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Military.com Forums Hot Topics & Current Events Point-Counterpoint Americans have lost revolutionary spirit|
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Member |
We only nominally celebrate revolution today.
Patriotism as it is practiced nowadays is more the communal enforcement of conformity, marked by the hollow worship of symbols like the Flag. The Golden Calf of greed is worshiped even more. Much of the country cowers from a motley few Arabs who pulled off a well-planned operation in the USA on 9/11, but who have shown even less competence than the US government since. For that, we have "security theater" and paranoia throughout the land. The essence of what the Founders established, the Constitution, is often attacked most relentlessly by those who exalt the symbols of patriotism. Tom Paine, Sam Adams and Ben Franklin would be vilified nowadays. Agree or disagree with them, which Americans still have the rebel spirit? Rednecks, hippies, rappers? |
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Experienced Member |
None of the above. Our Founders would hold all three groups in contempt. They did not espouse rebellion for the sake of rebellion, Supine. There never would have been a Revolutionary War, (not in the late 18th century anyway), if King George had been a little more accomidating. |
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Member |
Sounds like you are a Tory to me. I think Thomas Paine would disagree with you on being accommodating with the king:
From "Common Sense." |
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Experienced Member |
Thomas Paine's views are not representative of those held by the majority of the Continental Congress. Sure, most disagreed with the concept of monarchy, but that doesn't mean that they'd have gone to war over it. If George III had ruled the colonies benevolently, rather than as a tyrant, most would have been content to remain part of the British Empire. More than anything else, it was the outrageous taxation imposed upon the colonies by George III, (along with other tyrannical laws), while denying them representation in Parliament that fueled the desire for independence... not simple hatred of monarchy. |
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If a tree falls in a forest and lands on a politician, even if you can't hear the tree or the screams, I'll bet you'd at least hear the applause. Paul Tindale  |
Probably because, like my wife constantly tells me, growing up is an adult thing to to. This country is no linger a child. |
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Member |
It's very convenient to make claims without citation about what the majority of the Continental Congress thought, now that they're dead. I agree that many would have compromised with the British, but there were values of freedom that drove most of them to reject monarchy. As free men, I think they would be a little shocked at the degree of submission by the average American worker in large corporations and government, and the encroachment of the police state on freedom. |
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I'd rather be knitting. |
There's no way to keep up such intense emotions for such a long time, so why expect it?
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Highly Experienced Member |
BS has a point - I find hippies and rappers revolting.
You know that look a woman gets when she wants sex? Neither do I. |
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I'd rather be knitting. |
There are all sorts of counter-cultural movements and practices that aren't as dramatic as all that. Making or growing what you consume is counter-cultural in this age of being able to buy strawberries in January. shudder Minimizing the role of tech gadgets in one's life can be a satisfying way of going against the current. They aren't as exciting as starting a war, but adrenaline is not my favorite drug.
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Experienced Member |
What made revolution inevitable was the British doctrine of supressing industry in our country. William Pitt, who was our friend in the matter, and opposed the King, became horrified when we started to make our own nails. And demanded that it be stopped.
People like Pitt were quite ready to compromise on taxation. But not ready to compromise on manufacturing and native industries. Moreoever, while Taxation was a "loud" issue, it was the "Intolerable Acts," which actually precipitated the revolution. Those acts removed all local government in Massachusetts, and substituted the Kings personal write. Revolution was inevitable, and men Like Sam Adams were slowly pushing it as early as the 1760's. The Founders had a heck of a lot more in common with "Hippies," little as that might be, then the present Washington establishment. Dave |
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Member |
I agree, if you are talking about hippies who move out to the country and grow their own food, as sweetsuds was referring to. On the other hand, the Washington establishment is all about toadying to power. Resisting mass consumerism and mass culture is a form of revolution. |
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"Scholarly Comedian" |
The Founding Fathers went out on a limb, knowing full well that their act was one of treason against the rightful ruler of the Thirteen Colonies, King George III. By the time they did so a third of the colonial population was ready to support them while another third was ready to oppose them--the other third took a "wait and see" attitude.
