Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Nick Shaw – According to the revisionists at Vox, a USA in which the Continental Army was crushed and George Washington defeated would have been more like Canada, would have passed stronger climate laws.
3 reasons the American Revolution was a mistake
Happy Fourth!
By Dylan Matthews@dylanmattdylan@vox.com Updated Jul 3, 2018, 11:57am EDTThis July 4, let’s not mince words: American independence in 1776 was a monumental mistake. We should be mourning the fact that we left the United Kingdom, not cheering it.
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.
…
America would have a better system of government if we’d stuck with Britain
Honestly, I think earlier abolition alone is enough to make the case against the revolution, and it combined with less-horrible treatment of American Indians is more than enough. But it’s worth taking a second to praise a less important but still significant consequence of the US sticking with Britain: we would’ve, in all likelihood, become a parliamentary democracy rather than a presidential one.
And parliamentary democracies are a lot, lot better than presidential ones. They’re significantly less likely to collapse into dictatorship because they don’t lead to irresolvable conflicts between, say, the president and the legislature. They lead to much less gridlock.
In the US, activists wanting to put a price on carbon emissions spent years trying to put together a coalition to make it happen, mobilizing sympathetic businesses and philanthropists and attempting to make bipartisan coalition — and they still failed to pass cap and trade, after millions of dollars and man hours. In the UK, the Conservative government decided it wanted a carbon tax. So there was a carbon tax. Just like that. Passing big, necessary legislation — in this case, legislation that’s literally necessary to save the planet — is a whole lot easier with parliaments than with presidential systems.
…
Read more: https://www.vox.com/2015/7/2/8884885/american-revolution-mistake
Every time I think I’ve seen the worst, most vile freedom hating sentiments which will ever be expressed by greens, they manage to shock me with some new low. Wishing that Americans had remained enslaved without political representation a little longer, just long enough to have your desire for liberty knocked out of you so you would more readily accept green tyranny, its going to be tough to beat that one.
Speaking as a Brit I wonder why you would want to have a second house of 800 unelected people. Your system may not be ideal but at the moment it is looking much better than ours.
I wouldn’t say there was much in it.
It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always gets in…
If the American Revolution had not occurred the course of history could have been different. However, it is not possible to say what “would” be. Any outcome similar to or differing from what has been is possible.
Yes.
Because of the Independence, American political influence on Britain dropped to nil. Without it, the American ideas could have resulted in Britain adopting the USA political system, instead.
What “American political influence on Britain” ?? “Taxation without representation”….ring a bell ?
gee, whatever happened to that?
there is literally NOWHERE left in this country the government doesn’t tax. NOWHERE.
and where does it go? it gets dispersed in such ways like San Fran who gave out 6 million clean needles to “alleviate” the suffering of the drug problem. Turns out, over 50% of discarded needles ALL over the city, left in parks, streets, alleys, subways, bus stations, PUBLIC AREAS, turned out to be the ones they handed out.
Now they are spending more money creating “safe spaces” for addicts to do their heroin. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
That is where taxation always goes: Wars which make super rich even richer, enabling bad behavior for any group that gets handouts, and extreme waste. It will always go the route of tyranny when the government has a blank check on the backs of its populace.
You want a healthy society? Everything. EVERYTHING is funded voluntarily. If the greens want a better environment, they can donate to causes who clean up, or imagine this, they can go do it themselves! If the general populace want a strong defense, then they can fund it VOLUNTARILY and form militias, etc, etc, etc.
And I’d rather have toll roads everywhere than be stuck getting extorted every year on registration, RTD tax to pay for people who can’t, green subsidies, etc etc etc.
But it is Taxation WITH representation.
Unfortunately a vast sum of that Taxation has also gone into funding the green scheme machine
Lots of people would disagree they really have representation, with solid argument (their vote just doesn’t matter, their burden of tax is unfair, etc.)
Or that by the very act of voting, I’m consenting to violence as a foundation for society, since the only method for recovery is force.
Economical maybe at first (fines, fees) then enough non-compliance eventually brings men with guns to attempt to cage me. This is undeniable, and only really debated among the intellectually dishonest. Those are the facts, Jack.
I don’t want my money to be taken from me and spread around, based on the edicts of some stranger who doesn’t care about me or share my values. I don’t want to support violence nor should I be forced through coercion to do so. In fact, the private sector is available to respond to any concern I may have.
Additionally, the notion that any group of humans have authority over me and a monopoly on the initiation of force (simply because other humans checked a magic box every so often and consented to their own slavery), is absurd. There is no legitimacy to external authority because it necessitates slavery to at least some degree. Beholden to another master, and man cannot serve two masters. It is either thyself, or another, but man cannot serve both with any conviction simultaneously.
So no, I don’t have a fair say because I say NO. I will keep the product of my labor and spend it where I deem necessary, not you or anyone else. Any government funded by anything other than voluntary contribution will always devolve into tyranny against the individual. Period. Full stop. For all time.
“Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children.
In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.”
_ Robert Higgs
A powerful argument, HL, but there is another side:
Anarchists did not discover and develop penicillin and save innumerable lives . Anarchists did not develop the polio vaccine which saved millions of children from spending the rest of their lives in an “iron lung” , nor did they come up with the contraceptive pill that rescued women from a life of child bearing drudgery or the horrors of back street abortion . Anarchists did not invent personal transportation or the telephone , or the airliners that enable me to see visit a grandson half a world away .
I could go on with a list as long or longer than yours , but you get the point no doubt .
We humans are capable of great good and great evil and everything in between. It should be the ambition of parents , teachers and politicians to encourage the best in us . (I have not mentioned the religious professionals , they are now too far away with the Green fairies to make a positive contribution to human development).
“Anarchists did not discover and develop penicillin and save innumerable lives”
Neither did government.
“Anarchists did not develop the polio vaccine ”
Neither did government
“nor did they come up with the contraceptive pill”
Neither did the government (BTW, it wasn’t the pill that rescued women from a life of drudgery)
“Anarchists did not invent personal transportation or the telephone , or the airliners”
Neither did government
Beyond that, you seem to suffer from the delusion that if government had any part in the development of something, that it would not have been developed absent the governmental role.
also, Polio facts:
less than .5% of 1% ever got even temporary paralysis, or something equally outrageously miniscule.
Dr. John Bergman has quite a bit of information related to all of this:
https://www.drjohnbergman.com/vaccines-factination-vs-fictination/
there are countless other people who have put together the real numbers on this and smallpox. The reality is that access to sanitation, clean living, healthy food, and exercise are the constituents that build healthy immunity, not some pharmaceutical goo that can’t be litigated.
1986 :
National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986 (42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-1 to 300aa-34) was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan as part of a larger health bill on Nov 14, 1986, in the United States, to reduce the potential financial liability of vaccine makers due to vaccine injury claims.
look at the schedule before then and now. Why are certain diseases on the rise? Mothers are getting vaccinated and never building permanent immunity, that could otherwise be passed on through breast milk to their young. and then you are going to take a small being with no immune system and inject it with material KNOWN to cause global inflammatory reaction?! Seriously?
For as great as many of you are with research on THIS topic, and again, can see through the BS and recognize conspiratorial roots, why is it so difficult to apply those same fundamentals in logic and patter recognition to other industries? It is painful to encounter because you are expressing the same exact tendencies that we ALL despise of the left. It is unacceptable, and I would have thought you held yourselves to higher standards.
However, all this being said, I still greatly appreciate the vast majority of the input and perspective many of you offer here. I don’t have a desire to eat ourselves from within if we disagree on things, but rather, highlight internal conflict within ourselves so we can each independently eliminate it.
IN-DIVIDual = without division. A true individual thinks, feels, and actions in unison.
MarkW- once again, spot on with your comment.
and John Rappaport has been rocking this field for ages now, how fitting, a new post about this very corruption:
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2018/07/05/cdc-vaccine-science-hides-giant-conflict-of-interest/
go search all of his articles on the subject and see the depth to which he has covered this.
mike- to piggyback off Mark, or maybe basically repeat:
Why would an organization founded on violence (and known as a prohibitor of progress) be solely responsible for growth of the human endeavor? History is continuing to display how government actually makes fake problems (the ones it creates) worse.
the history is there, it is here, and it will likely always be in the future to come. Put your ego aside and investigate the history of prosecution of progress at the hands of government
An argument that requires utter ignorance.
Polio, along with other highly contagious diseases terrified people and populations!
Not-Honest Liberty states gross statistics, that fail to represent reality in communities where and when polio regularly struck down people, especially the young.
Simple suggestions or hints that an illness might be a contagious disease forced communities, towns, cities toward reactionary isolationist behaviors.
When the Polio vaccine became available, people flocked wholesale to the dispensing centers where one could get their vaccines.
The same goes for diphtheria, smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus and pertussis infectious diseases. Vaccines for these illnesses significantly changed health, welfare and social aspects of societies.
It requires ignorance to believe that legally minimizing risks borne by researchers and medical companies regarding developing or producing vaccines from the ambulance chasing, statistics abusing legal system parasites trying to blame every disliked congenital defect on vaccines, is essential.
American tort law has been severely twisted through a large portion of the 20th century and that carries to this day. Vaccine ambulance chasing lawyers get rich feeding off specious vaccine fears.
Whining about vaccines and the dangers of vaccines can only happen when people who did not experience the dangers and social impacts of contagious diseases develop and propagate false claims about vaccines.
If you fear and hate vaccines so much, move to where the populations avoid vaccines.
They might even have a form of government you prefer.
“Polio, along with other highly contagious diseases terrified people and populations!”
Yes, if you ever saw a picture of a child laying in an “Iron Lung” to be able to breath, you would be afraid. Especially if you didn’t know how lkely that would be you in the near future.
“The same goes for diphtheria, smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus and pertussis infectious diseases”
Then, why do they need to force us to get vaccinated and force doctors to approve the worst fraud in the history of medicine, the vaccine “science”?
That vaccines work isn’t a fraud. It’s a fact.
“polio vaccine which saved millions of children”
Another consensus result with no evidence.
There is literally nothing in history justifying the arrogance of vaxists.
There is no doubt whatsoever that vaccines have saved countless lives.
Here is how effective vaccination has been:
Diphtheria. 100% reduction in cases and death.
Measles. 99.9% reduction in cases and 100% reduction in deaths.
Mumps. 97% reduction in cases, and 100% reduction in deaths.
Polio. 100% reduction.
Rubella. 99.9% reduction in cases and 100% reduction in deaths.
Smallpox. 100% reduction. Complete eradication.
In all vaccine-preventable diseases, except for whooping cough (pertussis) and tetanus, vaccines dropped the death rate to zero. And in the two exceptions, the death rate has been reduced by over 99%.
The epidemics of diphtheria so devastating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are no more. But if kids should no longer be vaccinated, the scourges would return.
Parents who don’t vaccinate their kids are free-loading on the herd immunity conferred by responsible parents. Irresponsible parents are playing Russian roulette, putting their kids’ lives at risk, should they ever, God forbid, be exposed to the pathogens, which are still out there.
So tell me why do we see that increase of polio in India? Of course it isn’t called polio, because the victims are vaccinated. Then it’s something else.
You have swallowed the lies of professional liars.
