America @ 225.
July 4, 2001 1:07 AM Subscribe
(and remember that in the 1770s, we were too busy subjugating India to spend too much time on our tax-dodging expats.)
posted by holgate at 2:07 AM on July 4, 2001
posted by dong_resin at 2:29 AM on July 4, 2001
posted by stbalbach at 2:44 AM on July 4, 2001
American parents: be sure to think before you get wasted and let chubby little fingers get hold of explosives and incendiaries tonight. Bombs are fun -- boy, are they fun! -- but you aren't going to destroy your kid's life by not letting him play with them.
posted by pracowity at 2:55 AM on July 4, 2001
You mean just like every other day of the year, owillis? ;-j
posted by lagado at 5:52 AM on July 4, 2001
"In 1892, a socialist named Francis Bellamy created the Pledge of Allegiance for Youth's Companion, a national family magazine for youth ... Daniel Ford and James Upham, his nephew, owned Youth's Companion. One hundred years ago the American Flag was rarely seen in the classroom or in front of the school. Upham changed that. In 1888, the magazine began a campaign to sell American flags to the public schools. By 1892, his magazine had sold American flags to about 26 thousand schools.
The original Pledge was recited while giving a stiff, uplifted right-hand salute, criticized and discontinued during WWII. The words "my flag" were changed to "the flag of the United States of America" because it was feared that the children of immigrants might confuse "my flag" for the flag of their homeland. The phrase "Under God," was added by Congress and President Eisenhower in 1954 at the urging of the Knights of Columbus"
posted by jessamyn at 7:14 AM on July 4, 2001
"In 1892, a socialist named Francis Bellamy created the Pledge of Allegiance...blah blah blah
Yeah, the Flag Pledge is stupid and not very American. So?
posted by ljromanoff at 7:18 AM on July 4, 2001
posted by frykitty at 7:38 AM on July 4, 2001
It took several in-class arguments with the professor before she realized that maybe what she learned wasn't quite true.
posted by ewagoner at 7:48 AM on July 4, 2001
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
posted by owillis at 7:49 AM on July 4, 2001
"indecent", "probable cause," and "security."
posted by dong_resin at 7:57 AM on July 4, 2001
Well, the British are a bit sensitive about that. From Lucasarts.com:
Note: Star Wars Rebellion is marketed in the United Kingdom under the name Star Wars Supremacy.
posted by ljromanoff at 8:07 AM on July 4, 2001
<lighthearted>
Taxes, taxes, taxes, English music in the charts, taxes, taxes, quirky legal system and more taxes. Seems they just ended up creating a new version of what they were trying to get away from!
</lighthearted>
posted by wackybrit at 8:09 AM on July 4, 2001
Whereas what the professor was saying was.
Was he teaching the revolution with or without Tom Paine in it?
posted by Grangousier at 8:16 AM on July 4, 2001
ewagoner - you might be surprised to know that we have stories about stupid americans and their strange biases too.
ljromanoff - that's probably because "rebellion" just isn't a popular word. it doesn't sound particularly "cool". while this might be a collective attempt to ignore america i think it's more likely that the word is used over there because it is popular, given your history (no offense, but surely you can see that your it's a lot more important to you than it is to us)
posted by andrew cooke at 8:43 AM on July 4, 2001
I was certainly not taught other than that the Revolution was an armed uprising against British rule. I remember being taught (25 years ago) that one of the main factors in the Continental army's success in battle against the British was their disregard for the established Rules of War, but we were encouraged to admire the Colonials' ingenuity rather than be critical of their lack of "fair play".
I imagine that everyone has a different picture, though. That's the beauty of history.
That said, it wasn't a subject that was covered in depth in my history lessons. One that was was the uprising by Parliament against the crown in the mid-seventeenth century. At that time (early 80s) the current historical narratives covering this era had it as a Civil war (that is to say a war between two matched parties) and a Revolution (an uprising of the middle classes against the aristocracy), and within the latter camp were people who thought that the Diggers and Levellers (representing either the Working classes or a sort of proto-aracho-syndicalism depending on who you spoke to) were important and those who thought they were irrelevant. Everybody had their own evidence. Sometimes contradicting points of view used the same evidence. A lot of explanatory theories to cover one (relatively straightforward as history goes) historical event.
