The American Revolution Was Not a Party

[Occam's Banana]

The American Revolution Was Not a Party
http://mises.org/library/american-re...-was-not-party
Ryan McMaken (18 December 2014)

Writing on the Ferguson protests and riots, Darlena Cunha claimed in Time Magazine that the Tea Party “gets its name from a riot, The Boston Tea Party.” Cunha went on to then claim that the Ferguson riots are in the tradition of the Boston Tea Party, which celebrates its 241st anniversary this week.

In response, a number of conservative commentators denied Cunha’s claim (and many similar claims) that the two events are comparable.

Dan McLaughlin opined at The Federalist that the Ferguson Riots are “nothing like” the Boston Tea Party and noted that the Boston Tea Party’s violence — and violence it was — was directed at very specific targets while the Ferguson rioters seemed to employ indiscriminate violence.

Fair enough. Tactically, the Ferguson riots have virtually nothing in common with the Boston Tea Party. In contrast to the Boston mob’s destruction of the tea, the Ferguson riots were ineffective and had no clear target. The Ferguson rioters didn’t even target the Ferguson government, which is clearly an operation of questionable legitimacy that appears to exist primarily to extract money from the “citizens,” while the police do little to actually protect private property.

The “Patriots” Initiated Real Violence — Against Innocents

So while the Ferguson riots will be remembered as pointless eruptions of misdirected violence, initiated against innocent parties, let’s not pretend that the perpetrators of many protest actions during the revolutionary period did not do the same.

From the perspective of those who defend the Tea Party and condemn the Ferguson rioters, it’s wise to stick to defending the Tea Party specifically, because the Sons of Liberty, a loosely knit group of protestors involved in the Tea Party, and often led by Samuel Adams, were notorious for mob violence, albeit violence that was more politically effective and better-focused than most.

The Tea Party is perhaps remembered so fondly because it was among the least violent of the major protest actions perpetrated by the Sons of Liberty. The destruction of the tea, which was financially damaging to many private citizens other than the corporatist East India Company, was nevertheless relatively harmless to the private sector of Boston overall.

But when we consider the many other protest actions by the Sons of Liberty in the lead up to the beginning of the revolution, many of them could easily be described as acts of non-defensive violence, intimidation, and wanton destruction. Many tax collectors resigned their offices in fear. Others, including citizens merely suspected of supporting the British, were tarred and feathered (i.e, tortured) by the protestors.

Known loyalists were routinely threatened with physical harm to themselves, their families, and their property. Many loyalists fled the colonies in fear for their lives, and after the closure of Boston Harbor, many fled to inner Boston seeking protection form the mobs. Loyalist homes were burned, theft among Sons of Liberty was routine (hundreds of pounds were stolen from Governor Hutchinson’s private home after it was ransacked by a mob of poor and working class Bostonians). Caught up in all of this, it should be remembered, were children and spouses of the guilty parties who in many cases were just low-level bureaucrats.

So, while there are many differences between the Ferguson protests and those in 1770s Massachusetts, it cannot be said that one should be condemned because it is violent, and the other group can be praised because it was non-violent.

And given the nature of the American Revolution, it should not surprise us at all that non-defensive violence was routinely employed by the patriots. The American Revolution was, after all, an armed rebellion. School children are taught a highly-sanitized version of the conflict in which revolutionaries target no one but armed soldiers and local disagreements are defined by spirited non-violent debate. But for many people involved in the conflict, this was far from the reality.

In the southern theater of the war, for example, the British Army armed loyalist militias who engaged in a scorched earth campaign against the rebels. They burned private homes to the ground, cut up and murdered pregnant women, displayed the severed heads of their victims, and employed other tactics of terrorism.

The rebels responded in kind, attacking many who had no role in the attacks on patriot homes, including women, and torturing suspected Tories with beloved torture methods such as “spicketing” in which the victims are spun around and around on upward-pointing nails until the victim is well impaled.

Moreover, such tactics were part of a larger radicalization of the population that occurred throughout the colonies in response to the British occupation and the abuses of the loyalist militias. (Murray Rothbard covers the true radicalism of the revolution in chapter 80 of Conceived in Liberty.)

Indeed, the fate of the loyalists during the Revolution tells us all we need to know about the allegedly “non-violent” actions of the patriots. Throughout the colonies, perhaps as many as 60,000 loyalists fled the colonies. Some were likely driven by a nationalistic attachment to the British, but many thousands (most of whom were private citizens) fled because they feared for their lives or they had been made destitute by the actions of the patriots.

The State Relies on Initiating Violence

Of course, we live with political violence every day. The state employs violence constantly against peaceful people. The state arrests, terrorizes, robs, and destroys on a regular basis. It targets innocents guilty of nothing but made up “crimes” such as violating the regulatory minutiae of the state, or owning the wrong plant, or selling the wrong milk. If we are going to condemn the non-defensive violence of the Ferguson rioters, we ought also to condemn all similarly unwarranted violence, including all violence employed by the state against those who have not initiated violence themselves. If one wishes to retain any moral consistency whatsoever, it is impossible to decry the violence of the Ferguson looters while simultaneously supporting the violence of anti-drug enforcement, the thievery of tax collectors, federal raids to enforce gun laws — or in the case of the revolutionaries — violence against the children of tax collectors, or farmers suspected of supporting the British.