India has eradicated the polio virus in the wild, thanks to vaccination.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734678/
India has an epidemic of diseases that look a lot like “polio” and would be called polio if they happened before a vaccine was available!
Wake up!
“why do we see that increase of polio in India?” ………we don’t see an increase
“Parents who don’t vaccinate their kids are free-loading on the herd immunity conferred by responsible parents”
That’s not even the claim for “high profile” vaccines like polio.
And in all cases, it’s a claim based on zero evidence.
It’s based upon all the evidence in the world, with no evidence against it.
Just like globul warmin.
Clearly, you’ve never studied the history of science, nor of history, period, or science.
Then there’s Israel, which is a case of representation WITHOUT taxation.
Wrong.
Government should never be allowed to borrow money. Like every cancer they never have enough. All Federal reserve systems know this debility politicians have to spend so are willingly providing these addicted lawmakers with their drug. Now who is in control ? Not We The People!
That’s why the founding fathers only wanted congress to have the ability to create money ? (gold and silver)
You can take away the power of the state and regain your personal freedom by eliminating direct-taxation which make you a slave of the system and gives those in power the right to know EVERYTHING about you.
Sorry but Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power “to borrow money on the credit of the United States”.
Robert is talking theoretical.
Yes the US government is permitted to borrow.
The bigger question is should it be?
Hard to fight a pay-as-you-go war. Such a ban on borrowing would be suicidal. Now a ban on money borrowed for any other reason might be reasonable. What’s really insane is to borrow money from China while at the same time sponsoring research in China. For that matter, there should be a ban on all foreign aid unless the country is debt free.
The U.S. needs a balanced budget amendment. The U.S. government should not spend more than it takes in in taxes.
The colonies defeated the British Army in 1783. And then the US military defeated them again in 1814.
Had that not happened, then Canada’s history would have been different too. And France’s Napoleon would not have gotten money for selling The Louisiana Purchase to fund his disastrous Russia campaign. Would he have focused on Britain? Would Lord Nelson at Trafalgae have happened?
So Yes, its stupid to try and say what would have happened. No one can know.
Sorry but by no measure did the US military win the war of 1812 (settled by the treaty of Ghent 1814). At best it was a draw. But most look at it as a win for the British and more importantly the birth of Canadian nationalism.
I’d call that a win for the US.
Britain started with the War of 1812 by blockading US ports. It wanted to bring the US into submission. It failed. A peace treaty was signed. Word did not get to the South and in January 1815, the British Army got its butt kicked in the Battle of New Orleans led by US General Andrew Jackson adding further insult to the British, and forever ending their attempts to bring the colonies back to heel.
None of Britain’s original reasons for the war were achieved. The US, in purely defensive measures, (except a defeat trying to take Montreal) prevailed.
A little US centric there Joel. The so called blockade by the British was more about getting back at the French for their blockade on Britain than to punish the US. The US declared war on Britain not the other way around. That puts the US as the aggressors in the conflict. The US had two goals. First to stop the British from harassing their trade with Europe. Second to take the British colonies of Upper and Lower Canada. None of those goals were archived.
Just to add that the British had actually rescinded their order hence ending the maritime dispute a few days before the US declared war. To be far the word had not gotten to North America yet.
Sending a navy to sustain a blockade of the ports of another country tends to be an act of war.
Had the US not won the War in 1783, there would have been no Louisiana Purchase from France and Napoleon would not have gotten his 50 million francs of gold to help his war with Britain and eventually his disastrous Russia campaign. Thus it would have meant no Trafalgar sea victory for Lord Nelson. History would have played out very differently in the ~30 years between 1783 and 1812.
And this idiot Vox writer thinks the next 200 years would have been just a Canada-like USA.
He should ask Harvard for a tuition refund. Clearly they didn’t teach or require him to think.
Nappy used the dough to finance his planned invasion of Britain, which was forestalled by Trafalgar, October 1805.
So instead, he turned his magnificent Grande Armee east from the Channel ports, and marched rapidly into the heart of Europe, where he defeated the Third Coalition (Holy Roman Empire, Russia, Britain and smaller states) at Austerlitz in December.
He went to Hah-vahd and was taught by the likes of Naomi Oreskes and Elizabeth Warren (AKA Fauxcahontas). Howard Zinn lives. And how the mighty are falling.
Also, had the US lost New Orleans, Britain was ready to violate the peace treaty, having finally dispatched Nappy at Waterloo in June 1815.
Its battle-tested army and world’s most powerful navy would have presented the young American republic with problems galore.
…stupid to say what would have happened? … No one can know?
Just run a simulation on one of those giant AGW computers! It would be worse than what we now think!
I don’t remember the name of the battle, but a tornado which went through D.C. did more to damage and demoralize the occupying British than the Army was able to do.
If I remember correctly, that was the War of 1812 when the White House was burned.
It was the War of 1812, the British were looting and burning DC and a HURRICANE blew through and put a stop to that. Truth is stranger than fiction…
Yes, Joel :
History is a coupled system of nonlinear functions with chaotic behavior.
Not even bifurcations of nonlinear mathematics, but tri-furcations, poly-furcations when outcomes of human historical events are in play.
“The colonies defeated the British Army in 1783.”
Yes, with the crucial aid of French troops and a French naval blockade, plus the failure of the British general in charge in NY City to send ships down in relief.
The battle of Yorktown occurred in 1781; it wasn’t until 1783 that the treaty was signed, during which time (or a bit earlier) the Brits under Benedict Arnold ran wild in South Carolina, IIRC. (One historian called BA the best general on either side.)
Arnold didn’t serve in SC under British orders. VA, yes.
The only general on either side to have an original tactical insight was Nathanael Greene. His wife is credited with inventing the cotton gin, or at least helping Eli Whitney do so.
Greene’s brilliant use of militia and Continentals, perfectly executed by BG Daniel Morgan at Cowpens, won the South for the Patriots, hence the war.
“Arnold didn’t serve in SC under British orders. VA, yes.”
Correct, I now realize.
“The only general on either side to have an original tactical insight was Nathanael Greene.”
I agree. He “lost” every battle (in the sense of retiring from the field afterwards) but won the war.
Also with aid of Spanish troops and arms, and Dutch money.
As David Hackett Fischer wrote in “Historians’ Fallacies”, what would have happened had Booth NOT assassinated Lincoln is pure fantasy. All the information we HAVE comes from a world in which Booth DID assassinate Lincoln.
Yes, and next week Vox will tell us how that’s a good thing.
It’s one of those watershed moments in human history, which sets the general course of events for centuries to come, affecting places even far removed from the action.
Other watershed moments include the Battle of Tours (halted the original Muslim advance into Europe) and Battle of Hastings (started the transition of Britain from isolated backwater to major European political player).
dred,
I thought Vienna was the watershed moment for the west? Or, at least, as significant as Tours. Right up there with Lepanto. Is that wrong?
Curiously,
rip
The Siege of Vienna, yes, that’s another. Halted the Ottoman advance into Europe after the fall of Constantinople.
There were two Sieges of Vienna.
Anglo-Saxon England wasn’t a backwater. It was perhaps more oriented toward Scandinavia than France before the Conquest, but it was already integrated into continental European systems.
English royalty and nobility married continental princesses and princes from an early date in the Christianization of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
England had the best heavy infantry in Europe in 1066, having just defeated the best that Scandinavia had to offer. Hastings was a close-run thing. Williams’ modern, combined arms force finally won, perhaps more because of his archers than his heavy cavalry. But it could have gone the other way.
Norman rule was a disaster for the British isles.
See Edward Creasy’s Fifteen Decisive Battles in World History, from Marathon to Waterloo, free in a Kindle version at
https://www.amazon.com/Fifteen-Decisive-Battles-World-Marathon-ebook/dp/B004TS5P9U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530852783&sr=1-1&keywords=15+decisive+battles+of+the+world
A pox on Vox.
Happy Glorious 4th of July my friends.
WELL SAID !
ALLAN MACRAE
“A pox on Vox.
Happy Glorious 4th of July my friends.”
.
VOX : a hideous , sick , treacherous , evil bunch of vipers !
You REALLY need an exterminator to clean them out !
They do NOTHING BUT SPEW HATRED and FRUSTRATION that they
can’t IMPOSE THEIR WILL on the rest of the country !
NO DECENT AMERICAN should support them EVER AGAIN !
AMERICA stands as the BEST PLACE ON EARTH to realise your DREAM !
A FANTASTIC CONCEPT built upon AN IDEALISED ENGLAND but without
a MONARCHY and WITH A BILL OF RIGHTS & RESPONSIBILITIES
and a CONSTITUTION drawing on the best and bravest of ideas of the era !!
Something really well worth celebrating !!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
But AMERICA…..you need to wake up !!
YOUR DREAM risks becoming a nightmare !
The FREEDOM you enjoy is being USED AGAINST YOU by people within
your own country who HATE YOU ! They hate your system of government ,
your ideals and your achievements ! They belittle your entire existence as they
seek to destroy you…..and in your generosity YOU GIVE THEM THE BENEFIT
OF THE DOUBT ! They want their COMMUNIST UTOPIA and , BY NOT
STRONGLY and CONSISTENTLY and RELENTLESSLY OPPOSING THEM
they WILL and ARE , insidiously , achieving their malevolent ends !
Anything they can do to disrupt or destroy your economic system , your
education system or your political system and even your legal system , they
WILL DO and are incrementally doing now !
SPEWING HATRED ABOUT YOUR PRESIDENT , regardless of who that person is
or was in the past , IS DISRESPECTING THE OFFICE (and ALL the people that
DEMOCRATICALLY elected him to it ) so it HAS PURPOSE beyond simple
objection. To bring into question the highest office in the land is to also to
question EVERY LEVEL of GOVERNMENT , which is also to cast aspersions on
DEMOCRACY , INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS ( such as voting ) and FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
Wake up America ! The REST OF THE WORLD NEEDS YOUR EXAMPLE !
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
USA , you must STOP FUNDING the LEFTIST ORGANISATIONS , the UN ,
the so called Human-Rights and Civil-Rights Organisations which have
OUTLIVED THEIR UTILITY ,the Feminist Movements , the “Equity” and
“Equality of Outcome” Groups which STAND IN OPPOSITION TO THE
“EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY” which BUILT AMERICA so fairly and strongly !
There is NOWHERE ELSE ON EARTH that offers YOU BETTER THAN YOU
HAVE NOW ! Americans need to support their LEADERS ( both Left and Right )
in a co-operative way AND MAKE SURE THAT THEY ARE DOING WHAT YOU NEED…
AND NOT NECESSARILY WHAT YOU WANT and ESPECIALLY NOTHING THAT THEY
WANT and THAT YOU DON’T WANT !!!!!
Let them KNOW that you DO NOT WANT “CLIMATE CONTROL LEGISLATION “.
You DO WANT to keep and strengthen FREE ENTERPRISE , the RIGHT
TO OWN PRIVATE PROPERTY and payment for YOUR LABOUR and
the FREEDOM OF SPEECH to be able to articulate your NEEDS
and MAINTAIN YOUR RIGHTS while also diligently carrying-out
your responsibilities !