We won the war and our independence quite simply because it was not in Great Britain's long-term interest to commit the forces that would have been needed to keep us as subjects of the Crown. I suppose one could argue that 1782 rather than 1948 was the year the British Empire began to fall apart. But this was unknown to the Founding Fathers. They gambled with their lives and they won. They had allies who helped--the French in particular. The French had no real interest in our independence and were in fact sympathetic to the Confederacy during our later Civil War. But the French officers and men who stood with us at Yorktown took home the spirit of our revolution. What they did not take and perhaps couldn't--as those were uniquely American--were the mechanics of that revolution. We created a republic, and the first leader of that republic was the general who saw us through the war for independence--George Washington. He set the terms and the tone for presidents since him when he voluntarily resigned and stepped down after his term was over. Think about that for a minute. Really. Let the concept sink in. The war for independence wasn't really that revolutionary, and the ideas for which it was fought weren't really all that revolutionary either--not at the time. What WAS revolutionary was that a leader who had fought a war to create his country and then guided it through the first fragile years of independence stepped down and allowed another man to take his place--peacefully and relatively amicably--Washington retired to Mount Vernon and died of old age. Where else had that happened? Let's return for a moment to those French officers and soldiers who fought with us at Yorktown. They went home and were instrumental in their own revolution against the Bourbon monarchy. But then things went horribly wrong, and The Terror and Napoleon were the result. The American Founding Fathers were for the most part educated men who were well-read in Enlightenment philosophy. What often gets overlooked is that the Enlightenment comes from two sources--France and England. The French thinkers were a bit more elemental and radical, while the English were more sober and pragmatic. The American Founders successfully synthesized the two streams and produced a vision that has served us well, at least for now. The French did not. For all of their noble intentions they created a template for bloody authoritarian rule in the name of freedom, liberty, and equality that has been used as a blueprint by "revolutionary" tyrants from Robespierre to Pol Pot. The OP asks if we have lost our revolutionary spirit. Well, if we see ourselves as unique in a way that only Americans are unique the answer would be no. But if we're ready to jump on the world's bandwagon and "reform" in ways ultimately detrimental to us the answer would be yes. I vote for no.... |
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Experienced Member |
I have to Strongly disagree with the below excerpt from your post.
How many Republics were there is 1776, let alone Democratic ones? How many countries even had "Equality under the Law?" Very few. Our country was the inspiration for all that followed in the 19th Century. Quite correct to highlight Washingtons integrity, but interesting as he was, inspiring as he was. The revolution itself was the amazing thing. Dave |
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Member |
http://www.sonnyradio.com:80/gatheringofmustangs.html---I actually don't know how to post this so one can click on it instead of having to spell it all out. If someone can post it right i thank you. It is, to use the teeey-boppers words, it is "amazing"! |
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On Warning 10 days 22Aug2008 S_S |
There were at least: The Republic of Corsica, The Republic of Genoa, The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, The Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, The Republic of Venice, The Republic of Ragusa, The Republic of Lucca, and The Old Swiss Confederacy. There were plenty of Republics in existence and even more to look at historically. |
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Member |
I fixed the link. Thanks for posting an example of what I was talking about - the worship of patriotic symbolism. |
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Member |
Well, uh, thanks just the same! |
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Experienced Member |
Corsica, was part of France in 1776, it's Republic surpressed. Venice and other Italian Republics are given that word, by curtesy only. Poland no longer existed in 1776, and was never a Republic. Holland, was technically a Republic. If you want to push the definition. The Prince of Orange was the heridtary head of State. But you are correct to attack my "Semantics," but totally wrong to compare these little tyranys with the United States - Certainly NO contemporaries did. When Europe erupted into change, starting with the French Revolution is wasn't to Venice that they looked to for inspiration. What an odd example anyway. A hundred heriditary families rulled the "Republic" of Venice. Dave |
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"Scholarly Comedian" |
There is a tendency to try to disassociate history from its actors, albeit in a selective form. We are taught that history progresses on its own without "Great Men", unless those "Great Men" are worth mentioning as villains. Um, sorry there, Karl and Fred--you're wrong. History pivots on the decisions made by great men, for better or worse, at times when change is imminent. Julius Caesar risked everything when he ordered his fully-armed legion to cross the Rubicon. Without him there might have eventually been a Roman Empire, but it would not necessarily be the one that gave us a firm grounding when we struck out on our own. Right now one of the most controversial figures in American history is Abraham Lincoln, but only because he's better known than Andrew Jackson. Lincoln pulled out all of the stops to preserve the Union, including a few that would give modern liberals a literal stroke. He did not survive the Civil War, as we all know, but here's where things turn speculative. Lincoln took measures during the war that we would consider dictatorial. Had he not been assassinated he would have presided over the Confederacy's surrender and the first years of Reconstruction. Instead, that period was ineptly presided over by Andrew Johnson, the first American president to be impeached. How would our history be different if Lincoln had fully served his second term? How would world history have been different if Caesar had not crossed the Rubicon? This is no "****erfly theory" fantasy, but it's also not a validation of the Hegelian concepts that animated Marx and Engles. Let's assume that had Roman history taken a different path the Enlightenment thinkers would still have drawn their same conclusions--and consequently so too would our Founding Fathers. No real disruption in our historical stream. But had Stephens succeeded Buchannan instead of Lincoln, how would the Civil War have ended? That would have more directly affected our history--in large part because we're talking about a critical pivot point in that history relatively close to the present. How it would have affected it I won't go into--there were and are just too many variables, and the closer one gets to the present the more they weigh. We've been historically lucky--at our inception we had Washington. In our first real existential crisis we had Lincoln. But luck runs out. We are in an existential crisis now, and there is no Washington or Lincoln to help us. It's time for us to step up. We need to be part Washington and part Lincoln, and we need to stand fast. The "great man" in history cannot be discounted, but Marx was wrong when he suggested that history progressed on its own with people as mere passengers. We don't have a Washington or a Lincoln right now--but we do have a nondescript little Lumpenproletariat worker bee named Todd Beamer. Let's roll.... |
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