Violence employed against anyone other than those who first initiate violence is always illegitimate, whether you’re a Ferguson looter or a white guy in a three-cornered hat.


"The American Revolution Was Not a Party" by Ryan McMaken is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

[otherone]

outta rep, nana.

Time to take out the trash.

[heavenlyboy34]

+rep for The Banana.

[Anti Federalist]

A riot is an ugly dink...and I dink it is just about time, we HAD ONE!!!

[green73]

A riot is an ugly dink...and I dink it is just about time, we HAD ONE!!!

Violence is the lifeblood of the state. We can win this with ideas.

[TruckinMike]

Violence is the lifeblood of the state....

Killing the violent prone bastards is what our founders did, now its our turn. Yes, violence does work. Why do you think the government wants a monopoly on violence? It ain't so they can hand out cake and cookies to the masses.

[staerker]

Killing the violent prone bastards is what our founders did, now its our turn. Yes, violence does work. Why do you think the government wants a monopoly on violence? It ain't so they can hand out cake and cookies to the masses.

Don't look to flawed humans for direction. Flawed humans are flawed. Look at the mess the founders gave us.

[CaptainAmerica]

I went to the protests on downtown Phoenix, az it was a combination of many views, mostly a bunch of very upset people being vocal about their disgust over police state being in our neighborhoods over the war on drugs. Some feew people were trying to co-opt it into a race issue, but many black people stood firmly against them and called it an issue for all people and disowned the notion that this is a "black vs white" issue, the thing mainstream news wont show you is there have been preachers,churches, prayers out in the streets and people of muslim and christian as well as mormon beliefs uniting in outrage. I think as a culture the colonies may have been more closely knit together but overall they probably had varying angers over various experiences amongst the population and its turmoil from the british tyranny. This is only the beginning, and smart people need to get involved with speaking up not just on theiir computers or once every four years at a voting booth , because elections are becoming less important this late in the game. your freedoms are vaporizing

[Anti Federalist]

Violence is the lifeblood of the state. We can win this with ideas.

I disagree.

Bullies, thugs and violent sociopaths, both in and out of government, understand just one thing: a punch in the face.

Certainly, ideas are critical, and form the foundation on which action can then be taken.

But if you think you're going to talk this system to death, with SWLODs and marches, you are mistaken.

It will take the very real threat of action to back these $#@!ers up.

And that doesn't necessarily mean anything violent will happen: Bundy Ranch for example.

But until the system is told: "this and no more, not another inch, we will not comply" and that is backed up, it will keep rolling on.

And ultimately, over, us.

[heavenlyboy34]

I disagree.

Bullies, thugs and violent sociopaths, both in and out of government, understand just one thing: a punch in the face.

Certainly, ideas are critical, and form the foundation on which action can then be taken.

But if you think you're going to talk this system to death, with SWLODs and marches, you are mistaken.

It will take the very real threat of action to back these $#@!ers up.

And that doesn't necessarily mean anything violent will happen: Bundy Ranch for example.

But until the system is told: "this and no more, not another inch, we will not comply" and that is backed up, it will keep rolling on.

And ultimately, over, us.

I agree, but "we" (that is, all of us opposed to the regime) aren't in a good position to stand down the militarized po-lice and whatever military force that's brought to bear upon us. (remember they have virtually unlimited funding via borrowing and taxation) It would be ideal if someone or some bunch of folks could start building up an arsenal that could fend of the regime's strongmen.

[Anti Federalist]

I agree, but "we" (that is, all of us opposed to the regime) aren't in a good position to stand down the militarized po-lice and whatever military force that's brought to bear upon us. (remember they have virtually unlimited funding via borrowing and taxation) It would be ideal if someone or some bunch of folks could start building up an arsenal that could fend of the regime's strongmen.

Theye are outnumbered 1000 to 1.

People are.

And theye know it...that's why theye sometimes slip up and tell the truth about what the MRAPs and tanks are for.

[Occam's Banana]

Violence is the lifeblood of the state. We can win this with ideas.

I disagree.

Bullies, thugs and violent sociopaths, both in and out of government, understand just one thing: a punch in the face.

Certainly, ideas are critical, and form the foundation on which action can then be taken.

But if you think you're going to talk this system to death, with SWLODs and marches, you are mistaken.

It will take the very real threat of action to back these $#@!ers up.

And that doesn't necessarily mean anything violent will happen: Bundy Ranch for example.

But until the system is told: "this and no more, not another inch, we will not comply" and that is backed up, it will keep rolling on.

And ultimately, over, us.

I think you are both right.

AF is talking about violence in defense against "bullies, thugs and sociopaths." His invocation of "this and no more, not another inch, we will not comply" is also extremely important. Non-compliance and breaking the "chain of obedience" is absolutely and critically essential. Most if not all of that non-compliance must be non-violent if we are to end up with anything other than a blasted, smoking ruin of a world. But violence (or the credible threat of violence) against those who would force our compliance is a necessary and indispensible ingredient. (And although I have enormous respect for pacifism and pacifists, things like voting and SWLODs are certainly not up to the task before us.)