I don't actually know anyone who's touchy about the American Revolution (the Star Wars people probably thought that "SW Supremacy" would sell better). I know people who sometimes refer to the US as "The Colonies", but frankly that's just to wind Americans up. Given the legacy of British rule in India, across Africa and all points Eastwards there's relatively little in British rule in North America to be embarrassed about.
I'm just filling in until Holgate gets here, though.
posted by Grangousier at 8:54 AM on July 4, 2001
posted by Doug at 8:56 AM on July 4, 2001
As a former history teacher, I marvelled at how different her version of history was from mine. She is a very intelligent woman, but she was confused -- it was her first exposure to revisionism. It doesn't matter who's version was more correct.
posted by ewagoner at 9:00 AM on July 4, 2001
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
posted by Grangousier at 9:02 AM on July 4, 2001
posted by andrew cooke at 9:08 AM on July 4, 2001
posted by andrew cooke at 9:17 AM on July 4, 2001
I think we would be better off paying attention to the proximal causes of the rebellion -- which was in effect a protest movement which failed, through protests, consultations, emissaries, and non-violence to achieve its ends. In any social cause there will always be those who preach violence and those who caution against it. In 1776, violence seemed to be the only answer.
What would have happened to the civil rights movement had not the federal government listened to Martin Luther King Jr? Would Malcolm X have had a greater and violent impact on our history?
What would have happened to the labor struggles at the beginning of the twentieth century? Without laws establishing a minimum wage, a 40 hour work week, and abolition of child labor, would America have been gripped with a class war?
And what will happen now, in response to the protests over globalization? Given what has happened, and what happened from the Vietnam and No-nukes protests, I am not hopeful. I see a government which is becoming less responsive and more indiscriminate in its use of force and propaganda.
posted by LAM at 9:24 AM on July 4, 2001
Happy Birthday America! The one holiday without which we (Americans) may not be able to celebrate any others. Let freedom ring, indeed.
posted by davidmsc at 9:27 AM on July 4, 2001
posted by Postroad at 9:37 AM on July 4, 2001
posted by clavdivs at 10:07 AM on July 4, 2001
As Grangousier suggests, the notion that high school kids in the US get taught anything other than a propagandised history of their nation's divinely ordained foundation is somewhat risible. But that's par for the course with any national myth: few French schoolkids learn of the atrocities documented in Simon Schama's Citizens. But hands up, anyone in the US given Samuel Johnson's Taxation No Tyranny to read for history class? Or taught about people like John Wilkes, who led the parliamentary campaign for the liberty of the colonies?
(One good way to appreciate how "life went on" even during the rebellion is to read of the orders that Franklin placed for books from London printers. And the fact that he received those books demonstrates, in part, the gripe of the London parliament: that the colonies were able to rely upon trade to and from Europe, under the protection of the British navy. And as Johnson noted: "Nothing dejects a trader like the interruption of his profits.")
That said, the War of Independence doesn't really get taught that much in the UK, because the 18th century isn't taught that much until you reach higher education: instead, the syllabus concentrates on Industrial Revolution and beyond, or ancient Britain (Romans. Vikings, Saxons, Normans). As is fitting when you consider that the war in the colonies was, although an embarrassment for Britain as a fighting force, a relative blip, considering the colonial expansionism in the Indies and the first explorations of Australia, and the concerns with the ancien regime in Europe. It was a fuck-up on a grand scale, but it was less of a fuck-up than the one made by Louis XVI. And it's a pity that it clouds the view of George III as a monarch, given that he was a breath of fresh air after the first two Hanoverians: a king who regarded himself more British than German, and who respected the traditions and culture of his country.
In some respects, self-determination was the realisation of the political ideas put into place by John Locke at the time of the "Glorious Revolution" in 1688. (Another monarchical fuck-up.) It was the second Whig revolution (or, if you like, the second English bourgeois revolution). And it was remarkable not only in its success, but that this time it was primarily ideological, rather than the unabashed merchant's coup of 1688: the arch-Lockean Jefferson, and more notably Hamilton with his tremendous ability to conceive of an almost Newtonian form of government, put into place a commonwealth that the political radicals of 18th-century England would have appreciated, were it not for the fact that it was done through an act of secession.