Unfortunately , MANY like these abominable VOX people are
AT WORK IN YOUR UNIVERSITIES “green-washing” and “radicalising”
MANY OF YOUR FINEST YOUNG MINDS with the intention of
USING THEM AS WEAPONS AGAINST YOU ….Just as Bin Laden ( Al Quaeda )
used YOUR OWN airliners AS WEAPONS AGAINST YOU !
You MUST stop FUNDING anti-American Education Programs and
REPLACE THEM WITH PRO-AMERICAN , PRO-FREE ENTERPRISE ,
PRO-EXCELLENCE and DECENCY !!
Stop all the anti-male “Feminist Propaganda”……it is doing NO GOOD
for your women and CONSIDERABLE HARM to your young men !
Stop the delusional “group politics”and reinstate MERITOCRACY and
DO NOT HAVE A GENDER EQUALITY QUOTA SYSTEM !
No-one wins UNLESS the BEST PERSON is doing the job !
WAKE UP AMERICA !!!!
KEEP THE AMERICAN DREAM A REALITY …..WITH YOUR EYES WIDE OPEN !
Sorry………BUT !!! You know how it is !!!!!
WHAT I meant to say was : I AGREE !
“ALLAN MACRAE: A pox on Vox.
Happy Glorious 4th of July my friends.”
Ug, long rambling messages with lots of words and even whole sentences in upper-case are very hard on the eyes. No matter how sincerely your feelings are about the subjects for which you write, this style will always be offensive, and thus ignored by most.
WWG1WGA
Trevor, I agree with most of your points, but your post is awfully hard to read with so much capitalization.
Seriously? Let’s see now. Italy seems a good place to start. Parliamentary form of government, led to Mussolini. Famously stable governments, some lasting for several months /sarc
Germany of the Weimar period, parliamentary government again, led to Hitler.
Spain’s parliamentary government collapsed into civil war and beget Franco.
Actually do we have an example of presidential governments leading to dictators?
Well there’s Venezuela and that’s in current events, not past the memory limits for the kids at vox. Of course they probably think that Maduro is the duly-elected president, not a dictator.
Japan was a military dictatorship under PM Tojo. The short-lived Russian Duma led to Lenin and Stalin. The shah’s parliamentary government was overthrown to give us Khomeini and Khamanei. Does vox even have a fact checker?
Wait I figured it out. Trump is a dictator and we need prime minister Bernie to save the world.
Rich Davis
You can have PM Theresa May if you want, she’s eff all use to us.
Yes. Its the first time I have seen a leader elected by a party in order to be completely incompetent at implementing a policy with more democratic mandate than any in my lifetime, on account of the civil service and the party paymasters wanting to overturn it.
.
What you have is someone that is not interested in “draining the swamp”, as the saying goes over here for Washington, D.C.
Agreed….sigh….
Trump effort to lift U.S. offshore wind sector sparks interest – from Europe
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1JV1VV?__twitter_impression=true
What about this situation? Is POTUS now in with the wind turbine food-chain crowd?
Also the Lake Erie LEEDco, Cleveland, OH, offshore wind project has moved another step forward.
I don’t live in the UK anymore so unaffected, but I was thinking the exact same after reading HotScot’s post.
Ugh, no thanks! You can keep Theresa May. She is a viper, as bad (if not worse) than Angela Merkel.
But, my condolences to you. I really do not wish Theresa May on anyone.
Historical fact checker? Nope. Dumber than a box of Vox.
The US Constitution has lasted longer than any in world history, therefore the US government has been the most stable.
Jimmy Carter thought chavez won a fair election
Carter has a tendency to define fair as “my guy won”.
I can’t remember … did the UN “certify” our last Presidential election? Was Jimmy one of their election “watchers”? Were any Trump voters … disenfranchised … ? Jimmy? Jimmy?
I don’t know if Chavez cheated in 1998, but it seems likely that he cheated in the recall and subsequent re-elections. Dictator Maduro certainly never won a fair election.
Carter never met a tinhorn dictator or mass murderous, child-raping, kidnapping, blackmailing, stealing, lying tyrant with whom the loser didn’t fall in love.
Oh, I’m sure they’ll find a way to top it soon enough.
~¿~
Nailed it!
Personally, I have a hard time believing Canada would be as free as it is WITHOUT an independent US. The lose of the States help convince England that it had to take a more even hand with the rest of its colonies, less it [lose] them as well.
[Edited to avoid offending the delicate grammatical sensibilities of certain, unnamed commenters… 🙂 -mod]
FFS learn to spell lose, loose and loss correctly in the context…at least if the USA HAD remained a colony they might be literate..
‘Burglarized’, indeed!
I apologize Leo, that my dyslexia offends you so greatly. I have endeavored to ensure that this following message is as free as I can make it from misspellings and wrong words. To wit…
Bite me, you prick.
😛
Leo’s smug knows no bounds… just tell him you are a deist of any sort and wait for the cloud of smug to suffocate you
Schitzree, to keep the grammar nazis off your back, you may wish to do what I do. I write what I think I’m saying, then I put it aside for a couple minutes, then re-read read it, and re-read it again. I am always surprised at how what I didn’t intend gets in there. I also use Grammarly ( a free browser plug-in) that helps out a lot.
Considering the spelling abilities of many Brits that I’ve known, are you sure Britain is literate?
They speak a different language, don’t you know?😊
Two people separated by a common language.
Leo – Spelling is not a measure of ones ability to contribute. In the 80’s before the advent of spell check, we had tech editors to review draft manuscripts prior to publication. I recall one editor w/ a Ph D in English who couldn’t spell.
Samuel Longhorn Clemens said “I respect a man who knows how to spell a word more than one way.”
I would have been in Mark Twain’s highest regard.
As one that has a life long difficulty remembering names and spelling words (dislexia?) I still try to correct the things I write. A quote by someone whose name I cannot recall is: “it is indeed a small mind that can think of only one way to spell a word”. Given that (and a good word processor and spell checker) I still have difficulty with the misuse of the English language by contemporary products of the education system and electronic “assistants” however I can generally understand the well intentioned phraseology, at least lexically speaking.
Unfortunately the first “lose” should probably be “loss.”
lest
“Personally, I have a hard time believing Canada would be as free as it is WITHOUT an independent US. The [loss] of the States help convince England that it had to take a more even hand with the rest of its colonies, less it [lose] them as well.”
I think that is correct. The U.S. showed effective resistance to the British Empire was possible.
If America had stayed British, all of Europe would be speaking German or Russian today !! God Bless America !! MAGA
No, I think all Europe would be speaking English (we are, actually, nearly doing it already) And Trump would be the prime minister of Euramerica.
That assumes that British colonies restricted to the Atlantic seaboard could have materially helped the Allies more than, say, Canada or Australia did.
I sense a disturbance in The Force. Something tells me the author of the Vox article is probably not a Trump supporter.
It begs disbelief that people will vote themselves into slavery.
What they do is vote other people into slavery. Then they are surprised when the slavery is expanded to include them.
“Greg Cavanagh
It begs disbelief that people will vote themselves into slavery.”
____________________________________________________
Ever heard of germany ruled by Cult Chancellor Angie Merkel.
true…they were all for it when they were in power
Now they hate our government.
Liberals have no concept that they are not in power all the time….then their “rules” bite them in the butt
How prescient. I think you are onto something!
IF George Washington had lost:
1. There would have been no Civil War – the greatest human and economic disaster in USA history.
2. There would have been no War of 1812, so we would not have burned the White House and you Americans would not have burned Toronto. Everyone here hates Toronto – so we got the better of that deal.
Britain at that time was governed by scoundrels and imbeciles – King George 1 did not even speak English – you were probably better off on your own – except for the Civil War – that was truly disastrous for both North and South – a huge national tragedy.
Allan
Proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Once free of the UK, America transformed itself, and the rest of the world.
They have not only defended (and still do) their democratic principles, they have fought by the side of other like minded countries.
Meanwhile, they have done what no other country could have, without subjugating it’s population. All whilst fiercely protecting it’s independence, unlike the UK which can’t afford to build it’s own combat aircraft to populate just two new aircraft carriers. We must buy them from the US.
We are forced to partner with the rest of Europe to build the Eurofighter, and the only part of a commercial airline business we operate is to make the damn wings.
The message to me is clear. Irrespective of the eventual Brexit deal, the UK needs to embark on a campaign to ensure we never again risk our relationship with America. We can retain our independence, just as Canada does, and have a beneficial political and trading relationship.
Perhaps California could carry through it’s independence threat and the UK could become a replacement state. 🙂
The prospect is looking more attractive by the day.
Even in the unlikely case that the UK would join the US (we’d have to drop the A, wouldn’t we?), it would be four states, not one: North Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England.
Could we force London to be its own independent city-state, much like Singapore? Londoners seem to prefer the slavery of socialism, from what I have read.
Well that would be cool. Another island state, and closer than Hawaii to those of us on the East coast.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/03/brexit-horror-liberated-british-might-de-prioritise-climate-change/#comment-2226620
[excerpt]
On Europe:
Britain and the Magna Carta countries (the British Empire/ Commonwealth and the USA sacrificed the best of our youth to save Europe during two World Wars. I have a great-uncle buried in France, killed in the last days of WW1, and an uncle who was the only surviving officer of his unit at the Dieppe raid during WW2, where he rescued the only ten surviving enlisted men – of the 110 who landed on the beach.
We owe Europe nothing, and I would never support another rescue mission, which appears increasingly likely. Europe is failing due to imbecilic leftist politics, and does not deserve to be rescued again.
I just returned from Thailand, where I met a French citizen. We spoke all evening at a party where everyone else spoke Thai and/or English. He said he was completely finished with Europe, and will move overseas as soon as he can. He spoke of the creeping takeover of France by radical Muslims and their violence against civilians and the authorities. I ventured that Europe was failing, and in mere decades would become little more than a museum due to its foolish leftist politics – he enthusiastically agreed.
On Brexit:
Britain will be vastly better-off out of the EU. The economic future of Britain should reside in a new Free Trade Agreement with the USA and the Commonwealth – as we leave Europe to fail under its imbecilic leftist/green energy policies.
Best, Allan
“ALLAN MACRAE
I just returned from Thailand, where I met a French citizen. We spoke all evening at a party where everyone else spoke Thai and/or English. He said he was completely finished with Europe, and will move overseas as soon as he can. He spoke of the creeping takeover of France by radical Muslims and their violence against civilians and the authorities.
Best, Allan”
When I lived in Belgium in the early 1980’s this was already happening in every major European city and all over England too. I recall no-go zones filled with migrants who simply didn’t want to integrate. I recall several major riots in these areas. It’s only getting worse. And the ending won’t be pretty.
Isabella and Ferdinand have already showed the ending that worked. For 500 years.
“He spoke of the creeping takeover of France by radical Muslims and their violence against civilians and the authorities.”
A creeping takeover is exactly what is happening. All with the assistance of completely clueless socialist politicians in Europe. Europe’s Elites are unfit to lead. They will be the death of Europe.
“The message to me is clear. Irrespective of the eventual Brexit deal, the UK needs to embark on a campaign to ensure we never again risk our relationship with America. ”
Nice sentiment but you are doing the opposite. The mayor of London is allowing a blimp to be flown over parliament when our president visits there that mocks and insults him… this unprecedented rudeness is going to piss off half of America and will indeed risk your relationship with us, unfortunately.