The cultivation and promotion of non-compliance is THE single most important endeavor in which we can engage in the effort to achieve and secure freedom. (Étienne de La Boétie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude is one of the central works in the liberty canon, IMO - it deserves far more attention than it has thus far received). Ideally, non-complaince should be non-violent whenever and wherever possible. Swords cannot win "hearts and minds" - only ideas and ideals can do so. But swords are necessary, too, in order to defend ourselves from those would coerce our submission.

Secessionist non-compliance is the heart's blood of human liberty. Any strategy for the achievement of freedom which does not integrate this fact is doomed to failure.

[Occam's Banana]

I agree, but "we" (that is, all of us opposed to the regime) aren't in a good position to stand down the militarized po-lice and whatever military force that's brought to bear upon us. (remember they have virtually unlimited funding via borrowing and taxation) It would be ideal if someone or some bunch of folks could start building up an arsenal that could fend of the regime's strongmen.

It is not a matter of "outgunning" them. Coercion and violence are not costless - and "funding" is not the only measure of cost. In any case, in the limit, borrowing, taxation and printing are subject to the law of diminishing returns. Taxation is useless if sufficient would-be taxpayers do not comply - and without sufficient taxation, lenders will not loan (for how would they be paid back?). I trust it is not necessary to explain why printing is ultimately self-defeating ...

We have only to make the forcible imposition of their will upon us more expensive to them than they are willing to pay - not just in terms of dollars and material resources, but in human lives, moral legitimacy, "public relations," and so forth.

IOW: We do not have to "conquer" them - we only have to prevent them from "conquering" us ...

[HOLLYWOOD]

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/cha...ranscript.html

...Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

[idiom]

Violence is the lifeblood of the state. We can win this with ideas.

Violence is the lifeblood of life.

[PRB]

what was it? a conference? an order? a cult? a caucus? a straw poll? a convention? a concert? a bazaar?

[otherone]

Violence is the lifeblood of the state. We can win this with ideas.

I have an idea:

[robert68]

From an article by Gary North titled “Tricked on the Fourth of July”:

“I do not celebrate the fourth of July. This goes back to a term paper I wrote in graduate school. It was on colonial taxation in the British North American colonies in 1775. Not counting local taxation, I discovered that the total burden of British imperial taxation was about 1% of national income. It may have been as high as 2.5% in the southern colonies…

The colonists had a sweet deal in 1775. Great Britain was the second freest nation on earth. Switzerland was probably the most free nation, but I would be hard-pressed to identify any other nation in 1775 that was ahead of Great Britain. And in Great Britain’s Empire, the colonists were by far the freest.
I will say it, loud and clear: the freest society on earth in 1775 was British North America, with the exception of the slave system. Anyone who was not a slave had incomparable freedom.…

In an article on taxation in that era, Rabushka (author of Taxation In Colonial America) gets to the point.
“Historians have written that taxes in the new American nation rose and remained considerably higher, perhaps three times higher, than they were under British rule. More money was required for national defense than previously needed to defend the frontier from Indians and the French, and the new nation faced other expenses.”

So, as a result of the American Revolution, the tax burden tripled.…

That the largest signature on the Declaration of Independence was signed by the richest smuggler in North America was no coincidence. He was hopping mad. Parliament in 1773 had cut the tax on tea imported by the British East India Company, so the cost of British tea went lower than the smugglers’ cost on non-British tea. This had cost Hancock a pretty penny. The Tea Party had stopped the unloading of the tea by throwing privately owned tea off a privately owned ship – a ship in competition with Hancock’s ships. The Boston Tea Party was in fact a well-organized protest against lower prices stemming from lower taxes...
http://lewrockwell.com/north/north1002.html

Also, the "Intolerable Acts" passed by Britain in response to the destruction of tea, didn't apply to all 13 colonies as the DOI suggests, only that of Massachusetts where the "Tea Party" took place.

The Intolerable Acts was the American Patriots' name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in throwing a large tea shipment into Boston harbor. In Great Britain, these laws were referred to as the Coercive Acts.

The acts took away Massachusetts self-government and historic rights, triggering outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies. They were key developments in the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775.

---

Benjamin Franklin -- I suppose we never had since we were a People, so few Friends in Britain. The violent Destruction of the Tea seems to have united all Parties here against our Province, so that the Bill now brought into Parliament for shutting up Boston as a Port till Satisfaction is made, meets with no Opposition.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Killing the violent prone bastards is what our founders did, now its our turn. Yes, violence does work. Why do you think the government wants a monopoly on violence? It ain't so they can hand out cake and cookies to the masses.

With those words, you've probably placed yourself on a watch list.

[ExPatPaki]

With those words, you've probably placed yourself on a watch list.

No worries, I've been on many watch lists since the age of 10.

[idiom]

I cannot suggest y'all watch Rang De Basanti any more strongly than I already have.