Napoleon, the Bastile and the Pachyderm Part 3

The colonists revolted when their fears of virtual enslavement came true in Boston in 1774 and 1775. Ironically, the efforts of the Crown to isolate the radicals in Boston from the rest of the colonies and quash rebellious sentiment had the direct effect of uniting the squabbling colonies and igniting the War. Let’s review the main reasons the American subjects felt they were being enslaved.

First, they lost the right to have a say in government. Their petitions for redress of grievances were simply ignored by Parliament and the King. This made it possible for the Government to be abusive and left no way for the colonists to try to fix the situation but violence; hence the Boston Tea Party.

Second, the Government striped several rights in response to the Boston Tea Party via the Intolerable Acts. Essentially the Crown put an end to democracy in Massachusetts with the Massachusetts Government Act. With the Administration of Justice Act they destroyed the rule of law by giving royal officials de facto immunity in all the colonies. The Boston Port Act stopped commerce in Massachusetts and threatened to create a man-made famine in the colony due to its reliance on the Port of Boston for food shipments. The Quartering Act was used as a punitive measure against the population at large, (the French pioneered this tactic against the Huguenots in the 17th century.)

Third, the Government tried to disarm the populace. Men between the ages of 17 and about 45 were required by law to serve in the militia. With their democracy and rights as Englishmen trampled all over by the Crown the colonists started stockpiling munitions in the town of Concord. Disarming a populace is one of the most important criteria to enslaving it-just ask Apartheid South Africa for one.

You can see these concerns clearly in the Bill of Rights. Right to redress grievances with the Government is in the 1st Amendment along with the right to assemble. The Government quartering troops in houses in a time of peace is prohibited under the 3rd Amendment. Right to bear arms is protected by the 2nd Amendment and to show its importance to the founders I have a quote from one of them

"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the
peoples' liberty's teeth" - George Washington

What all of this has to do with a plaster elephant, I am sure you are wondering, is that it is important to remember why, exactly why, our forefathers uprose, what tyranny was to them. The over quoted “no taxation without representation”-which is on the DC license plates-doesn’t do a very good job of telling the story. It was not for abstract philosophical principals that the founders threw off the Crown but over a long series of abuses and ignited by specific actions to snuff out freedom in America in 1774 and 1775

Napoleon, the Bastile and the Pachyderm Part 2

As the second of my three part series on the American Revolution we will pick up where we left off at the Boston Tea Party. December 16, 1773 the Sons of Liberty thinly disguised as indians stormed the tea baring ships Dartmouth, Beaver and Eleanour and dumped 90,000 pounds of tea in 342 caskets worth £10,000 ($1.87 million in 2007 USD) into Boston Harbor. Already seeing Boston as the home of a few malcontents responsible for the trouble this act led the Crown to take harsh action to isolate the revolt. Believing they could contain the radicals and make an example of them the instituted what was known as the Intolerable Acts. They were as follows:

The Boston Port Act: Port of Boston closed until both the Crown and the East India Company had been repaid for the lost tea.

The Massachusetts Government Act: Made most positions in the Government of the Colony appointees of the Crown or Governor and limited Town meetings to once a year.

The Administration of Justice Act: Allowed the Governor of Massachusetts to move the trials of royal officials he felt would not get a fair trail to other colonies or to Great Britain.

The Quartering Act: Applied to all colonies and allowed the Governor to quarter British troops in homes.

These harsh punishments on the entire colony for the actions of a few radicals alienated the population and galvanised pan-colonial unity. All across the colonies people came together to send aid as they realized that on the whims of the Crown they too could have their democracy abolished, their livelihoods ruined and be occupied in their homes (Boston, population 18,000 had 4,000 redcoats living in people's homes, hence the 3rd Amendment.)

Already they had lost the ability to redress grievances with the Government and taken a first step towards enslavement. Now, with their local democracy gone, the right to assemble gone, their source of income and food supply shut down and agents of the government forcibly living in their homes the people of Boston had gone from risking enslavement to actual enslavement. They had only one right left, one means of maintaining freedom and on the early morning of the 19th of April 1775.

At Lexington and later Concord local militia clashed with British regulars as they tried to seize militia weapons and ammunition and arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams. When the government sought to finally crush the liberty of the colonists they tried to seize their weapons and that, was the last straw. Petitions, non-importation/consumption agreements and rioting finally bloomed into rebellion when the colonists were down to their last option being threatened.

Napoleon, the Bastile and the Pachyderm Part 1

Paris, 1812, Napoleon erected a plaster statue of elephant over the site of Bastile so people would forget the events there on the 14th of July 1789 and keep risk of revolution against his own tyranny low. Originally it was to be plated in bronze and be quite elaborate but because of budget reasons and Napoleon's defeat and surrender in the War of the Sixth Coalition it was left as only plaster.



















We just finished going over the American Revolution in my History 390r class in some detail and would like to share a brief overview in three Parts of the events that led up to the War and, more importantly, why. First I'll talk about the Tea Act, then the Boston Tea Party. Second will be the Intolerable Acts followed by the fighting at Lexington and Concord, MA. Finally I will summarise the why of the revolution, we must not be fooled by a plaster elephant.

