David Warren is always an interesting read, and his recent comments on the Tea Party movement places an intersting historical perspective to the on-going discussion:"Thanks to contemporary political correctness, traditional America is presented as an artifact of white racism. This, in itself, is racist, and Middle America knows it. They are being demonized to advance political agendas in which they have, and want, no part."
Read the rest of his post here.
I can't disagree with anything he says there, including about George III, the Revolution, and Jefferson's over-the-top rhetoric in the DoI.
ReplyDeleteMind you, I'm glad of the Revolution (for it turned out well, and I didn't have to live through it), but I recognize that its premises really were far weaker than we are taught.
If I've never said so before, I have a very low opinion of Jefferson ... seeing him as little other than proto-Clinton.
ReplyDeleteWell, he was making a case. The thing that struck me was that the founders considered themselves English gentlemen. However the English just considered them Colonists, who had no real standing before the thrown...and when it became apparent that they were a second class citizen, they threw off the yoke of English rule, and determined to set upon self rule.
ReplyDeleteThe Colonists had been essentially self-governing since they came to these shores 150 years prior. So, when the Imperial Bureaucracy tried to assert the Sovereignty of the Crown (which is to say, of the Bureaucracy), there was bound to be resistance form the Colonists, who could not by see this as a violation of their customary liberties.
ReplyDeleteOne reason our Revolution turned out so well is that its leaders were *already* the leaders in society; they weren't trying to supplant the existing leaders/rulers, as has been the case in most other revolutions.
Those are good points. Thanks, Ilion.
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