipulating events around the world, was the insidious secret society of international intellectuals known as the Order of the Illuminati. The real Illuminati are the Masons . Masonic thought influenced American history: the Masons were opposed to the claims of royalty—a strong influence on the development of the American revolt against Britain which culminated in the Revolutionary War. They were also known for their opposition to the Catholic Church, another international organization that competed for allegiance.It has often been claimed that all or most of the signers of the Declaration ; or that all or most of the general officers serving under Washington were Freemasons. These claims have been made to bolster the theory that the events of the American Revolution and the formation of the American colonies into an independent republic were carried out according to some Masonic plan, and in accordance with universal Masonic principles.

Last Word : Why the "NEW" American Revolution Needs to Reform the Country.
Yes, the Revolution was hypocritical. BUT It championed some very radical enlightened ideals, and failed to fully live up to them. That's kind of been the work of the rest of American history. But I'm glad the ideals were put forward in the first place and given such an important place in our culture. BUT the nation needs some kind of reform , the two party system is failing .  (7)>>WE NEED A NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION & A NEW AMERICA .Fixing democracy certainly requires toppling the walls of the status quo There’s no shortage of plausible explanations for why U.S. politics has become so polarized, but many of these theories describe impossible-to-reverse trends that have played out . Poverty , homelessness are rising in the country . Run down and abandon cities on the east coast. The FixGov series shows, public demand for very major government reform remains near a twenty-year high, while trust in the federal government remains at historic lows. Trust may yet rebound with the number of vaccinations and a steady hand, but Biden still needs a plan for fixing government fast, especially given the odds of breakdowns along the way.Americans who believed the bureaucracy had become too large, too expensive, and too powerful were becoming more numerous, and as a result many politicians began to demand reform. Bureaucracies move slowly. One reason that it is so hard to reform the bureaucracy is that it has two masters — the President and Congress. Especially during periods of divided government, one branch can be suspicious that the other is trying to gain control. As a result, one branch or the other resists reform. Finding the practical solutions that have bipartisan support is a difficult process, largely because the system of checks and balances is not particularly efficient. Nevertheless, bureaucratic reform is often attempted by the President and Congress. Meanwhile, the red tape remains rather sticky. THIS 4th of JULY , 2021 AD . WE AMERICANS have to think a little. Basically the reason why i'm asking this is because a lot of American citizens are beginning to become frustrated with their government. According to some surveys that were done, a majority of American citizens are dissatisfied with the two-party system, with many believing that the Democrats and the Republicans care more for gaining control of the government than actually trying to solve the problems America is facing at the moment. Back during the 2016 elections, both Clinton and Trump have low approval rates, with a lot of americans only voting for one because they don't want to other to win. America is lagging behind other first-world countries in Education, Healthcare, and quality of life. And it is beginning to seem like the true rulers of America is not the people, but the Rich corporations that cares only for profit. People are beginning to get sick of the corruption that is plaguing our government, and it seems like we can't just solve this problem through democratic means. As time goes on America begins to become less of a democracy of more of a oligarchy which is not what the founding fathers had in mind. And with the Covid-19 crisis going on the problems seem to have gotten only worse. Which brings me to the question i'm going to ask, could America undergo a second revolution soon, perhaps this decade? Are the American citizens going to finally decide to fight to overthrow the corrupt government and regain their freedom? 

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Then had America been lost, o’erwhelm’d by the Atlantic,
And Earth had lost another portion of the Infinite;        175
But all rush together in the night in wrath and raging fire.
The red fires rag’d! The plagues recoil’d! Then roll’d they back with fury
On Albion’s Angels: then the Pestilence began in streaks of red
Across the limbs of Albion’s Guardian; the spotted plague smote Bristol’s,
THE GUARDIAN PRINCE of Albion burns in his nightly tent:
Sullen fires across the Atlantic glow to America’s shore,
Piercing the souls of warlike men who rise in silent night.
Washington, Franklin, Paine, and Warren, Gates, Hancock, and Green
Meet on the coast glowing with blood from Albion’s fiery Prince.        5
 
Washington spoke: ‘Friends of America! look over the Atlantic sea;
A bended bow is lifted in Heaven, and a heavy iron chain
Descends, link by link, from Albion’s cliffs across the sea, to bind
Brothers and sons of America; till our faces pale and yellow,
Heads depress’d, voices weak, eyes downcast, hands work-bruis’d,        10
Feet bleeding on the sultry sands, and the furrows of the whip
Descend to generations, that in future times forget.’

