Friday, October 21, 2011
Was the Declaration of Independence Illegal, or, If You Lose in Battle at Yorktown, Wait a Bit Until the Yanks Are on Their Heels Then Take The Blasted Rebels to Court!----- Interesting moot court debate in Philadelphia this week opened "old scabs" of contention between two former adversaries over the legality of independence and the rights of people to stand up against the government when redress of grievances are ignored or repressed. PS--The British don't really want us back. (What would "The Mother of Parliaments" do with a colony of 310 million people with our crumbling bridges, a tattered social safety net, the NBA lockout, et al. Then the politicians in Washington who hang around forever, suck up money like a vacuum going after dust mites and never shut up when they get on television?) Like they don't have enough trouble just with their home grown mother-politicians ? No, these barristers just want to show us how witty and smart they are. And isn't that "bloody typical!" ;-) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15345511
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An interesting debate Doug. In the past I have proffered the suggestion that there was actually no secession at all, there was a financial accommodation after the marginalisation of France.
ReplyDeleteThe Anglosphere is just the outsourcing of the British Empire which has in the past half century been mostly administered from Washington anyway.
English speakers can never completely break free of the Anglosphere, it binds them all with a mysterious force, but when we prick the surface it is the British class system, the Anglo Saxon language, the unspoken values and identical methods that have hardly changed for three centuries at least, but which have just simply relocated.
This is what is meant by the term Atlanticism I think Doug.
On these hypotheses of course the Declaration of Independence's legality would be meaningless, because Independence to put it rather bluntly has never actually happened.
All we have is theatrical elements of cultural production, the American Revolutionary War was the first false flag event in a long line of media created deceptions... Irish independence is exactly the same of course, nothing actually changed substantially in either Anglosphere stronghold, proto -Hollywood papered over the cracks.
Whenever I venture to the west I always find these ideas greatly help to oil the wheels of social intercourse and create an instant bond in every corner of the Anglosphere wherever they are uttered to strangers on buses or in bars.
Travel certainly broadens the mind Doug, of this I have no doubt whatsoever.
I admitI hadn't thought of it quite that way before, AA. I know the British and the Federalists in America (Presidents Washington and John Adams ) in the 1790's established treaty ties with Great Britain against The French Directorate, much to the consternation of that pro-French faction led by Thomas Jefferson, and much of the public. The revered Washington himself had to go on a goodwill tour of the new republic to calm things down.
ReplyDeleteNo question in my mind, though, that the British Empire in its last surge and inevitable deflation completed a handoff to the US military -industrial ramp up since The Atlantic Charter was drawn up between FDR and Churchill in the Fall of 1941. It probably started earlier than that if you count financial intertwinings between Wall Street and London in the previous world war.
There is a sense of common heritage via a language here that translates into everything cultural, legal, and poltical. Where does "America" as an seperate entity begin and where does Britian leave off?
Using even the traditional perspective, would the American Revolution have even happened without the example first of The Cromwell Protectorate, then forty years later, forces deposing King James II after he had an unexpected male heir?
Was the United States in the end an out growth of the fear in London that first Spanish, then French power would expand and stop the early stages of Anglo-colonialism from getting their foot (and their imports and exports) in the door all over the globe?
Some Irish might have a disagreement with you about the matter of their independence, but it's true that a case can be that the long run of history pulls everything back together again, for better and worse. Despite the best efforts of patriotic songs, movies, history books, Hollywood resets, et al, we speak more than the same language as you allude to in recounting your travels.
Many, this side of the pond, have argued that the colonies should 'behave' and return to the fold. But as you say, would we actually want a moraly bankrupt, not mention a financial basket case propped up by China, America?
ReplyDeleteFrankly we have enough of our own problems with out out taking on more!
;-))
Perfectly understandable, Jim. We've seen better days over here. ;-)
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