GreNME
05-25-2004, 07:13 PM
This is something also from the front page of the site, with the essay found here (http://www.grenme.com/node/view/9).
With terrorism as a large topic of discussion today, many claim to look back, and blazon the US fight for independence as a series of terrorist acts on the part of the American Colonies. However, when defining terrorism, only the broadest and vaguest of brushes would need to be used to paint the American Colonies as terroristic, when it could quite rightly be said that the British Parliament and the Crown were the real terrorists.
Some say it began with the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was a blatant move by the Crown to raise money from its colonies, and was received with wide denouncement, and boycotting of English goods (and a fair share of protest). In fact, that Britain continued with the taxappointing collectors in every colonyit incensed the colonists to the point where they often rioted. There are even stories like the one about the stamp collector in Massachusetts, whose home was ransacked, causing him to resign the very next day. By 1965, no Stamp Collector existed in the colonies, and the Crown could not appoint any.
Now, compounded on this was the Sugar Act, which placed a high tariff on sugarsomething everyone pretty much needed, so they couldn't rightly boycott that (or so Parliament thought). The colonies did boycott it, as well as have more loud and raucous protests against British merchants. The Sugar Act only lasted a year, as it became clear that Parliament wasn't going to be squeezing money from the colonies through this tax.
On top of all of this, American Colonists were not given nearly the status that British nationals were, nor even that of other British colonies! George treated the Colonies more and more as if they were his personal bank and coffers for financing his wars with France, yet treating the very colonies he was expecting to refill his kingdom's treasury as less than base citizens. He was brow-beating his own best resource, and then surprised (and insulted) when they struggled back.
How was Britain brow-beating? Well, aside from the taxation without representationmeaning growing taxes with little to no representation of the colonies in British Parliament in return, which was something all other colonies gotthere were the Intolerable Acts, which were basically Britain sending in troops and establishing military rule.They placed Massachusettes under the thumb of a British General. They had soldiers reacting to riots with gunfire and killing (of which the Boston Massacre is most noted for).
America decided to form their own committee (the Continental Congress), and began making official declarations to the British Parliament, in order to begin gaining diplomatic recognition, and avoid more unnecessary conflict. However, the British grip got tighter, with more quartering laws, more restrictive taxation, and the British military actively seeking out and destroying munitions storage of the local militias within the colonies.
This all came to a head one day in Lexington, where British soldiers and American militia found themselves facing each other in a stand-off. Fighting was prompted by a shot where it has still not been proven which side fired, but the results were very clear: the British rushed forth with a volley of shots from their rifles, and a charge of their bayonets, while the American militia was killed as they retreated. The British Regulars got their just desserts once word spread of their brutality, but it remains that it was clear the British were more than ready and willing to deal death in direct response to opposition.
Thus began a war that was fought on American soil, by American men, in and around American towns. And yet, America is somehow the terrorists in this? I find this very difficult to believe, as America began their time of attrition long before the war was joined by them, and only engaged in the killing and pain that war brings as a last resort, when protestation and all things diplomatic were useless. I find it very hard to believe that a personwho claims to have bothered to learn of the history of and behind the American Revolution (all American grade schools teach it)can say with a straight face and full seriousness that it was a series of terrorist acts on the part of the Revolutionaries. It would really be an incredible twisting and misrepresenting of historical account.
With terrorism as a large topic of discussion today, many claim to look back, and blazon the US fight for independence as a series of terrorist acts on the part of the American Colonies. However, when defining terrorism, only the broadest and vaguest of brushes would need to be used to paint the American Colonies as terroristic, when it could quite rightly be said that the British Parliament and the Crown were the real terrorists.
Some say it began with the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was a blatant move by the Crown to raise money from its colonies, and was received with wide denouncement, and boycotting of English goods (and a fair share of protest). In fact, that Britain continued with the taxappointing collectors in every colonyit incensed the colonists to the point where they often rioted. There are even stories like the one about the stamp collector in Massachusetts, whose home was ransacked, causing him to resign the very next day. By 1965, no Stamp Collector existed in the colonies, and the Crown could not appoint any.
Now, compounded on this was the Sugar Act, which placed a high tariff on sugarsomething everyone pretty much needed, so they couldn't rightly boycott that (or so Parliament thought). The colonies did boycott it, as well as have more loud and raucous protests against British merchants. The Sugar Act only lasted a year, as it became clear that Parliament wasn't going to be squeezing money from the colonies through this tax.
On top of all of this, American Colonists were not given nearly the status that British nationals were, nor even that of other British colonies! George treated the Colonies more and more as if they were his personal bank and coffers for financing his wars with France, yet treating the very colonies he was expecting to refill his kingdom's treasury as less than base citizens. He was brow-beating his own best resource, and then surprised (and insulted) when they struggled back.
How was Britain brow-beating? Well, aside from the taxation without representationmeaning growing taxes with little to no representation of the colonies in British Parliament in return, which was something all other colonies gotthere were the Intolerable Acts, which were basically Britain sending in troops and establishing military rule.They placed Massachusettes under the thumb of a British General. They had soldiers reacting to riots with gunfire and killing (of which the Boston Massacre is most noted for).
America decided to form their own committee (the Continental Congress), and began making official declarations to the British Parliament, in order to begin gaining diplomatic recognition, and avoid more unnecessary conflict. However, the British grip got tighter, with more quartering laws, more restrictive taxation, and the British military actively seeking out and destroying munitions storage of the local militias within the colonies.
This all came to a head one day in Lexington, where British soldiers and American militia found themselves facing each other in a stand-off. Fighting was prompted by a shot where it has still not been proven which side fired, but the results were very clear: the British rushed forth with a volley of shots from their rifles, and a charge of their bayonets, while the American militia was killed as they retreated. The British Regulars got their just desserts once word spread of their brutality, but it remains that it was clear the British were more than ready and willing to deal death in direct response to opposition.
Thus began a war that was fought on American soil, by American men, in and around American towns. And yet, America is somehow the terrorists in this? I find this very difficult to believe, as America began their time of attrition long before the war was joined by them, and only engaged in the killing and pain that war brings as a last resort, when protestation and all things diplomatic were useless. I find it very hard to believe that a personwho claims to have bothered to learn of the history of and behind the American Revolution (all American grade schools teach it)can say with a straight face and full seriousness that it was a series of terrorist acts on the part of the Revolutionaries. It would really be an incredible twisting and misrepresenting of historical account.