William Blake (1757–1827).  The Poetical Works.  1908.
America: A Prophecy
 
(Engraved 1793)
 

NOTES AND COMMENTS: 
(1)>>Was the American Revolution Justified  ?  Cancel culture - Woke  are now arguing everything that has to do with the founding of this nation . Regular secular historians now paint the founding fathers as brawlers in a pub who met regularly as the " Sons of Liberty" drank beer , talk politics . BUT the Question of the American revolution is difficult answer as to what the causes were .  In the Declaration of Independence, the American patriots listed "a history of injuries and usurpations" designed to establish "an absolute Tyranny over these states." IN 1764, Great Britain passed the Sugar Act, followed by the Stamp Act the next year. In response to colonial “ taxation without representation” outrage and widespread boycotts of taxed products, Great Britain tried to reestablish their dominance over the colonies with the Townshend Acts in 1767. Following this, the colonies engaged in more serious acts of rebellion with the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773.While the British had repeatedly shown its commitment to protecting its citizens, those very same citizens not only refused to help pay for this protection but demanded independence without cause after payment was requested. Their demands for representation, if grounds for revolution, would have meant that the majority of European-British citizens had cause for revolt, as Great Britain at that point in history was a monarchy with a parliamentary system that only granted representation to its lords. The American colonies were even granted some representation through their ambassadors to Great Britain, men like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams.At nearly every occasion, American colonists tried to neglect their end of the social contract with Great Britain and rationalized their actions and their revolution by accusing their government of doing just that. At every opportunity, Great Britain tried to ensure peace for its colonists, to protect their property and provide representation through entertainment of colonial ambassadors. Americans refused to help pay for a debt they were partly responsible for, undermined their government at every turn and revolted (making an ally out of France, a centuries-old enemy of the British, in the process). Ultimately, the American Revolution is not so clearly justified, as the demands of the colonists were outlandish and the British government treated the colonies with fairness in their governing.A conservative view on revolutions is that they are never justified. Revolutions threaten the existence of government. Without government there would be anarchy. Nobody could trust anyone else to follow laws or morality and conflict of all against all would result. (1.1)>>French and "Indian wars" would would unravel the English Colonies.  Britain was also involved in a war with France at the time of the American Revolution (1778-1783) and I think that had a great deal to do with the availability of arms and men and ships to fight in the Americas. Because of this, the war was probably not as "big" as it could have been.It was in effect, America’s first Civil War, it was also a World War. It involved the American Patriots, French Empire, Spanish Empire, the Netherlands and many Indian Nations vs Great Britain, tens of thousands of German Mercenaries. American Loyalists and many Indian Nations. Sea battles happened in British North America, the Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. It was a major global war that arguably changed the direction of history more than any war up to that time.There are a number of reasons why the French and Indian War was a turning point in Anglo-colonial relations. First and foremost, the war removed the French threat from North America, and Pontiac's War (which followed immediately after) showed that the Native Americans did not pose a truly significant threat. Had the colonies threatened rebellion prior to 1763, the French could have swooped in and taken advantage of the chaos.(2)>>The idea of American independence starting July 4th 1776. America was far from "independence" from Great Britain . The British still controlled North America , pretty much the North Atlantic with a powerful navy that the U.S. lacked at that time . The signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 ended the Revolutionary War and established the United States among the nations of the world. The treaty, however, neither guaranteed the new nation’s survival nor ensured that the powers of Europe would respect its rights. In upholding its rights to trade freely with all of the world’s countries, the United States government struggled to find a balance between military preparedness and diplomacy. The prolonged wars between Britain and France (1793-1815), kicked off by the French Revolution, greatly complicated America’s ability to protect the rights of its shipping and sailors. Additionally, many Americans along the nation’s western frontier believed that the British in Canada encouraged Indian raids on their settlements.  (3)>>War of 1812 pitted the fledgling United States, barely twenty years old, against Great Britain in a conflict that centered on the recognition of American commercial and political rights. Specifically, the reasons included trade restrictions brought about by Britain’s ongoing war with France, the impressment of American merchant sailors into the Royal Navy, British support of American Indian tribes against American expansion, and outrage over insults to national honor after humiliations on the high seas. From 1783-1812, the newly minted United States faced many growing pains. The legislative power of the central government was hotly disputed. Promises made by the Continental Congress remained unfulfilled.  Native Americans contested the growing frontier. Aftershock rebellions wracked the northwest. The military was too small, too weak, to contend with enemies foreign and domestic. The situation was precarious, with the United States needing stability at home and legitimacy abroad.By 1811, “War Hawks” in the United States Congress were agitating for war with Great Britain. In June 1812, the House of Representatives voted to declare war by a margin of 79 to 49, with the Senate following 19 to 13; one of the closest votes in American history. The United States officially declared war on June 18, 1812.Ultimately, the War of 1812 would end as a stalemate between the two countries. The United States tried, unsuccessfully, to invade Canada, and British offensives, with the exception of the burning of Washington, were likewise repulsed, spectacularly so at New Orleans. While the war had been a challenge for the United States, it had survived yet another conflict with the most powerful nation on the globe.(3.1)>>BUT a New War the final war for American Independence almost coast the nation it's vary meager Liberty .The Revolutionary War caused enormous bloodshed. Some 25,000 Americans died (a larger percentage of the population than were lost in any of our other wars, besides the Civil War). To that figure, we should add numerous casualties suffered by British and French troops, and by German mercenary soldiers hired by the British. The possible gains of the Revolution were not enough to justify this terrible loss of life.