TDBraun
I don’t know where you heard that, but I would put it down to meaningless nonsense.
https://news.sky.com/story/trump-angry-baby-blimp-gets-green-light-to-fly-over-london-during-presidents-visit-11426665
MarkW
Not going to happen mate, no matter what these nutters say.
Like I said. Meaningless nonsense.
The Marxists and their fellow-travelers all over the world continue to reject American democracy and the election of Donald Trump.
First, the left were in disbelief and deep mourning when Trump was elected – “a tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth”, an epic Internationale tantrum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grD_IINiH9c
Now the Marxists are fighting back with every BIG LIE they can imagine – the standard string of falsehoods that the extreme left just loves – because any lie is OK if it serves THE CAUSE.
My least favorite lefty falsehood is the now-popular mantra “Trump is the new Hitler” How utterly imbecilic and offensive! But that never stopped the extreme left.
It is incontrovertible that the extreme left are the worst killers and polluters on the planet. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, hundreds of millions killed, and the list goes on…
I had a large energy project in the Former Soviet Union, and have also travelled into Honecker’s East Germany and Fidel Castro’s Cuba. I have never seen such horrific pollution and gross waste of resources as I saw in the SU and the FSU. This is what happens when you allow sociopathic thugs to run a country.
Count your blessings America, you dodged a bullet.
BTW, Gaia also dislikes Marxists, and is starting to voice her disapproval. Maybe she’ll drop a big one near London if they don’t smarten up. 🙂
https://news.sky.com/story/earthquake-shakes-surrey-for-third-time-in-fortnight-11426970
Here is some of the more “moderate” reactions of the left when Trump was elected (Warming: Language… and Insanity):
That was truly insane. There were, and still are, similar rants here in Australia about Trump winning. Clearly a lot of people here too hate the fact Trump won! My reaction to them is “Do you have a problem with democracy?” America ELECTED Trump! Deal with it!
The problem with Trump, as far as the leftists of the world are concerned, is that Trump is undoing the socialist agenda and in the process is demonstrating that there is a much better system for getting things done: Conservatism.
Trump is destroying the Leftist’s world and making their worldview look very bad and untenable, and they are not happy about it.
Trump is their worst nightmare.
Trump is forcing sanity on the world.
The world’s longest continuing tantrum of people so self-entitled, they can’t accept the fact that they lost. Deniers, all of them.
Trump election night reprise – as the leftist media saw it:
“DONALD TRUMP WILL NEVER BE PRESIDENT !!!”
The expected landslide for Hillary never happened – just like catastrophic man-made global warming.
https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1016079192604139520
“The mayor of London is allowing a blimp to be flown over parliament when our president visits there that mocks and insults him… this unprecedented rudeness is going to piss off half of America and will indeed risk your relationship with us, unfortunately.”
I don’t know. Personally, I understand what the Mayor of London is doing and I attribute his anti-Trump behavior to his radical politics and worldview, not to the British people.
We have Leftwing nuts over here in the U.S., too. Don’t take ours too seriously and we won’t take yours too seriously. 🙂
And no Battle of Fort McHenry either, which led to us being saddled with a national anthem consisting of a prose poem set to the music of a drinking song, that’s now butchered regularly in baseball games across the country. 🙂
(And is difficult to do right even when sung properly.)
I’d venture that the US national Anthem is actually one of the best by far. As are those of France, Russia, Germany and the UK.
Most of the rest are abominable. Torture.
In the first half of this year I spent a total of 18 weeks in Japan, all on U. S. military bases, where each morning, after the U. S. National Anthem, (as a “courtesy” to the host country) the loudspeakers would then play the Japanese national anthem. It sounds like a warm-up chorale. Don’t tell me the words to it, cuz I don’t wanna know.
Tribute – Whitney Houston – Star Spangled Banner
Super Bowl XXV in 1991
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbkWuVUkPmY
A belated gift for the Glorious 4th of July.
George III however did speak English, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t an imbecile. Then he went crazy.
Not the best ad for monarchy.
I cannot let that one go . George III was the victim of an illness . previously he had championed advances in agriculture , which proved essential with the growth of the mill towns in the Industrial revolution, to the extent that he was known as “farmer George”.
He was also responsible for developing the collection of scientific and astronomical instruments that still form part of the Royal collection because of his great interest in scientific matters . He was, after all, part German a nation with a significant standing in post renaissance science and general scholarship.
He also encouraged the Royal Navy to send out the explorers whose names dot bays , harbours , mountains and islands across the globe.
He was all German, except for one French distant female ancestress, and even more distant ancestress who was granddaughter of James I/VI.
Sorry, but any fool who loses the 13 colonies, most of North America south of the Great Lakes and a war with France, Spain and the Netherlands is an imbecile.
Yes, he went nuts because of an illness, which made his idiotic son regent.
The agricultural revolution owes nothing to Farmer George, who was at best a spectator of it.
Correction:
George III’s French and Stuart ancestresses were both great-great grandmothers. But his Stuart-descended GGGM, the remarkable Sophia, Electress of Hanover, was herself German, born in a German state to a German father. Her mom was Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I, hence half Danish-German herself on her mom’s side, and 1/4 French on her dad’s side, her grandmother Mary, Queen of Scots, being half French.
After centuries of political intermarriage within a limited pool of aristocratic families, more than a few involving barely removed cousins and bordering on incestuous, by the 18th century just about every royal dynasty in Europe was related. Recessive genetic disorders associated with inbreeding emerged regularly in each new generation of princes/princesses. One big royally screwed up family. 😮
The War of the Spanish Succession was caused by the inbred, genetic defectiveness of the last Hapsburg king of Spain. This poor guy, Carlos II:
The Romanovs, Bourbons and Hanoverians were less inbred. Although the latter were practically all German, they had many little principalities and duchies from which to chose spouses.
Carlos had two beautiful, royal princess wives, but no kids.
After his death, he was found to have but one shriveled testicle.
The terrible War of the Spanish Succession, which made the Churchill family, was more rightly the War of the Shriveled Testicle.
If you want serious genetics problems, you should look into the Waldviertel area, the Arkansas of Austria. After Anschluss, Hitler had the entire area around Strones and Döllersheim emptied out and turned into a military reservation. Artillery then destroyed almost everything.
Socialists voicing their socialistic dreams, which always turn towards their idea of Utopia. And had they been in charge they would know what to do so as to not produce another Stalin or Mao. When in doubt vote Progressive!
I’m not so sure abolition of slavery would have happened when it did if we had still owned the American South!
You’re right, it might have happened earlier. link
If Britain had had a strong, vested financial interest in maintaining slavery, such as a colony whose economy was based on slave labor, there would have been much fiercer opposition to abolition in their empire. Britain continued actions that were effectively slavery for much later, most notably their treatment of India.
If the revolution had failed, then things would have been different. That is the only thing we can say for certain, but whether abolition would have occurred sooner in America or later for the entire British empire is not something that is readily apparent.
By the time of the U. S. Civil War, Britain was so reliant on the U. S. South’s cotton, if they were still in charge I’m not sure abolition would have happened EVER!
Nope. Can’t touch this! That’s a quote from PBS, clearly NOT a product of the Right, and even they can’t find support for it.
Furthermore, things would not have remained static. I suspect the only way the Colonies would NOT have rebelled and declared independence would be if they had been given representation, i.e., seats in Parliament relative to their population, at the very least (and that still might have been too little too late). So try abolishing Colonial slavery through THAT Parliament!
Dylan Matthews is a putz and clearly even basic research is beyond him!
Not likely. It took Wilberforce years just to get Parliament to abolish the slave trade. The cynicism of economic advantage was strong, and the presence of a block of pro-slavery colonies in the American South could well have tilted the balance the other way for years.
No opinion re sooner vs later.
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833
In May 1772, Lord Mansfield’s judgment in the Somersett’s Case emancipated a slave in England, which helped launch the movement to abolish slavery.[1] The case ruled that slavery was unsupported by law in England and no authority could be exercised on slaves entering English or Scottish soil.
…
By 1783, an anti-slavery movement to abolish the slave trade throughout the Empire had begun among the British public. In 1793 Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada John Graves Simcoe signed the Act Against Slavery. Passed by the local Legislative Assembly, it was the first legislation to outlaw the slave trade in a part of the British Empire.
In 1807, Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which outlawed the slave trade, but not slavery itself. Abolitionist Henry Brougham realized that trading would continue and as a new MP successfully introduced the Slave Trade Felony Act 1811 which at last made slave trading criminal throughout the empire. The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa. It did suppress the slave trade, but did not stop it entirely. Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans.[5] They resettled many in Jamaica and the Bahamas.[6][7] Britain also used its influence to coerce other countries to agree treaties to end their slave trade and allow the Royal Navy to seize their slave ships.
In 1823, the Anti-Slavery Society was founded in London. Members included Joseph Sturge, Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, Henry Brougham, Thomas Fowell Buxton, Elizabeth Heyrick, Mary Lloyd, Jane Smeal, Elizabeth Pease, and Anne Knight.[10] William Wilberforce had prior written in his diary in 1787 that his great purpose in life was to suppress the slave trade before waging a 20-year fight on the industry.[11]
A LIFE WELL-LIVED – WILLIAM WILBERFORCE (1759 – 1833)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/wilberforce_william.shtml
William Wilberforce was born on 24 August 1759 in Hull, the son of a wealthy merchant. He studied at Cambridge University where he began a lasting friendship with the future prime minister, William Pitt the Younger. In 1780, Wilberforce became member of parliament for Hull, later representing Yorkshire. His dissolute lifestyle changed completely when he became an evangelical Christian, and in 1790 joined a leading group known as the Clapham Sect. His Christian faith prompted him to become interested in social reform, particularly the improvement of factory conditions in Britain.
The abolitionist Thomas Clarkson had an enormous influence on Wilberforce. He and others were campaigning for an end to the trade in which British ships were carrying black slaves from Africa, in terrible conditions, to the West Indies as goods to be bought and sold. Wilberforce was persuaded to lobby for the abolition of the slave trade and for 18 years he regularly introduced anti-slavery motions in parliament. The campaign was supported by many members of the Clapham Sect and other abolitionists who raised public awareness of their cause with pamphlets, books, rallies and petitions. In 1807, the slave trade was finally abolished, but this did not free those who were already slaves. It was not until 1833 that an act was passed giving freedom to all slaves in the British empire.
…
Wilberforce retired from politics in 1825 and died on 29 July 1833, shortly after the act to free slaves in the British empire passed through the House of Commons. He was buried near his friend Pitt in Westminster Abbey.
America’s first antislavery society was founded in Philadelphia in 1775:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Abolition_Society
Coincidence that the British association wasn’t formed until after losing her Southern American colonies, in 1783?
“In 1793 Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada John Graves Simcoe signed the Act Against Slavery. Passed by the local Legislative Assembly, it was the first legislation to outlaw the slave trade in a part of the British Empire.”
For the record, these are my people – my family settled circa 1800 in Glengarry County, the easternmost and oldest County in Upper Canada (now Ontario). The first settlers to Glengarry arrived earlier, circa 1776, Highland Scots driven out of the Mohawk valley in New York State for choosing the wrong side in the American Revolutionary War.