Neither side's simplified version of the events of the 1770s is particularly satisfying, at least if you're at all interested in the conflict of men and ideas. What the patriots achieved was nothing short of astonishing: what they left behind, in terms of their writings on government, was rightly an inspiration to those in France and across Europe. Whether their nation has lived (or ever could live) up to those ideals is another question.
(An aside: I wish I could have been in Whitby today for the protest march for independence from the US.)
posted by holgate at 10:28 AM on July 4, 2001 [1 favorite]
- Diary of King George III, July 4, 1776.
posted by heather at 10:37 AM on July 4, 2001
posted by EngineBeak at 10:54 AM on July 4, 2001
(Or, even better, General Wolfe Blog!)
posted by holgate at 11:03 AM on July 4, 2001
:::raises hand:::
posted by aaron at 11:09 AM on July 4, 2001
well, that's a given ;)
(I'm actually reminded of the dinner that Boswell engineered -- as was his habit -- between Johnson and Wilkes.)
posted by holgate at 11:39 AM on July 4, 2001
country." They sere picked upon, booted out, scorned. But those future Democrats held on and now have their own liberal commmie party here.
So the Democrats are Tories? It all makes sense now.
posted by thirteen at 11:55 AM on July 4, 2001
posted by keithl at 1:02 PM on July 4, 2001
and I also understand that the real problem american colonists had was with their status *as* colonists. the boston tea party: no taxation without representation!
it's all about being treated as full british citizens. if the brits had been willing to give us a few seats in parlament, we would conceiveably be singing "God save the Queen" today....
>keithl: what should we call the war against the Native Americans who were here first
that would be properly referred to as "genocide". - rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 1:15 PM on July 4, 2001
It may have been little noticed in Britain, but it was a revolutionary breaking point to say governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. The success of the American Revolution inspired the French, and together they inspired the wave of democracy that eventually returned even to Britain and extended voting rights to all.
The penultimate paragraph, addressed to the British people (since this thread seems to have leant that way), is remarkable in its prudent appeal to the necessity of war if that was the only option left, but the prospect of friendship were it offered.
Here's an excellent repository of original texts (including laws passed by Parliament, acts of the Continental Congress, and so forth). Certainly everyone should read Common Sense and the Federalist Papers; Madison's Notes on the Constitutional Convention are also remarkable in their honesty as a new framework for government was created from scratch.
posted by dhartung at 1:15 PM on July 4, 2001
Oh, it is. If I end up teaching composition in an American college, it'll definitely be a sample text for 18th-century prose style. You get the personification of the colonists' grievances in the body of the king; the anaphora ("For he..."), and the invocation of Locke's Second Treatise of Government in the preamble: one of the foundation texts for the political settlement that brought William III, and then George I, to the throne. Which is why I suggested that it's actually the completion of a project that began with the 1689 settlement. For the previous century, England (and then Britain) had redefined the relationship between the monarchy and parliament, deeming the power of parliament to be that vested by the governed. The colonists, being unrepresented, could justifiably argue that any notion of vested consent was a nonsense:
posted by holgate at 2:13 PM on July 4, 2001
For since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure by entering into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making: whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and by the establishment of a new legislative (such as they shall think fit), provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.
A historical note, when Ben Franklin went to England to negotiate with the British he was not there seeking any sort of representation in Parliament. In fact, the leaders back on this side of the Atlantic expressly told him not except any sort of deal that involved representation in Parliament. Because, as they saw it, Independence would be nothing more than tokenism; a way to mollify the colonists and then quickly forget their issues, which brings me to my second point...
Perhaps I was taught in the "new school" of US History or maybe it was because I went to a liberal thinking, private school, but I was taught that while the revolutionaries had noble ideals, the war was fought due to business concerns (the right to sell products produced in the colonies on the world market without British restrictions). They wanted to sell their stuff to other parts of the world other than Britain; the taxation without representation was not the real issue and mostly rhetoric, even at the time. As part of the exclusive trading deal with England the North American Colonies' tax rate was pretty favorable. I heard a few years ago that amount paid under the Stamp act per year was less than $1.00 and only affected those who bought select items, many of them were luxury goods. While a $1.00 was a lot back in the day, those who had to pay the stamp taxes were largely middle and upper class. Hence, most could easily afford the tax. So, it's no surprise to me that 1/3 supported England, 1/3 didn't care and just want to make money or go west, and only 1/3 supported the revolution. However, after the revolution started people got swept along in the hype, especially the lower and working classes, and the stuff about freedom and liberty took a front seat, help along by Thomas Paine’s writings such as Common Sense, to the right of a wealthy tea merchant to sell tea on the open market.