(3.2)>>The French Revolution was followed by centuries of political instability and violence.The American revolution is and was a huge deal at the time. The French has mostly given up on North America after the French and Indian war. They joined the revolution on the side of the Americans essentially because King Louis thought it’d be a funny way to screw with the British (this was basically Lafayette’s reasoning as to why they should join the cause).Historically, no other colony had ever rebelled by such a large degree against its mother country. When the American colonists not only started their rebellion, but started winning battles, it became even more interesting from a global perspective, as a nation of ~2 million was beating a nation of ~10 million. The British also had an established and powerful army, while the continental army was mostly ragtag volunteers, typically really old or really young in age (50s-60s and 12-18 respectively).Overall it was a very interesting cause, and developed parts of the world, including France and Spain, were all watching to see what would happen. (4)>>Federalist papers. The Federalist papers were written primarily to influence the ratification debates of New York and were not normally published outside the state. Even within the State of New York there is very little evidence that they were widely read or that that they played a significant role in the decision for New York to ratify.At the time of the ratification controversy, the terms "Federalist" and "Republican" referred to political principles, not political parties. A "federalist" government was one that was a federation of smaller states, like the Constitution laid out; a "republican" government was one that was based on the rule of the people, like the Constitution also laid out. So, Hamilton and Madison could use both terms in the Federalist Papers. There weren't any organized political parties at the time with single names. The faction in favor of the Constitution is, and was at the time, normally described as "federalists" because how much the central government would be "federal" (stronger) versus "confederate" (looser) was a legitimate point of disagreement; all sides agreed that republican government was a good thing.To confuse matters somewhat, when the first American political parties developed in the mid-1790's, they called themselves "Federalist" and "Republican." The Federalists wanted to position themselves as the ones who truly supported the Constitution, and as they had the stronger organization under President Washington and Hamilton, they got first pick of the name (as it were). The Republicans then adopted their name, in part from the "Republican Societies" that had sprung up in support of the French Revolution, and in part because they positioned themselves as the party truly supporting the people against the Federalists' alleged elitism.  (4.1)>>The Founding Fathers wanted a "more perfect government under God "Much has been written about the faith of the Founding Fathers.  There are many misconceptions about this.  There is a somewhat common theme that the Founding Fathers were agnostics, meaning they believed the existence of God could never be known, or deists who believed in a supreme being who did not influence the universe.  Neither one of these labels applies to the founding generation in any meaningful way.It is fair to say that some of our Founding Fathers questioned specific theology as it pertains to Christianity, then as it is today, the predominant religion of the nation.  Specifically, there were questions about the Holy Trinity as well as the divinity of Jesus Christ.  But, with very few exceptions, the founding generation believed in a God who, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, “governs in the affairs of men.”  No consequential Founder was an atheist.When it came time to declare independence and establish the United States, liberty, not theology, was at the forefront of the Founders’ thinking.  In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the revolutionary words in the Declaration of Independence that “we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.”  This is one of four references to God in our founding document.  Jefferson, like most of the Founders, believed in a moral order to the universe that is only governed by God.  As such, God grants each of us rights that cannot be taken away by human authority.  (5)>>Civil War was the unfinished business of the American Revolution. Slavery, that despicable institution that was a blight on mankind from the dawn of time to the late-19th century, was not the issue during the Revolution. To suggest that the Revolution was a failure because it didn't stop slavery is beside the point. Slavery was in place in Europe and the New World at the end of the American Revolution and the blame for it is shared by almost all European nations (Britain, Holland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Russia, Denmark and others), the US, and British North America (Canada). (5.1)>>of religious persecution that have gone under the radar .  Yes, many of the Thirteen Colonies were not particularly friendly to Catholic participation in civic life. For example, in 1777, New York State’s constitution banned Catholics from public office (although this restriction would eventually be lifted in 1806) and the 1778 Constitution of South Carolina stated that "No person shall be eligible to sit in the house of representatives unless he be of the Protestant religion." Another example was persecution of the Mormon's, which left little in what religious freedom the new nation , how it was framed from 1780s to 1900.   (6)>By the late 1790s, conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic had become certain that this unprecedented plan. Take out a dollar bill (United States currency, that is). Look at the back. On the left side, granted as much space as the American eagle symbol on the right, is a seeing eye and a pyramid, placed there for no apparent reason. But for those in the know, the eye above the pyramid is a Masonic symbol, produced by a secret society which has influenced American history from its beginnings. In Masonic lore, the pyramid symbol is known as a sign of the eye of God watching over humanity.In the late 1790s, Jedidiah Morse, the congregational minister in Charlestown, Mass., and a well-known author of geography textbooks, drew national attention by suggesting that a secret organization called the Bavarian Illuminati was at work “to root out and abolish Christianity, and overturn all civil government.” Today, such an idea sounds both eerily familiar and like a relic of a less sophisticated time—but the lessons of that episode are decidedly relevant.  (7)>>WE NEED A NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION & A NEW AMERICA   THE  modern United States: the concentration of wealth in few hands, diminished (or scant) expectations of upward mobility among a large chunk of the population, frequent wars, a standing army, executive sway over the legislative branch, elected officeholders who not infrequently appear to hold their offices for life. If Paine, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe could see America today, they might not only think that America had lost its way but also that the time for a new revolution had come.