The Forgotten Flag of the American Revolution and What It Means [Archive]

dancjm

07-06-2014, 06:03 AM

This article is quite interesting, some of the discussion in the comments is interesting too.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/381914/forgotten-flag-american-revolution-and-what-it-means-daniel-hannan

Seems like some people were offended by the article, so I should add, as a Brit myself, I don't have a strong opinion about this, I just think the conversation it provokes is really interesting.

acptulsa

07-06-2014, 08:17 AM

A perfectly awful and utterly silly attempt at revisionist history.

Thirteen stripes with a Union Jack in the corner. Sort of like Australia's southern cross with a Union Jack in the corner, or the Royal Navy's English cross with a Union Jack in the corner. Yes, it was our colonial flag. Yes, Washington fought under it and the Continental Congress met under it. Yes, when George Washington wanted to get rid of it along with the yoke of colonial status, he and Betsy Ross got rid of the Union Jack but didn't otherwise change it. We were what we were, but no longer under the British.

The Boston Tea Party, which sparked the violence, was brought about by a lowering of the duty on tea.

Yeah, sure it was. 'Cause people always dress up like Indians and stage protests over tax cuts.

I'm afraid I need a better source on that stuff...

It was these ideals that were set to paper in a small secular miracle at Philadelphia’s old courthouse.

A small secular miracle? Who is this assclown?

As that great Anglo-American Winston Churchill put it:

The Declaration was in the main a restatement of the principles which had animated the Whig struggle against the later Stuarts and the English Revolution of 1688.

Yes. Obviously either the English kings had forgotten those completely or just thought colonists were unworthy of them. Either way, the Declaration specifically talked about the cumulation of abuses leading to one people separating themselves from another. To try to repaint it as a grand affirmation of Britishness is painfully silly.

Edmund Burke said we were dedicated to liberty according to English ideals and principles. And we were. Apparently, we were a damned sight more dedicated to them than the English were at the time. So what?

Anglophilic advertising garbage unworthy of the click...