History runs deep in Glengarry. The explorers David Thompson, Simon Fraser and Alexander Mackenzie all lived at times in Glengarry. Major rivers in western and northern Canada are named after these three intrepid gentlemen. Lewis and Clark had copies of David Thompson’s maps of their destination on the West Coast.
Before the new school was built, you could sit on my grandad’s front porch and see David Thompson’s house across the fields. Alexander Mackenzie donated the bell in their church, and Simon Fraser had lived a few miles west.
___________________________________________________________________
A few years earlier, we dealt with another gang of slavers. The Highland Scots threw the Vikings under King Haaken IV out of western Scotland at the Battle of Largs in 1263.
The Clan MacRae fought at Largs under the leadership of Alexander Stewart (1214–1283). It was a minor skirmish with only part of the huge Viking fleet, but it marked the end of Viking control over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man.
Scottish lore has it that “we partied with the Vikings on the beach at Largs on October 2, 1263 – perhaps we were poor hosts, because they never called back again.”
The evidence of the conversion of the Vikings to Christianity is preserved in a quote from King Haaken himself, who said “Jesus! WTF were those guys?” 🙂
Simcoe was a war criminal.
While commanding the Queens Rangers in 1778, he led a massacre by bayonet of ten Americans in their sleep in Lower Alloways Creek Township, southern New Jersey. The night attack on Judge William Hancock’s house, during a foraging expedition opposed by Patriot militia, also wounded five other Americans in their sleep. William Hancock was killed as well, although he was not with the Americans.
On August 31, then Lieut. Col. Simcoe led a massacre of forty Indian allies of the Continental Army, in what is today the Bronx. The site is now known as Indian Field in Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx. NY.
War is heck.
It is cold-blooded murder, amid squalor.
Being an unrepentant pragmatist, I must point out to everyone that slavery was on its last legs by the second half of the nineteenth century. Slavery is an economic-based institution, and the economics were about to change. John Deere, Cyrus McCormick, et al were about to revolutionize agriculture. How many would want to feed, house, and provide medical care for a farm laborer today, especially during the winter months?
As a Brit I can see one advantage of still having this rather large colony we might never have felt the need to join the EU. Now that would have been a good thing.
James Bull
James
My thoughts, concisely put.
A very good thing. I voted against joining the Common Market back in the day, because I saw the potential for the loss of sovereignty and independence.
I didn’t vote for Brexit as I’d made my own personal Brexit in 1988 and now live in the former colonies.
Wow, historical ignorance is big at Vox.
I hope the author and those who agree are too offended by American realuty to vote this November.
And even better, simply moving to another country and leaving America to the “deplorables”
I stand with legal immigrants.
I have no quarrel with the Tories, they were just on the wrong side of the ocean at the wrong moment. Glad to see this grand old party has survived the years and found a modern issue in climate change. Perhaps the Tories will field a candidate in 2020. All Hail King George III!
The ‘Whigs’ had a spasm after the Revolution as I recall, and proposed that George Washington should be their first king. He declined politely.
“He declined politely.”
A very wise man indeed.
There would be no America and no Canada. There would have been no Louisiana Purchase, no Alaska Purchase. Canada would not have needed to buy Rupert’s Land.
The formation of Canada was largely in response to the Fenian Raids from the United States. That and other pressures that led to Confederation would not have existed. For instance, much of Canada’s settlement was by United Empire Loyalists who were driven out of the United States after the Revolution.
The British attempted to prevent settlement into Indian territory. The pressure was too much though. Consider the settlers who wrested Texas from Mexico.
When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s, he found a people who were unlike those of France or England. Such people would not have meekly stayed under the British crown. My guess is they would have left and set up shop outside the original colonies.
Even if Washington had lost there is no telling what eventual countries would have developed. The idea of an America with the same boundaries but more like Canada is risible.
Now that’s something I hadn’t thought of. Had the Colonies lost the War, there would have been one crazy refugee swarm, heading to Canada, the West, Mexico and Florida, maybe even some back to Europe, and certainly South America. And all of history would have been changed in all those places, as well.
“The British attempted to prevent settlement into Indian territory.”
See my previous post re the original Indian Territory, NW (South) Carolina where I now reside.
Because of the pressure of the colonists to move “inland”, the British government set up a clearly defined Indian territory “way out west” on land that at the time no one valued; it was perceived to be no good to grow rice (and later cotton).
Remember there were no defined western boundaries to the colonies; the charters were presumed in most instances to extend the width of the continent. It was up to you to protect your western flank from the French coming from the Mississippi, or even the Spanish on the Pacific coast. Protection from the French and Indians was enforced by the British army and forts within Indian Territory. (I live a mile from the former Fort George which was purposely situated across the river from Keowee Village, a principle Cherokee hub and crossroad for the Iroquois nation.)
When even that segregation was not sufficient to appease the settlers’ appetite for western migration, the abominable “Trail of Tears” moved the original Indian Territory from Carolina to what is now Oklahoma. As horrible as that was, the precedent was set under British rule.
I believe that about 38 different Indian tribes now call Oklahoma home.
The lot of the American Indian has improved quite dramatically since the “Trail of Tears”.
The Cherokee Indian tribe (and others) is now in such a good financial state that they are constantly donating money to their non-Indian neighbors.
Americans of 1830 might have been different had the Revolution not succeeded.
Who can say, but Britain allied with the indigenous tribes might have kept colonists bottled up on the Atlantic seaboard.
I think we can say that the British allied with the indigenous tribes did keep the Americans bottled up south of what is now the Canadian border.
Britain banned development west of the original colonies. That was one of the things the colonists resented, especially the largest landholder in that area, some chappie, a former surveyor named Washingson…? Washingman…?
Washington’s biggest gripe against the Crown was that it didn’t give him a royal commission in the British Army, only a major of VA militia.
Had the Brits so honored him, he would probably not have sided with the colonials.
If we had not had a revolution and won, that blighted braindead numbnuts Matthews and his fellow travelers would likely not be alive to bitch about living in a free country.
Happy Birthday, US of A! I can’t think of a better place to be born, grow up or live. Glad it’s my home turf, always has been and always will be and anyone who doesn’t like freedom can pack it in and leave now.
what a complicated way to praise Britain and piss USA…
“They lead to much less gridlock.”
That’ll be Brexit then, where remainers are doing everything they can, to stab anyone in the back they can, in order to sabotage, overturn, or unduly influence the outcome of a democratic decision!
And that’s what this idiot aspires to?
The fact remains, America emerged from a political maelstrom and went on, with a presidential democracy, underpinned by the Constitution, to become, probably, the most successful and influential country the world has known.
Nothing but idealistic naval gazing. What a pillock!
The best thing about government is gridlock. The last thing the public needs is the latest fad of the ruling class rammed down their throats. Gridlock at least gives the public a chance to avoid planned disaster.
“Nothing but idealistic naval gazing.”
No gazing at the Army?
Jeff Alberts
Navel………….autocorrect!
A government slow to react is a feature, not a bug. Exactly as the framers of the Constitution intended it!
Exactly right. And that’s what’s exactly wrong with “progressives” aiming to get their latest fad or unpopular idea implemented through the court system because they can’t get it done legislatively. That was done on purpose by the Founders, and resorting to the Courts to, in essence, to change the law was not envisioned.
“You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps…. Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“Al Qaeda-affiliated terror group launches war on ……..plastic bags” ?
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/07/05/al-qaeda-affiliated-terror-group-launches-war-on-plastic-bags.html
Liberal “Watermelons” are the “Al Qaeda” of America
Amen and amen
Energy poverty in the UK due to green taxes (carbon tax) is killing people and costing the UK health service.
https://www.newstatesman.com/microsites/energy/2017/12/how-fuel-poverty-burdening-uk-economy-and-nhs
Thank god the yanks had the balls to tell our German king George where to shove it!
Just a shame the revolution didnt make it back across the atlantic…
MattS
As we speak, announcement on BBC news that E.ON is putting up it’s gas and electricity prices for the second time this year!
Undoubtedly followed by the rest.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44724046
Good post Matt – please see our 2015 paper on Excess Winter Mortality and the huge death toll (approx. 48,000) this winter in the UK. Radical greens are the great killers of our age.
Regards, Allan
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/17/oxford-professor-rich-people-fuel-climate-change-were-not-controlling-them/comment-page-1/#comment-2821009 old server
[excerpt]
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
“Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder’s welcome.”
From “EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE MADNESS OF CROWDS”
Charles Mackay (1841)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds
______________________
I bought Charles Mackay’s excellent book recently for my daughter’s Science Fair project, and after more than 150 years it is still a good read. She used it to help debunk the 1972 ban on DDT, which DOUBLED the number of deaths from malaria, more than half of which are children 4 and under whose deaths peaked at almost 1 million per year – just babies for Christ’s sake – and half of these deaths were easily preventable.
With the exception of major wars and murderous leftist politics (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.) the banning of DDT in the fight against malaria was probably the most deadly error in hundreds of years – and this incredibly stupid error was made by educated people based on faulty science and a poor grasp of reality.
An even greater error, in terms of human mortality, is the global warming scam and the “phony war” against increasing atmospheric CO2. The overwhelming evidence is that increasing atmospheric CO2 will lead to improved plant and crop growth, and any resulting warming will be mild and beneficial.
Earth is significantly colder-than-optimum for humanity and the environment. Meteorologist Joe d’Aleo and I wrote this conclusion in our 2015 paper, referenced below. Twenty times more people die from cold than die from heat – about 2 million Excess Winter Deaths every year worldwide – an average of about one hundred thousand in the USA, equivalent to two 9-11’s per week for 17 weeks every year!
Even more startling is the preliminary estimate of Excess Winter Deaths in the UK – about 48,000 this winter! The UK suffered about HALF the average annual Excess Winter Deaths of the USA, but the UK has only ONE-FIFTH the USA’s population. High energy prices, or “Heat or Eat” as it is termed in the UK, is becoming a significant cause of premature deaths of the elderly and the poor. Anti-fracking groups in the UK, many of whom are phony-green Marxist fronts, have cost your country dearly in billions of lost pounds and hundreds of thousands of needlessly-shortened lives.
This is very frustrating, because some of us knew that the global warming scam was false nonsense as early as ~1985, based on the evidence available then. Since that time, the evidence against the global warming scam has grown more and more credible, and yet this multi-trillion dollar-per-year scam continues.
I (we) published in 2002 that the global warming crisis did not exist in reality, and that green energy schemes would not be adequate to replace fossil fuels. Both these statements are now proven to be correct, for anyone who objectively examines the evidence.
I suggest that anyone who continues to support global warming alarmism and schemes to abate fossil fuels is seriously deluded at best, and more correctly is guilty of crimes against humanity.
Best personal regards, Allan in Calgary
________________________________________
COLD WEATHER KILLS 20 TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE AS HOT WEATHER
By Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae, September 4, 2015
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
Let’s not forget that the average Brit at the time of the War of Independence was equally oppressed by the ruling elite and has managed over the intervening years to build a functioning democracy and managed to avoid a civil war in the process.
You are ignoring the whole issue of the Roundheads vs the Cavaliers, which began era of parliamentary dominance of the country. While the King was eventually put back in power, the true power lay in the elected officials ever since.
Even as a died in the wool Brit, I echo Eric’s sentiments.