The Tea Act of 1773, unlike so many other acts of Parliament that raised the ire of the colonists was not a tax and was not intended to raise money. In fact, it provided significantly cheaper tea to the colonists. The reason behind it was the East India Company, a royally sanctioned monopoly, was in deep trouble financially and had lots of low quality tea rotting in warehouses in England. Colonists were already forbidden to import from non-British sources so forbidding them to import tea from anyone but the East India Company seemed simple enough. Now the colonists would have cheap tea in abundance and would be paying the Townshend Duties on the tea, making good subjects out of the rebellious colonists in the process.

This was repugnant to the Patriots for several reasons. First, it was directly undermining the attempts at non-importation and non-consumption of English goods agreements that they had been trying to put in place to deal with the British Government, since they were ignored when they sent letters to Parliament and the Crown. Which leads me to the next point, no one consulted the colonists as to how they felt about the idea, the Tea Act was simply a fiat as far as the colonies were concerned. Third, it was really bad, rotting tea they couldn’t sell in England, America was simply a dumping ground for what wasn’t good enough for real Englishmen. Fourth, they were being used simply as an engine of wealth for the East India Company.

The above played into the sentiment that, in their own words, they were “risking enslavement” from the Crown. Funny words coming from slave owners but what they were getting at wasn’t being chained up to pick cotton but something more complicated. Slaves are merely engines of wealth to their owners, you don’t argue about vacation days with your slaves, you use them to best maximize profit. Feedback and appeal had already been cut off by the Crown, a first sign of slavery. Next the Government spent its time thinking how best to exploit the colonies and wouldn’t even take complaints! They responded like slaves would, first trying to degrade their value as engines of wealth by these non-importation and non-consumption agreements. Now they were being slapped in the face on several fronts and combine this, the Sons of Liberty, alcohol and Indian garb and you get-The Boston Tea Party.

What happend to Statesmen?

Our founders, as great and as visionary as they were didn't see our long standing party politics coming. Fortunately they did come up with the most versatile democratic system to date. Their ability to take 13 colonies with at first virtually no chance of throwing off the mother country, then taking 13 very independent countries into to a small federal republic on the edge of civilization, paving the way for it to become the greatest nation in the annals of great nations. The United States of America dominates every sphere it enters. The USA dominates land, sea, air and space. We are the financial and business center of the world and our culture is spreading the world over (which may or may not be a good thing, depending on who you are.) McDonald's, that American icon, is found in 119 countries and no country with a McDonald's has ever attacked the US. But we must remember history, no great civilization has ever been destroyed from without, but crumbled from within.

Let me share a story:

When I was 19 I voted for the first time in Hyattsville, MD. I had to walk to the school where the voting was due to lack of parking (no, I don't deserve a medal, but I did get a sticker.) I knew everything there was to know about the presidential candidates but on the local level I didn't have a clue. I had only just moved there and really didn't know or care about local politics. Luckily they came with a (D) or a (R) after their name so I knew how to vote. When it came to some of them, like judges, they didn't have a little (D) or (R) so utterly confused as to what to do I either did eni mini mo or left them blank.

We have a two party system in this country today run by politicians. Politicians have screwed this country over, big time. The need to get a (R) or (D) created the need to pay homage to the party elites and the corruption, partisanship and enforcement of the party line stifles patriotic fervor, selflessness and compromise. Our two party system, simply strangles statesmen and turns them into politicians. My favorite Congressional leadership position are the Party Whips. Party Whips are responsible for getting the members of the party to vote with the party. I am not sure how they go about that but that is where the name, Whips, comes from.

The founders risked all they had to create and serve their countrymen, even before there was a country. They were statesmen everyone, not doing it for personal gain or personal power but for the betterment of mankind. We live in a nation created by statesmen and run by politicians. If we are so great run by scoundrel politicians what would we be under more Washingtons, Jeffersons, Adams, Franklins or Handcocks?

"What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character
in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of
virtuous actions." -Aristotle

It depends on if your definition of "rights" is right

During the SCOTUS case, District of Columbia v. Heller, Obama was asked at a debate what he thought about the case. He responded that he thought the court would rule in favor of an individual right but added, "But just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right."

I am sorry, did I hear that correctly? State and local Governments have the power to trample over Constitutional rights? What happened to "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."? As a lawyer he should know that federal law has supremacy over state and local and the Constitution over federal.

Let's step back for a minute and make-believe we are in Obama's world, (a scary thought I know) where unalienable rights are not guarantied by law and subject to the whims of lesser courts and lawmakers.

Right to Habeas Corpus:
Lets say a locality in the south decides to restrict the right of Habeas Corpus seeing as it is such a bother to tell blacks why the are in jail.......After all, do you even need a reason to arrest blacks? Isn't their skin color reason enough?

Right to have a lawyer present during questioning:
So expensive to provide a public defender to all the poor people, especially the ones we "know" are guilty. Let's have our city "restrict" public defenders to only those we think could be innocent not those SOBs we know are guilty.

