Was the American Revolution justified?

[StudentMI]

And yet India fit that bill perfectly, and look what happened.

That’s true. Perhaps we would have turned out like Canada. One must take into account the role race played in the colonialism in India.

 

[PickyPicky]

Yep, India was set adrift.

 

[WingedHussar]

Which is a contradiction because liberalism is based on the idea of perpetual progress. That partially explains why modern day “conservatives” have conserved nothing other than a string of constant defeats before Trump. Their job is to be the punching bag for the progressives while slowing the progressives down long enough to boil the frog slowly.

 

[ltwin]

Which is a contradiction because liberalism is based on the idea of perpetual progress.

Not really. Liberalism in the classical sense is primarily about individual liberty in contrast to non-liberals who value protecting community solidarity or the power of traditional hierarchies.

That partially explains why modern day “conservatives” have conserved nothing other than a string of constant defeats before Trump.

Well, demagogues have always been popular. No accounting for taste.

Their job is to be the punching bag for the progressives while slowing the progressives down long enough to boil the frog slowly.

The problem is that precious few people on both the right and the left today in the US value individual liberty and are perfectly content to let the government tell them what to do–as long as their side is in control of the government.

 

[mythbuster1]

The Declaration of Independence lists the charges against the Crown and Parliament, detailing that they had engaged in lawless behavior in violation of the Magna Carta, and that peaceful resistance on the part of the Americans was met with greater violation. The Americans even sought reconciliation after the war had started, asking only to be treated as Englishmen in accordance with centuries of English law. The armed resistance started in response to a lawless attempt to seize legal firearms in Lexington and Concord. To condemn the Revolution as unjust, one must either refute the charges listed in the Declaration of Independence or demonstrate that they are not just cause for separation by war.

 

[mythbuster1]

It should be noted, however, that the King of England was not an absolute monarch. His power had been checked by the Magna Carta in 1215. This is notable because the Declaration of Independence charges the King with ceasing to treat the colonists as his subjects and instead regarding them as a foreign enemy by waging acts of war against his own colonies. To that end, and with the Olive Branch petition rebuffed, the Continental Congress simply asserted that since the King of England no longer regarded the Americans as his subjects, neither were the Americans obliged to regard themselves as his subjects.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Maximian:

nor is man’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness unalienable (just ask the guys on death row if their right to these things has been alienated or not.)

As a person, you have the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but you don’t have the right to violate other people’s rights.

The way I heard it, “pursuit of happiness” was something inserted by Thomas Jefferson because it sounded poetic, “had a nice ring to it”. We certainly have the prerogative to “pursue happiness” — we are free agents, and doing so is not intrinsically evil — but I question whether we have a right to that, and we certainly cannot assert a right to happiness (“no fair, I’m not happy, and it’s my right to be happy!”).

If you were the colonists facing a future in which a Parliament thousands of miles a way claimed absolute power over you, these abuses would look intolerable. No one wants to live under a government that claims unlimited and arbitrary power where there is no rule of law. At least in Britain, the people had the rule of law. In America, they wouldn’t even have that because Parliament claimed that its power over the colonies was unlimited. The Americans would have had to live in fear and uncertainty every day completely at Parliament’s mercy.

They could always have asserted their right (or at least the desirability) to have a parliament of their own, subject to the Crown, similar to the devolved parliaments in the home countries of the UK, or the parliaments of the various dominions and commonwealths today. They may have “thrown this out there” as an option. I don’t know.

 

[mythbuster1]

Free speech means you won’t be thrown in jail, have your property seized, or be put to death for speaking out against our system of government or those in office according to it. It does not mean immunity from people making equal use of free speech to challenge perceived hypocrisy on your part or suggesting you should leave if you don’t like our system of government. Most assuredly, you are free to campaign even for Constitutional Amendments which would radically alter our system of government, but that doesn’t mean you should expect such a stance to be popular.

 

[StudentMI]

The way I heard it, “pursuit of happiness” was something inserted by Thomas Jefferson because it sounded poetic, “had a nice ring to it”.

It’s a phrase from John Locke. Supremely anti-Catholic philosopher.

 

[StudentMI]

Not really. Liberalism in the classical sense is primarily about individual liberty in contrast to non-liberals who value protecting community solidarity or the power of traditional hierarchies.

Are you familiar with the Whig narrative of history?

 

[ltwin]

The way I heard it, “pursuit of happiness” was something inserted by Thomas Jefferson because it sounded poetic, “had a nice ring to it”.

The natural rights Jefferson lists in the Declaration were taken from John Locke. Locke’s phrase was “life, liberty and property.” Jefferson means the same thing, but pursuing happiness is broader than simply pursuing property.

We certainly have the prerogative to “pursue happiness” — we are free agents, and doing so is not intrinsically evil — but I question whether we have a right to that, and we certainly cannot assert a right to happiness (“no fair, I’m not happy, and it’s my right to be happy!”).

If buying a house makes me happy and I have the money to do it, I should be able to do that without the government telling me no you can’t buy a house or this house because you are black or a Christian or an immigrant or whatever.