Britain could not run a sophisticated European citizen Colony of such vigour at such a distance with the technology of the time and a rather pathetic king who was ultimately intermittently mad.
And only the most convinced self righteous Green/Red could consider that rule by edict bypassing the democratic process was, except in case of emergency, a Good Thing in general.
“And parliamentary democracies are a lot, lot better than presidential ones. They’re significantly less likely to collapse into dictatorship because they don’t lead to irresolvable conflicts between, say, the president and the legislature. They lead to much less gridlock.”
Did VOX forget the Germany & Hitler in 1932 or Italy/mussolini or Spain/Franco in the 1930’s?
Can VOX name any “presidential system” that became a dictatorship
Can Vox even know the United States is not a “Presidential system?
Does Vox even know what kind of government the United States Has?
Well, just one point…
We (in the US) have a leader that said that women would allow him to grope them.
They (in Canada) have a leader that did grope women without their permission.
One is a boor, true – but the other is a sexual predator.
Trump’s statement, taken in context, was not the chauvinistic boast the political press claimed it was. It was an expression of amazement at how loose some women he had met could be.
You mean women who “sleep” their way to the top ?? I thought they were a myth !! / sarc
You’re right, Dred.
There’s a story about Donald Trump in The November 9, 1992 issue of New York Magazine.
Trump had friends among movie stars and rock icons. In the story, he describes seeing women launch themselves over barricades to get at Michael Jackson (no accounting for taste, there).
He expressed serious distaste toward beautiful women who he saw abasing themselves to keep a relationship with a rock star, clutching a leg while being kicked away.
These are the women Trump was talking about in the Access Hollywood video. They’ll let rich or powerful men grab them in special ways, if only, if only, they could just share in that high-life with him.
Trump never said he did it himself. He never boasted about doing it. There’s no evidence he’s done it.
The entire narrative about Trump-grabbing is a false and negative inference deliberately manufactured in the interests of character assassination.
“The entire narrative about Trump-grabbing is a false and negative inference deliberately manufactured in the interests of character assassination.”
Yes, it is, and so is just about every other charge made against Trump by the radical Leftists and the Leftwing Media. They distort and misinterpret everything Trump does in an effort to portray him in the worst light possible.
It’s propaganda and lies all the way down.
Not for nuthin’, but the biggest reason Canada drifted away from Britain is that Britain decided Canada’s Southern border was indefensible and Canada wasn’t worth the cost of keeping it in the Empire. If the US didn’t break away, then it’s much less likely that Canada would have either.
You can carry this way further if you are so inclined, but this is far enough to show how asinine Vox is in thinking that if the US didn’t revolt, than everything except that would have moved forward as normal.
If Climatists hate America so much, then they should leave, Win-win!
Bruce – I’m with you on this point. Let’s keep it simple. Here we have a person (presumably) living in the US of A, who has available all of the comforts and largess of a first-world lifestyle, bemoaning the history of that same country that created the current conditions that keep him safe, warm, and which provides him an opportunity to create wealth by placing words into a system of hard and software (created for the most part by the technology of the same USA he appears to loath). Assuming he does not pen columns for free? All in the name of imposing a ‘carbon’ tax on his fellow citizens, for a mostly-fictional idea where the powering and moving of a modern society (read as: releasing the evil ‘carbon’ molecule combined with two oxygen molecules via the oxidation of hydrocarbon rich fuels) is causing a (distant future) world of hellfire and brimstone. Wishing historical change, and ruing his current lifestyle. Presenting a potential alternate future where his country has been radically changed by never having come into existence. A fiction, put out on the day where that same, actual history is to remembered and celebrated. And he is given the response he probably wished for – we here on WUWT present alternate historical possibilities based upon his fantastical premise of the USA having never began. Please do not misinterpret my point here; most of the comments posted in response are very well thought-out and intelligent in presenting the myriad of alternate histories based upon the premise of losing the War of Independence. However, I stand firm that carbon taxes are regressive, and should not be imposed for any reason, let alone demand the alteration of our country and it’s history in the name of changing our government to ease the imposition of same.
We DO know what would have happened….The German Empire would have defeated the British and the French in the first World War.
The great American industrial Nation would never have happened because the America that created that wave of Free Enterprise would never have happened and America would have been more like Australia and Canada, than America….. nations of welfare slaves bent to the will of a political elite, with barely the free will to think for themselves.
And thus, the cream of American manhood would have been butchered on the Somme and the fields of Flanders in 1914-15 as just another colonial army in the great war… and no Industrialized America would have turned up in 1917-18 and broken the spirit of the German army with its unlimited manpower, fighting spirit and industrialism.
Vox are a bunch of ignorant and uneducated fools. Chimpanzees playing with typewriters.
That the US won WWI by sending its troops to Europe in 1917 is a fallacy. The US may have shortened the war by a few months, but did not affect the overall outcome. It was Britain’s Royal Navy that defeated Germany, not by winning any major battles but just by sitting on Germany’s front doorstep.
Prior to the war, Germany was self sufficient in food production. However, take away a few million men by recruiting them into the army, and agricultural production necessarily plummets in a non-mechanised agricultural society (there were very few tractors in pre-war Germany, for example). The same considerations applied to Britain and France, but both were able to import food from overseas. Not so the Germans, who were blockaded by the Royal Navy. By the winter of 1917/18, Germany was seriously short of food, and there was a significant danger of civil uprisings. Of greater immediate danger to the military was the inability of Germany to supply its own troops. By the winter of 1917/18, it is well documented that German troops were raiding the Allied lines for food.
The German Spring offensive of 1918 was a desperation effort by Germany. It had to do something or lose the war by default as German civilian morale collapsed on the home front. One of the reasons that the, admittedly brilliantly planned and executed, offensive failed was that whenever German troops overran Allied supply dumps, they sat down and gorged themselves for a few day and could not be moved by their officers.
Germany learned its lesson, that food production. or lack of it, trumps everything in the long run. During World War II, Germany overran much of the food-producing areas and their populations in Europe, so food was never a major issue until the very end. Germany had to be pounded to pieces in WWII before it surrendered. But let’s not forget that the real heavy lifting against Germany in WWII was done by the Russians.
I have read that all parties were starting to talk about an armistice when the US joined the war.
The French army mutinied in 1917.
French Army C-in-C Pétain conducted some successful but limited offensives in the latter part of 1917, unlike the British who stalled in an unsuccessful offensive at Passchendaele that autumn. Pétain, instead, held off from major French offensives until the Americans arrived in force on the front lines, which did not happen until the early summer of 1918. He was also waiting for the new Renault FT tanks to be introduced in large numbers, hence his statement at the time: “I am waiting for the tanks and the Americans.”
Little known fact is that US II Corps (27th and 30th Divisions) was under Australian command at the pivotal Battle of St Quentin Canal, 29 September to 10 October 1918.
American divisions were twice the size of Commonwealth and French formations, so the US troops were a vital addition to Monash’s forces.
As were the other two million Doughboys to the whole Allied counteroffensive which forced the armistice in November. Sine qua non, in fact.
The blockade did indeed cause huge suffering in Germany. But the divisions transferred from the East after the peace with Lenin would have reached Paris but for the Americans.
The Germans knew they had to win before Americans arrived in force. Their spring offensive bogged down, but without US troops, the allies couldn’t have broken through German defenses. A stalemate, with slightly different front lines, would have recurred.
The British blockade would have been broken by Germany’s ability to buy food from Ukraine and Russia.
“A stalemate, with slightly different front lines, would have recurred.”
Until 1919, when the next million American troops were scheduled to arrive. I’ve read that it was German realization (by some in its high echelons) of the certainty of this prospect that encouraged it to agree to an armistice.
The stalemate assumes that no US troops arrived at all.
France and Britain could have stopped the Spring Offensive, but would have lacked the ability to go over to the offensive themselves.
My comment responded to Roger’s claim that American troops made no difference in the outcome of the Great War.
In fact, the Allies didn’t stop the Ludendorff Offensive. The Germans simply outran their logistical capabilities. The attack relied upon storm troopers, who were lightly armed and equipped. Once they were dead or used up all their ammo, they couldn’t be replaced or resupplied.
But on the defensive again, the Allies, even with splendid Australian assault troops, couldn’t have broken through the Hindenburg Line without two million fresh, eager, strapping, athletic Yanks Over There.
The Marine Brigade attached to US Army’s 2nd Infantry Division at Belleau Wood, now the Bois de la Brigade de Marine:
“My comment responded to Roger’s claim that American troops made no difference in the outcome of the Great War.”
To clarify, the “Roger” being referred to is Roger Graves at the top of this set of comments, not me, who made no such claim.
“the Allies, … couldn’t have broken through the Hindenburg Line without two million fresh, eager, strapping, athletic Yanks Over There.”
Were there really two million there at that point? (I’m probably wrong.)
Yes, there were. Each month there were more Americans.
From the end of the Kaiserschlacht in the spring to the allied offensive in the autumn, US troop strength grew from one million to two.
Kaiser Willy made a big mistake to try to get Mexico involved by invading the US.
No, the Brits had starved them into submission and forced them to sign the Armistice. Even after the cease fire, the blockade continued, expanded to include North Sea fishing. It was requests to be sent home on the part of British Army forces in the Rhineland that ended the blockade. They were sickened every morning by the sight of skeletal German children swarming over the British Army garbage dumps, looking for food.
“No, the Brits had starved them into submission and forced them to sign the Armistice.”
That’s what’s obvious. But a hidden factor weighing on the scales may have been a realization at the time, or later on, that another million American troops would be arriving, so resistance was futile.
There was enough food in Germany, but its distribution was horribly bungled by Ludendorff’s maladministration.
His plans for Europe after a German victory were hardly distinguishable from Hitler’s, except for expelling Jews rather than mass-murdering them. He planned to colonize Eastern Europe, and drive out its indigenous Slavic populations.
OTOH, Germany left over a million troops in the Baltics, Belarus and Ukraine after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, who could have been used to maintain the offensive in the West.
And the food and coal expected from the East failed to materialize in the hoped for quantities.
The British food blockade was in violaton of international law and at least one other treaty. About 750,000 German civilians, men, women, and children, starved to death as a result. The situation was so bad that William Jennings Bryan, US Secretary of State, resigned in protest. Here are just two of Britain’s victims:
http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/image_files/1920s-german-starvation_488.jpg
Multiply that times several hundred thousand, and you needn’t wonder why Hitler was able to rise to power.
So the Kaiser shouldn’t have gone to war against Russia, France and Britain, should he?
The German invasion of Belgium and slaughter of innocent men, women and children was also in violation of international law.
Bryan resigned in 1915, two years before the US entered the war, and before mass starvation in Germany.
Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare was also against international law.
The Kaiser’s regime was willing to let its people starve rather than make peace. Only the US Army and Marines forced Germany to agree to an armistice.
“That’s not a bug, that’s a feature”?
….” its going to be tough to beat that one.?
I don’t know some green nitwit will likely write how freedom itself is overrated because the masses cannot be sufficiently forced into doing what is right and necessary for preservation and survival.
Ignorant free people don’t know what is good for them.
Progressive tyranny is needed.
We must fight for our right to be wrong.
