I don’t know…I’m asking…so you think we could have turned out like hong Kong?
More freedoms?
Is there any articles on this debate on mises or lewrockwell.com? I’ve never considered that the revolution was a scam…but this seems interesting…
Another point to consider is even if separation from England was desirable, why was a bloody civil war necessary? Canada and Australia seem to have done alright.
Interesting…is there a book that ties these subjects together?
I’ve been to several places in the U.S. and UK recently. I got stopped by police in Portland for walking the wrong way. There was a helicopter flying around Kansas City with a spotlight every day. Didn’t see anything like that in UK.
I have to disagree with two points.
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In the colonies, the commonly owned firearm was the long rifle. There were several variants, the most popular being the Kentucky, the Penssylvania, and the Tennessee variants. Smooth bore muskets were liked by organized militaries for the ease of loading. Where a long rifle could take a minute or more to load (and it does, I’ve done myself), a well trained, smooth bore rifle wielding soldier could squeeze off three rounds in that same time. As you said, the smooth-bore rifle was for massive troop formations and volley fire.
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Long rifle wielding colonial militia were actually chastised for the highly mobile, hit-and-run tactics. These were learned as a result of serving on the frontier fighting a guerilla war against the French and Native Americans. The British government actually sued for the colonial militia to stop shooting at officer and non-commissioned officers–who were easily visible by their uniforms; officers were especially easy to target since they tended to ride a horse as opposed to march in the ranks.
Now back to your regularly scheduled debate…
I have always maintained the Kentucky Rifle (here in Europe all long barreled American muzzle loaders are called this way) was in limited use. Also the range of these early rifles was not very different from the best smoothbores of the day (the British Brown Bess and the French 1777 model, later modified to become the IX Year Musket carried by Napoleon’s troops). The big difference was precision in the hands of skilled marksmen. I am well aware of the casualties Minutemen operating from cover inflicted on British and Hessian officers but they were nothing compared to what Boers inflicted upon the Zulus and the British. But again conditions were radically different.
Thanks for the correction.
I’m not sure. I’ve mostly pieced this stuff together based on my own reading of history, I don’t know who (if anyone) has written in the ‘the American Revolution was a fraud’ vein. It’s not surprising, since America conquered the world.
I agree with Liberté, time ago I found in a blog parts of the biography of an important british in Boston, I’m trying to find it right now…
Anyway, very interesting thread, if anyone has links, essays on the matter, please share!
Not the one I was looking for but this post could serve as a starting point
http://militantlibertarian.org/2010/02/10/did-king-george-iii-deserve-to-be-overthrown/
Yes, this pretty much is Kinsella’s position. We ain’t fans of revolutions.
I guess, when you get down to it, one form of government can be just as bad as another. They both have to steal from people to survive. And they both will use deadly force to do it.
Does it really matter one way or another?
I think what people want, without knowing it, in alot of cases, is no government.
The idea of noone being able to steal from them.
A few more…
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/029113.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/029470.html#more-29470
It is irrelevant if the injusticies suffered by the colonists were small or large or if they were exagarrated or not. Men are entitled to defend against small wrongs as much as against great wrongs. There is no watershed moment when the aggression reaches such proportions that taking up of arms is permissible, but not before that.
If anything it is to the great credit of the colonists that they were so freedom minded that they thought it worthwile to rise up in response to comparatively small injustices already.
It is droll to ask wether some ruler deserved to be overthrown. Every ruler deserves to be overthrown and the act of overthrow of any ruler is to be greeted and celebrated. Rothbard is right to say that rebellion as such is always a libertarian act.
Also while we know that the USA did not in the end work out all that well (just ask the Philipinos, the Koreans and the Vietnamese) this is a matter of what is seen and what is unseen. Who is to say that a British Empire which continued to incorporate what became the United States would not have been even more disasterous for itself and for the world than the amputated British Empire and the US were individually? In fact we have good reason to belive it would have been be since it would combine the power of the both of them and therefore been far more powerful.
Seriously, monarchy > self-government? Seriously… are you that deluded?!
Well, you did say you sympathize with fascists so…
“Self-deluded” Kinsella answered that knee-jerk response here:
When I suggest it was a mistake to secede from Britain, libertarians–brainwashed by both Saturday morning Schoolhouse Rock propaganda (No More Kings; Fireworks; Three-Ring Government; The Preamble) and Randian pro-America mythology–freak out. “You want us to have a king? How terrible?!” or “But Britain is more socialist than we are!” Well, first, I don’t want us to have a king. I’d prefer we have no state: no kings or congresscritters or revenuers. But we have a king now, under another name; he can tax and murder us, just like the dreaded monarchian boogey-man; the state is overlord of all our property, as in feudalism. And rejoining socialist Britain now would be terrible–but would the European monarchies have become democratic socialist states if America had never left Britain?
America’s secession led to a constructivist new utopian order based on a “rational, scientific” paper document and the rejection of traditional, unwritten limits on state power, thus setting the world on the path of democracy and democratic tyranny, and all the evils of the 20th Century-WWI, WWII, the Holocaust, the Cold War, Communism, Naziism, Fascism, Great Depressions I and II (see Goodbye 1776, 1789, Tom for links). America’s reckless utopianism corrupted its mother state, rendering it unfit to rejoin. But had we never left? One percent tax paid to a distant King over the ocean sound appealing, anyone? (See Would YOU sign the Declaration of Independence?)
No. It soudns immensely unappealing. I prefer a system where some blowhard cant change the law any day on a whim, tyvm.
Democratic/republicanism has its drawbacks. But if you think monarchy is a better solution, I really doubt whether you believe in liberty at all.
WTF are you talking about?
Monarchy
Are you saying that majority rule is self-government? If not, what country do you know of that actually has “self-government”?