Right against unreasonable search and seizure:
Waiting to get a search warrant hampers the Sheriff's office from busting suspected meth labs. Restrict need for a search warrant in drug related cases.

Right against self-incrimination:
We have ways to make you talk...........

Right to peaceably assemble:
Let's restrict gatherings of over 30 people to social events only so my opponent can't hold rallies.

Right to petition the government for redress of grievances:
"Hey, I am getting tried of people coming into city council taking up our time whining. Let's restrict access to the meetings to only those here to compliment or bribe us."

Freedom of the press:
"Newspapers keep running negative stories on the mayor, from now on all stories must first be approved by the mayor's office before publishing."

Freedom of religion:
"Our town church is now officially the First Baptist Church of Christ. Those not attending Sunday services will be subject to a $500 fine for first offense, 30 days jail for repeat offenders."


I could go on and on but you see what I am getting at: Rights are rights and if lower courts are free to "restrict" them then where does it end and what good is the Constitution? Talk about opening Pandora's Box, the best way to go about destroying the Constitution I have heard in a while.

Or maybe I have funny ideas about the meanings of words like "Unalienable" and phrases like "Shall not be infringed."

Being a subject matter expert........

I have some thoughts on love, relationships and marriage, I have little experience with the first, almost none with the second and zero with the third. But this year we have a presidential race with both sides downplaying experience and running on values/positions so I figure what the heck. A couple things I have heard ruin relationships are the following:

1. Just trying to be happy in the relationship.

2. "Women are disappointed that the man hasn't changed and the man is disappointed the woman has."

3. Mistrust

Now the first one is actually pretty tricky. Everyone knows marriages fail because the couples aren't happy in the relationship. When things start to get a little tough people want to remedy it and a logical step is "I will do everything I can to make this work and be happy." Now I know there is a lot more going on than that but bear with me. People can make make the mistake that they are responsible for making themselves happy in the relationship. The big problem with the above solution is it leads to selfishness. I truly believe that in a marriage relationship your sole goal is the happiness of your spouse. This really only works when your spouse is also focused on your happiness so that with both of you trying to make the other one happy you are both happier than if you just worried about your own happiness. If this is not the case then by all means, you do need to watch your own interests but this is a very dangerous path. 1 Corinthians 7:4 is talking about a slightly different application but explains the principal very well.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard women talk about the chances of changing a man after marriage. The other day there was a discussion of the chances a a girl who is a member of my church marrying a non-member man and eventually converting him. I have heard this discussion many times and have often heard supporting opinions from people who are normally sensible. Think about: there is a major, core value that you do not like and think you can change it. You can not bank that your spouse will eventually change for you and can easily destroy your marriage. I heard a story from a friend who had been engaged to a wonderful woman for a long time and shortly before the wedding he was driving her home and was a few blocks from her apartment when she asked him to drop one of his hobbies (I don't know which one) and he pulled over, called the wedding off and gave her money for a cab. I think he may have saved himself a ton of grief, for all he knew she secretly had a list of things she was going to slowly push to "improve" him into the man she wanted.

Now men can have the opposite problem. I just John McCain would be a great example as his wife waited for him for six years while he was a POW in Vietnam and he came home and divorced her for a rich beauty queen.

One of the many reasons against premarital sex is the question of trust. If you had an intimate relationship before marriage your spouse knows you have and would have sex outside of marriage. If you had a marital affair with your current spouse while married to you last one then the problem is increased ten fold since now your spouse knows you have a record of cheating. I had a friend who was married and I don't know anything about their background. I knew him through a club and one time he mentioned he told her he was going to a meeting and would be back at 9. when he got back at 8:55 she was screaming at him because she thought he had said 8.........How fun.

The sky is falling

I won't pretend to be an economic expert but I have a few thoughts on the matter of the bank bailout and the failure of the bailout bill's passage. We are in this predicament due to risky sub-prime loans and loan officers acting like they were bullet-proof. This crisis isn't something that ambushed us overnight as its been going down hill for several months before it became a national crisis. I could get a little more worried if so many people weren't acting like this was the opportunity of the century. I am reminded of the following from H. L. Mencken,

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

The book State of Fear by Michael Crichton talks about how since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 the fear mongering in the media has expanded by leaps and bounds. Why is kind of complicated but basically "You're on the verge of apocalypse! Only I can save you, worship/follow me." covers my explanation. I feel a lot of the Global Warming stuff falls into this category as well as the Patriot Act.

To those in our country who want to socialize us (step forward Congresswomen Maxine "This liberal wants to socialize big oil" Waters) (D-CA), this is a golden gift from the gods. For heavens sake, the populace is crying out for the Government to buy and therefore own corporations because, as they postulate, Capitalism has failed. (see Websters dictionary's entry for Communism) In return for bailing out (see buying) corporations now the government gets control how they do business. Regardless if we like to admit it or not money is what makes the world go around and now, in addition to the power to make laws, tax and make war we want to hand the keys to our financial system over to the government? If we don't we are threatened with the possibility of a new depression. I have only one thing to say:

Better dead than Red