The writer would have gone hysterical when Mrs. Thatcher had a majority and reformed a corrupt system whereby the coal union guy was running the country. Scargill (?)
Reagan was given the mandate to reform the US but was stifled by Democrats with majorities.
Bob Hoye
Just saw this article. https://phys.org/news/2018-07-global-climate.amp
From a Canadian perspective, the article is nonsense. Canada has a broken political system because our Senate is worse than useless. It was intended to provide checks and balances to the House of Commons.
However in reality the Senate is a toothless old dog that can’t even remember how to bark. It is filled with political appointees as a lifetime pension for a “job well done”.
The checks and balances in the US system do not lead to tyranny. The are designed to prevent the sort of tyranny we have in Canada where the Prime Minister is President, House and Senate all rolled into one.
Add in an egotistical grand standing Numbskull like TrueDope and the only hope is that through sheer incompetence the damage will be limited. Who in their right mind would get into a trade war having an economy a small fraction of the size of your opponent. Economic suicide.
As we say in Canada our PM got his mothers brains and his fathers looks. While we are pretty sure who his mother was there is plenty of debate on the other question.
“…to save the planet.” Oops, just remembered I have to take out the trash.
And other fairy tales can be found at your local leftist library. Other selections include Communisim done right, If I was in charge the world woul be so much better, If cavemen ruled the world, If the Vikings had stayed home, If Columbus had crashed at sea are just a few.
Thought of the ultimate Fary Tail for Vox and readers. If God had Forgotten to Create Adam and Eve. 😃
This recycled (ooh look, it’s recycled, how green) Vox article highlight one particular failure of the USA, but not the one intended by its authors. The failure is the that USA’s educational institutions have produced such young people with an astonishingly poor understanding of world history and the woeful state humanity was in for so long.
The authors, clearly upset by what they perceive as the USA’s lack of greenness, also make the amateur mistake of alienating those Americans who might otherwise be inclined to agree with them on CAGW and all that. This is not smart. It is self indulgent.
But I’ll give Vox this. It’s good click bait. There’s evil capitalism behind all this after all. Hehe.
I hope Dylan gets his wish, and moves to Canada. I am certain he would appreciate Canada’s restrictions on free speech as much as their “efficient” Parlimentary system. Smh.
Yes, Free Speech is still alive and well in the United States, although it is under heavy assault from those on the Left.
Had Hillary been elected, our free speech would have been in great jeopardy. The U.S. would be headed down the same socialist road Europe is on.
Did it ever occur to these idiots that without the example of the American revolution, Britan would have had no incentive, or political support for giving Canada a ‘soft exit’ from the empire, and the subsequent formation of the Commonwealth?
Then speculate that continued British rule might have stifled American growth and inventiveness, and if you really want speculate, just assume Hitler’s rise, and the potential for Canadians to be speaking German by now.
This kind of imaginative nonsense is an embarrasment to the left, who can’t get stuff done politically, and therefore must resort to flights of fantasy to get through their day.
The article is pure clickbait and should be ignored for the deliberately outrageous garbage that it is.
Dylan Matthews — a 28-year old ass-clown man-child.
This is an idiot who gave a kidney to a complete stranger.
Hopes he can go through life with one.
OK, that Ruined it for me, but that’s okay. At least he walks the talk. I’ll grant him that.
So many Libs don’t walk the talk.
Trump walks his talk. He is doing what he said he would do.
Leave it to a leftist to just assume that the natural reaction to gridlock is for a dictator to just take over.
It’s what they have been hoping for.
As per the Brexit, even the Brits have come to realize that Unelected Bureaucrats ruling from afar is a bad form of government.
As far as Democracy goes including the American Form of it I believe Churchill quotes id best back in Nov 1947
Just imagine how green the US would be if they were a dictatorship and didn’t have to take into account what the people want. A “green dictatorship” would be utopia according to the environuts who espouse this nonsense.
And you would now have all English/French labeled products on your store shelves too.
And In London, either German or Russian would be the dominant language of government.
Facebook banned parts the American founding document, The Declaration of Independence, as so-called “hate speech”.
The heck with all of these 2 dimensional high tech derivative parasites.
MODERATOR !
I have entered a LONG COMMENT further down the list
and whilst EDITING IT……… I got BLOCKED OUT and was unable to POST IT !
.
Will YOU please EXERCISE YOUR PREROGATIVE POWER and ACCEPT IT !??
When LAST SEEN it was forlornly sitting there looking absolutely submittable !
.
Regards , Trevor.
that is the Universe trying to get you to stop using all caps
And for not removing line-breaks.
Noble cause corruption at its “best”!
They subvert the Rule of Law, nullify the (democratic) Republican form of Government, the Constitution, and the principles of the Declaration of Independence – all to worship nature and subjugate the good of “We the People.”
e.g., see: Noble Cause Corruption, by Steve Rothlein
http://www.llrmi.com/articles/legal_update/noble-cause-corruption.shtml
If Dylan Matthews wants to stop at our house, I’ll drive him to the border with Canada.
He can apply to stay there or move on to another country.
“I really don’t care. Do U?”
Given Britain’s previous unhappy experiment with republicanism, it’s unlikely that either Britain or France would have adopted democracy in the 19th century without the American example.
Nor would Canada have been permitted to form a Dominion nor Australia a Commonwealth, but would have remained disparate Crown colonies.
I should have let it pass, but curiosity got the better of me. From the article…
So another Loony Liberal (but I repeat myself) trying to retroactively apply the same loony logic they’re trying to attempt in present time to destroy our country: A minority group of non-citizens should get greater consideration than citizens do! But even worse, clearly “…vulnerable groups…” does NOT mean babies in the womb!
I may yet resurrect my “America: Love It Or Leave It!” bumper sticker!
The historical ignoramus fool apparently doesn’t know that Indians and blacks fought on both sides in the Revolutionary War.
Spoken like a Constitutional retard. I guess we’re just lucky that after 242 years we haven’t collapsed into a dictatorship. It’s nothing to do with our form of government and the Constitution’s strict enumeration of powers for the federal government, its division of powers among the branches, and its system of checks and balances.
I’m guessing that Matthews is getting a lot of attention for his infantile essay; and not the kind he wants. The only kind of government leftists like is the kind that accomplishes their goals, be it socialist, parliamentary, dictatorship, oligarchy or whatever. The ends justify the means and damn all those stupid “natural rights”.
Had we remained British colonies the evolving colonials would never have been in a position to bail the Brits out of certain Nazi defeat during the 2nd world war and the Japs would have attacked Mexico’s Northern Territory.
Hawaii wasn’t ever going to be part of Mexico. If not American, then British.
But you’re right that the US SW would still be Mexican or Spanish. Without the US Revolution, Spain might have held onto its American colonies.
North America at least would look very different from today’s boundaries. After the Napoleonic Wars, Spain probably would have gotten Louisiana back from France, so would have controlled the whole Gulf coast from Florida to Mexico.
Britain would have kept American settlers out of Trans-Appalachia, so that Indian states would have developed there, ie the “Civilized Tribes” in the SE and various confederacies in the Midwest east of the Mississippi. Spain or Mexico would have owned the SW, and Britain the NW, ie the Oregon Territory. Russia of course would still have Alaska.
So California would have remained Spanish and followed their disastrous “renewable” energy policies.
No change there.
Sad but true.
Although, given the petroleum resources of CA, the Spanish regime might have adopted different policies.
Facts don’t seem to stand in the way of a Progressive rant.
I live in the western part of South Carolina, in the foothill of the Appalachian chain, in the area that was the original Indian Territory in America.
As the colonists moved out from the SC coast, they pushed the native population hundreds of miles further west, into land the settlers didn’t think they’d ever need. There were official boundaries dividing the territories.
This was of course very disrespectful, to say the least, to the native population. The problem for Mr. Matthews article, is that at that time, this was a British colony, owned by close friends of the King, with a British Governor and legislature and a British army with forts in the territory to insure the “natives” stayed under control.
More than 100 years later the horrible Trail of Tears occurred under American rule where that native population was walked to the NEW Indian Territory (what is now Oklahoma, so even that “safe space” didn’t last).
Yes that was unforgivable, but the precedent was set by a British government, wiping out Matthews thesis.
“As the colonists moved out from the SC coast, they pushed the native population hundreds of miles further west, into land the settlers didn’t think they’d ever need. There were official boundaries dividing the territories.
This was of course very disrespectful, to say the least, to the native population. The problem for Mr. Matthews article, is that at that time, this was a British colony,”
And to keep things in perspective, we should note that before Europeans came to the Americas, native American tribes warred with, killed, enslaved and displaced other indian tribes, too. Stealing land in the Americas was not limited to Europeans.
If the strongest recommendation for parliamentary democracy is that it allows incompetent politicians to impose economy destroying taxes in the name of end-of-times religious observance with minimal impediment from those skilled in logic and practical policy, then who wants it. Fortunately there may be some more rational arguments in favour, but political systems will likely evolve just as do species based on what works best.
Had Pinochet brought in a “carbon tax” Vox would’ve had a collective aneurysm at the ideological dilemma.
Belated Happy Independence Day, from one of the greatest nations in the world to the other 🙂
Alternative histories can be as much fun as they are revolting.
But you must have a good author who is not only aware of the actual history but also of the many possible alternatives. This Dylan Matthews is absolutely, positively brain dead.
Especially when compared to a true Master like Harry Turtledove.
The Southern Victory series or Timeline-191 are fan names given to a series of eleven alternate history novels by author Harry Turtledove, beginning with How Few Remain (1997) and published over a decade. The period addressed in the series begins during the Civil War and spans nine decades, up to the mid-1940s. In the series, the Confederate States of America defeats the United States of America in 1862, thereby making good its attempt at secession and becoming an independent nation. Subsequent books are built on imagining events based on this alternate timeline.
The best thing about Harry’s Civil War althist is his vision of CSA soldiers as the kind of semiliterate, barefoot, often bare-headed, teenaged, smelly, parasite-infested, ragtag raggamuffin rebels who today tote the AKMs with which the ANV defeats the AoP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guns_of_the_South
As opposed to the well-equipped, armed and fed, if poorly led, Union soldiers, every other one of whom seems to have kept a diary.
His other Civil War althist is based, as others, upon Lee’s Lost Orders:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guns_of_the_South
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Order_191
The USA has the longest running government currently still in existence on this planet. France has had something like 6 or 7 governments since the American Revolution. Germany as well has had quite a few. There are plenty of countries that never even existed when the USA was founded.
Still going strong and only getting better.
I think we are looking at this wrong.
Put it this way. No US nation would mean no US Congress.
No Congress and there is no platform for people like Hanson to ‘testify’ in front of.
No Hanson means no hockey stick.
No hockey stick means no global warming.
So… sorry America, but all this Green Fraud is all your fault! 😛
CURSE YOU AMERICAN FOUNDING FATHERS!!!
(PS – Happy B’day America)
This is the kind of garbage you hear from a 28 year-old Democrat, Establishment, socialist, elitist, non-thinker. Does he know Western political philosophy? No. Does he know history? No. Does he know economics? No. Why bother… might as well be listening to talk radio.
Government of the People, for the People, by the People, will always be superior to a system of political theater, where the Aristocracy always forces its will, upon the People. In general top-down governance fails, and grass-roots governance is successful. If the majority of the People want something done, it will happen eventually.