If I own a house, the government should not be able to take that house away from me unless they have a good reason and they compensate me fairly.

They could always have asserted their right (or at least the desirability) to have a parliament of their own, subject to the Crown, similar to the devolved parliaments in the home countries of the UK, or the parliaments of the various dominions and commonwealths today. They may have “thrown this out there” as an option. I don’t know.

There were attempts to do something like this. The Albany Plan of Union would have united the colonies under a President General appointed by the Crown and a Grand Council of colonial delegates. For a variety of reasons, such plans failed to win both colonial and British support.

But this misses the point. The colonies already believed they had devolved parliaments of their own in the form of their colonial legislatures.

 

[ltwin]

Yes, I am. My comment was addressing whether US conservatism is a contradiction for wanting to conserve classical liberalism. My point is that conservatives want to preserve the freedom of the individual. One does not have to buy into Whiggish history’s belief in perpetual progress in order to be a classical liberal. I think any honest look at history reveals that sometimes civilization progresses and other times it devolves.

 

[StudentMI]

My comment was addressing whether US conservatism is a contradiction for wanting to conserve classical liberalism. My point is that conservatives want to preserve the freedom of the individual.

The problem is that conservatives trying to conserve classical liberalism are trying to conserve a revolutionary philosophy that recognizes no such conservative values. The idea that conservative values can be conserved within such a framework is frankly illusory.

 

[WingedHussar]

Not really. Liberalism in the classical sense is primarily about individual liberty in contrast to non-liberals who value protecting community solidarity or the power of traditional hierarchies.

Wrong, the “Enlightenment” believed in the blank slate and rejected hierarchy which was a complete break with everything before. Since men were perfectly malleable and equal, why not continually uproot and tear down until some future utopia was achieved? Since their founding premise is wrong, perpetual revolution is necessitated, but will never be openly acknowledged.

We can see this with the degeneration of individual rights from freedom to worship to a state-mandated secularism. A right to see a search warrant became the right to murder a child. A person’s right to public acknowledgement of their sexual proclivities suppressed freedom of association, property rights, and freedom of worship. Someone’s “individual rights” are always going to be denied no matter what system you have.

This is why I am not a liberal, modern or classical. I like community and I like hierarchy, both provide order.

Well, demagogues have always been popular. No accounting for taste.

I dunno about you, but I like the taste of victory.

The problem is that precious few people on both the right and the left today in the US value individual liberty and are perfectly content to let the government tell them what to do–as long as their side is in control of the government.

I used to think that way too, then I ran into reality. It was either believe in individual liberty while I had to bake the cake and think that Desmond was amazing or restore law and order.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

They could always have asserted their right (or at least the desirability) to have a parliament of their own, subject to the Crown, similar to the devolved parliaments in the home countries of the UK, or the parliaments of the various dominions and commonwealths today. They may have “thrown this out there” as an option. I don’t know.

There were attempts to do something like this. The Albany Plan of Union would have united the colonies under a President General appointed by the Crown and a Grand Council of colonial delegates. For a variety of reasons, such plans failed to win both colonial and British support.

But this misses the point. The colonies already believed they had devolved parliaments of their own in the form of their colonial legislatures.

Now that you bring it up, I’ve heard of that. I could have gotten behind such a plan. Gives the colonists self-government, no need to engage with London, and remain loyal to the Crown — a way to remain a monarchy, but to be quasi-independent and not merely a prorupted part of the UK on newly-found real estate.

 

[Maximian]

The greatest nation in the world would not exist without it.

On what grounds do you claim that America is the greatest nation in the world? The present government is engaged in “making America great again” so evidently they don’t think it’s great now.

Do you think that her contribution to art is noteworthy? Architecture? Law?

Do you think that the regular imposition by force of America’s preferred brand of democracy is so great? Are you proud of weimar, the arab spring and the destruction of the european and asian monarchies? Mass production? Globalisation? Lunar exploration? I know that many Americans find this difficult to believe but many perfectly rational and educated foreigners are deeply unimpressed.

 

[VonDerTann]

Funny you mention lunar exloration.

12 men walked on the moon.

All Americans.

Yeah, we’ve got a LOT of chops for world’s best county. That’s just one of them.

 

[StudentMI]

I rather liked Russell Kirk’s plea against exploration of the moon, arguing we should leave the imaginary men on the moon in peace. He was serious even though he was speaking of what he knew were imaginary beings.

 

[VonDerTann]

He was probably just jealous that he couldn’t go

So were all the Russians. They were so embarrassed at losing the race there, they covered up their moon program afterward and tried to act like they’d never planned to go.

 

[VonDerTann]

Hey sorry if it takes me a while to answer future posts tonight - I’m going to go listen to the score of “Porgy & Bess,” maybe the greatest opera in any language.

American, BTW.

Somebody say something about Americans’ lack of contributions to the arts?

Nah, I must’ve misheard.

(To say nothing about Elvis! No Elvis? Sheesh, nobody’d have a thing to dance to!)