Contrary to the beliefs of many, American colonists did not go to war against the British because of taxes. Colonists went to war against the King because the British government had become so corrupt, so despicable that the colonist feared if they didn’t take drastic action, that corruption would flow across the pond to America. Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1775:
. . . when I consider the extreme corruption prevalent among all orders of men in this old rotten state, and the glorious public virtue so predominant in our rising country . . . I fear they will drag us after them in their plundering wars which their desperate circumstances, injustice, and rapacity [greed] may prompt them to undertake; and their wide wasting prodigality [living the high life] and profusion is a gulf that will swallow up every aid we may distress ourselves to afford them. Here [Franklin was writing from England] enormous salaries, pensions, perquisites, bribes, groundless quarrels, foolish expeditions, false accounts or no accounts, contracts and jobs, devour all revenue [which will serve] to corrupt and poison us.
Quoted from The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn
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If you haven’t read this book, you owe it to yourself to read it. It is a fascinating and engaging read that illuminates the reasons colonist – reluctantly and with much distress – took up arms against the Brits.
Why is this important now? Because when you read Bailyn, you will clearly see that we are facing a crisis equal to that faced by the colonists. Corruption, waste, war, and greed is swallowing up the America that other countries admired before and rallied around after 9/11. We are facing the same constitutional crisis the colonists faced in the late 1700s. They had been governed by the British constitution, which the colonists felt the King and his "minions" were plotting to weaken and dissolve. Here is another passage from Bailyn:
For their power and interest is so great that they can and do procure whatever laws they please, having (by power, interest, and the application of the people’s money to placement and pensioners) the whole legislative authority at their command. So that it is plain . . . that the rights of the people are ruined and destroyed by ministerial tyrannical authority and thereby . . . become a kind of slaves to the ministers of the state.
Sound familiar? Pass whatever laws they please, apply the people’s money however they choose and for whatever purpose they deem fit, whole legislative authority at their command. This could have been written in the early 21st century and rather than saying it of King George III in 1775, it fits perfectly with King George II of America.
How did we get here?
Consider this passage from Bailyn:
And this seems to be the present plan: to secure a majority of Parliament, and thus enslave the nation with their own consent. The more places or pensions the ministry have in their gift the more easily they can bribe a majority of Parliament by bestowing those places on them or their friends. This makes them erect so many new and unnecessary offices in America, even so as it swallows up the whole of the revenue . . . by bestowing these places – places of considerable profit and no labor – upon the children or friends or dependents of the members of Parliament, the ministry can secure them in their interest . . . Thus the balance of the constitution had been thrown off . . . Corruption was at the heart of it – the political corruption built on the general dissoluteness [indulgence] of the populace, so familiar in the history of tyranny and so shocking to [its] observers.
We are facing the same constitutional and moral crisis that our forefathers faced. Yet, we have far less backbone. We continue to shop, play, eat, sleep, work, and live as if everything is okay. Why? Because King George told us to and we have listened. We haven’t been asked to sacrifice or change our behaviors in anyway, yet we have allowed 150,000 plus of our men and women to have their lives forever altered to fight for a war that over 70% of Americans now feel is unjust. We continue to shop because King George told us that is how we should show our patriotism.
Who will lead the revolution? Who among us will lead the boycott? Who will organize the protest marches that turned the tide in our involvement in Vietnam? When will we rise to meet the challenge left for us by the founding fathers? When will we demand that our leaders step up to the challenge set by those who created this country and represent the people, not a party? Isn’t it about time?