The fact that we don’t want more taxes, to fix a problem that most of us think is either minuscule, or nonexistent, is a prime example of the superiority of our system.
In general gridlock is a good thing. It prevents stupid people from doing stupid things that hurt people that are busy living their lives and not paying attention to the actions of special interest deals for those with special access. Government corruption does cost us a lot, but it is low as a percentage of the income generated by free people doing what is in their own best interest.
Vox and the rest of the Soros propaganda machine is in the ridiculous position of continuing to deny reality. They fail to acknowledge that people function better in a world where economic incentives are available to the general public, instead of just the “aristocracy”. They claim they are for the down-trodden, but every policy they espouse would increase the burden on the poor, and increase the number of the poor.
I don’t know if this author is just stupid or if he is intentionally deceitful. It doesn’t matter. Vox is destined for the ash heap and the whining is always the most shrill before it stops, with a whimper.
I agree that this article is thrash, but depends on what you mean by “Government of the People, for the People, by the People.” Which people are those exactly? Humans are not a hive mind. In democracy especially there is always going to be disagreements, powerful politicians manipulating votes, and mob rule where the “people” force their will upon individuals for the “common good”. Are you saying that there is no political theater in US? That parties happily discuss their differences and try to reach the common ground? And gridlock works the other way around too. It also prevents good things from happening.
Those people are the voters. They elect representation, and if they don’t like what is done, they vote them out. We don’t have a democracy. If we did we would not need representatives, we would vote on everything, and the majority would rule. We have elected officials who represent the voters.
I did not say there was no political theater in the US.
The government that governs least governs best. And there is no doubt that if something was good, for the majority, it would pass easily. Most of what will not pass is good for a small minority, and bad for the majority. That is what won’t pass, and the small minority calls it “gridlock”.
A history of two scientists: American patriot vs. American traitor
Benjamin Franklin – “the patriot.” Conducted the famous kite experiment. Founder of University of Pennsylvania
Benjamin Thompson (a.k.a. Count Rumford) “the traitor.” Conducted the famous cannon boring experiment. Founder of the Royal Institution
What a ridiculous article. Historical revisionism at its best. Also they couldn’t resist adding that arrogant and self-righteous notion of “literally necessary to save the planet”. Even if you think climate change is a threat, you need to look very far for a scientist that believes that climate change will “literally destroy the planet”.
“America would have a better system of government if we’d stuck with Britain”
In a nutshell, the left just don’t like capitalism, free markets, conservatism, Christianity, and white males.
Though I certainly disagree with Vox, I also have to take issue with Eric Worrall. Specifically with respect to this comment:
“Wishing that Americans had remained enslaved without political representation a little longer …”
The colonists were hardly “enslaved” (well, except those who were actually enslaved, i.e., the slaves). And the British government was not all that tyrannical. In fact, we are far more enslaved today, to a far more tyrannical government, then the rebels who started this nation were.
The British government did not mandate what the colonists could or could not do on their own land. (With one notable exception that resulted in the Pine Tree Rebellion, though I believe, in that case, the land technically belonged to the British Crown,)
The British government did not mandate how many miles a horse could travel on a bushel of oats.
The British government did not limit how much oil a lamp could burn.
The British government did not limit how much waste an outhouse can hold.
The British government did not limit how much wood you could burn in your fireplace.
The British government did not force the colonists to purchase health insurance and fine them if they did not.
The British government did not in any way limit the right of the people to keep and bear arms, at least not until after the shooting started, at which point they no longer had any real power over the people.
And last but not least, the British government didn’t TAX the colonists, not at all, until the Stamp Act. Rather than giving you a complete description, I’ll let you look it up on Wikipedia. But the main point is, the Stamp Act applied only to three small groups of wealthy people: Big farmers, Lawyers, and Newspaper Owners. The common man never paid a penny in taxes! (Well, the rich men didn’t either because we declared our independence before the Stamp Act went into effect, but even if we hadn’t, the common man would never have had to pay a penny. In this respect, the American Revolutionary War was much like most wars in human history, where the rich men see a potential danger to their wealth, and conscript poor men to go fight and die to preserve their wealth. I’m not saying, as Vox did, that we’d be better off if we had remained part of Britain; I’m just saying, let’s recognize those who started the war as the greedy, self-interested tycoons they were, not valiant heroes looking out for the common man.)
[And to be honest, the Stamp Act was not at all unreasonable. The British Government had, less than a generation earlier, spent enormous resources, and shed much of their soldiers’ blood, protecting the colonists from the invading French and Native Americans friendly to the French invaders. Sure, the British government had its own greedy, selfish reasons for doing so, but without a doubt, the colonists would have all been slaughtered or driven back to Jolly Old if the British Army hadn’t gotten involved. There was enormous support back in London to collect SOME money from the colonists, to help pay off some small part of the debt accumulated in their defense. And the colonists KNEW it was not unfair for the British government to collect that tax, which is why, instead of objecting to the Stamp Act itself, they decried the fact that it was passed by a representative body that had no representation from those who would pay the tax (taxation without representation). Taxation without representation, however, was a bullspit excuse. The colonists may not have directly elected representatives to Parliament, but they had a number of people, in both houses, who had interests in the colonies, and therefore could be depended upon to look out for those interests. But with or without representation for the colonies, the Stamp Act was going to pass.]
Compare that to what we face today, in regulation and taxes. We can’t freaking break wind without permits from three different government agencies, an environmental impact statement, and thousands of dollars in fees. And they take half our damn income in the form of one tax or another. If we could have stopped it at the Stamp Act, I would gladly trade our independence from Britain for the incredibly low level of government interference our founding fathers “suffered” under British rule. But Britain has, since then, grown even more socialist than we have, so living under British rule today would be even worse than the all-intrusive government we have now. So in net terms, we’re better off for our founding fathers breaking it off with Britain. But we’re still a hell of a lot worse off, today, under the US flag, then we were 250 years ago under the British flag.
Most all off our Amendments to the Constitution are a direct consequence of the way the colonist’s were treated by the Crown. Search and Seizure, quartering troops, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, right to bear arms, freedom of religion, and right to redress of grievances, are all areas that colonist felt needed to be guaranteed in a binding contract. Those are the same issues that patriots were willing to die for, so we wouldn’t have to live as second class citizens.
Of course the Brits didn’t see it that way. To them most of the world was second or third class citizens, and they were determined to keep it that way.
First of all, I think you are referring to the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments, not the entire list of 27 amendments, 15 of which were ratified generations after the Revolutionary War, and had more to do with the way the UNITED STATES government treated its citizens (slavery, voting rights, equal protection), and in some cases REMOVED freedoms and rights (direct taxes, prohibition) that we had previously enjoyed.
(Also, I think you are under the impression that the moment we won our independence from Britain, we immediately became the Constitutional Republic we are today. It would be 5 years after the War was over that we became a single nation, under the Constitution. For those 5 years (and the 8 years during the War), the states all considered themselves independent, sovereign nations (albeit joined together in a common purpose, similar to today’s NATO). In fact, the very word “State” MEANS an independent, sovereign government, and it is only because of the continued (inappropriate) use of the word when the definition was no longer true, that, to most Americans, it now means a political subdivision of a larger nation. Some of those sovereign states recognized these rights you and I hold dear, and some did not, and the “federal government” of that time had ZERO power to force states to do so. So it is a little ridiculous to argue that the colonists were fighting for, indeed, “willing to die for”, rights that they weren’t awarded immediately upon declaring independence from the “tyrannical” Great Britain.)
That said, even looking at just the Bill of Rights, you are mistaken. Most of them were either carry-overs from British law, or compromises to preserve some measure of sovereignty for states concerned about losing the independence they had so recently gained. The only one that was a direct result of the way colonists were treated by the British (and it was the British Army, not the government) was the quartering of troops. And like with the Stamp Act, quartering of troops only affected the very wealthy. The British Army did not seek housing for its troops in shacks, log cabins, or other small homes, but in spacious plantation houses, taverns, inns, and other places of business with room to spare. So even your example proves my point; the Revolutionary War was started by wealthy, privileged, self-interested tycoons who only cared about protecting their own wealth and property and accumulating more of it.
As British citizens, we already had protection from illegal search and seizure, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, the right to bear arms, and the right to redress of grievances. Sure, many of them were suspended when hostilities broke out, but every government (at least every government that provides such freedoms for its citizens), including ours, suspends those rights in times of civil unrest; it’s called Martial Law. As for freedom of religion, we had that too, at least as far as being permitted to worship whatever god we chose. Indeed, that’s why many of the original settlers came to this continent. The only change regarding religion in the Bill of Rights is that Congress cannot name any religion as the “official religion” of the US, as the British Government has named the Church of England the official religion of the UK. And even that applies only to the federal government; states (unless their own Constitutions forbid it) and local governments MAY declare official religions within their respective jurisdictions (and arguably, every time a city or town pays for a Christmas display, or allows one on public property, it IS declaring an official religion, because public funds and/or public property are being used to recognize one religion (Christianity) over all others).
The British went light on the indigenous peoples of America because they were too busy abusing, exploiting and starving the Irish; addicting the Chinese to opium; and harvesting the riches of India and Africa. America is a grand experiment where from its inception different people have mixed, worked together, argued and fought each other sorting out what living in liberty under the rule of law means.
The non-stop, overt and visceral hostility of the Left to this country is mind boggling. We have Christians (some really out there sects), Jews, Hindus, Muslims, B’hai’s, Buddhists, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Daoists and no doubt Animists mixed in there. I am sure I have left numerous religions out of the mix. But, I think you get my point. For the most we work together and try to live and let live. I could make the same case for races and ethnicities. With of course the historical blemishes and current caveats.
As a Hispanic City Council member told me. “You are one of whitest people I have ever seen.” LOL I have dated Filipinos, Koreans, Mexican Americans, Irish Americans, and married a lovely Slavic woman. Even had the privilege of being kicked out of a La Mecha New Years Eve party. LOL I have reported to gay Japanese Americans, African American men and women, and Mexican Americans. Saluted black and Hispanic officers and followed their orders with alacrity along with my fellow soldiers. Have led a squad of Airborne Infantry that was Black, Hispanic, Samoan and White with a token North Carolina “cracker” that wanted to join the Klan. Go figure. Even been hired as an intern to bring “diversity” to a predominantly African American division of a city.
I am politically conservative and live in a mostly anglo community with a sizable Barrio. My daily go to coffee shop is owned by a Chinese Cambodian Buddhist whose family fled Pol Pot walking over dead bodies. Her employees are Mexican and the barista is a transgender Mexican. She is treated with respect and affection by everyone who goes there. The coffee is better, the service more accommodating and pleasant and plenty of diversity without all the Starbucks blather and virtue signaling. I practice two Daoist Chinese integrative arts. One taught by an African American Buddhist.
This is the America that I know. I think it is worth defending. I think its people, all of them, are worth defending from Islamic terrorists, right wing boneheads, foolish anarchists, leftist nonsense and criminal aliens. But, what do I know? I am just an old white guy.
It would be so much easier for progressive totalitarian-types if everybody just rolled over and put up with tyranny – for the climate.
It’s no wonder the US seems to be their primary enemy.