It would make sense for a large number of people to support England; after all it was England that had given may people in the colonies their status in civil society (note: Ben Franklin's son who was Governor of New Jersey was a Loyalist).
My take is that revolutionaries this that while they were racist and certainly hypocrites on may fronts, they did have noble ideas and ideals, and in my belief, expressed a great deal of universal truth in the Declaration of Independence. As Americas this holiday is not about thumbing our noses at England, although it is fun, but it's about celebrating the noble and universal truths of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. As well as, continuing to make sure that the rights and freedoms the revolutions fought so hard for are guaranteed to all Americans today, happy 225 USA!
posted by Bag Man at 4:07 PM on July 4, 2001
posted by rebeccablood at 4:54 PM on July 4, 2001
I agree with the notion of the Declaration as a phenomenal rhetorical device- it damn well had to be a phenomenal rhetorical device, charged as it was with helping birth this mythic notion of Nationalism. Both in England in the years after 1689 and of course in the colonies leading up to 1776 there was a great deal of agitation from the oppressed, the poor, the downtrodden for the institution of a genuine equality (an agitation that continued long after the Revolution- hence the eventual right to vote by women and blacks- except in Florida- as well as Labor Unions, et al). The upper class and outright wealthy that constituted the Founding Fathers needed to corral and redirect that populist rage against the "enemy" of Britain, lest they begin to suffer the wrath of angry mobs- or as Madison put it, "The role of government is to protect the opulent minority from the majority."
The Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and many other documents demonstrate that of principal concern to these men was formulating a strong central government (hence, Federalism; not to be confused with modern-day Federalism that's about "state's rights") that could be controlled by the wealthy few and thus control the majority from disturbing the gilded privileges of private property. Even the bill of rights wasn't in the original Constitution; rather, it was a sop to the "ignorant masses", the "great beast" of the people, to quiet them down and get them to accept this new Federal government. That's why 7 years after the First Amendment was passed they instituted the Sedition Act- rights were of little concern to them except their own, and in particular their right to property.
This is not to say that what the Founding Fathers and the common folk of America (and England!) were doing during these years wasn't a great step in the right direction for humanity. But there's no reason we can't also accept their flaws, limitations, and hypocrisies while applauding what they did right.
posted by hincandenza at 8:42 PM on July 4, 2001
Lam-violence had broke out in 1775.
and did we forget Rosseau?
It was about business. Business means feeding people.
posted by clavdivs at 10:16 PM on July 4, 2001
It's always fashionable to bash the current president and claim how bad America is.
If you truly believe this then move. Otherwise, realize that you are an unoriginal asshole riding the tides of continual popular critique.
The grass is always greener.
posted by ttrendel at 3:06 AM on July 5, 2001
That's quite zen, if you think about it...
Always greener than what?
posted by Grangousier at 6:00 AM on July 5, 2001
Screw that. Matt "Ezrael" Rossi puts it a lot better than I could in his rebuttal to the Love It or Leave It attitude.
posted by harmful at 6:27 AM on July 5, 2001
Speaking as someone who has actually done something for my country, like vote, pay my taxes, and write to my congresswoman, I always find it exasperating when someone kneejerks. Especially when it is just a generalized kneejerk, as in this case, without any real context.
posted by LAM at 8:53 AM on July 5, 2001
posted by Dreama at 9:38 AM on July 5, 2001
Well, it's an unimaginable honor to be the president during the Fourth of July of this country. It means what these words say, for starters. The great inalienable rights of our country. We're blessed with such values in America. And I—it's—I'm a proud man to be the nation based upon such wonderful values."—Visiting the Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C., July 2, 2001
posted by raysmj at 10:52 AM on July 5, 2001
« Older Review of Nissan Car Loans Finds That Blacks Pay... | In Japan, a grope-free ride. Female commuters get... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by owillis at 1:08 AM on July 4, 2001