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Were Founding Fathers and American Revolutionary fighters evil terrorists?

Those of American Revolution who resisted British law enforcement were

  • Murders and terrorists

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • illegally & wrongly resisting law enforcement personnel

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • resisting in a way justifying force and deadly force against them

    Votes: 6 35.3%
  • criminals in the truest sense of the word

    Votes: 2 11.8%
  • heros

    Votes: 9 52.9%
  • IDK/Other

    Votes: 5 29.4%

  • Total voters
    17

joko104

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Over and over and over I read members posting that if a person shows the slightest physical resistance - just pulling an arm away when being grabbed at - or trying to shield his face while police are beating his face shouting "give me your arm (so you can't shield your face)" - that alone justifies throwing that person chest down on concrete, piling the weight of a cast iron V8 motor on his back - hitting him in the face and head with a club and fists 25 times, while tasering him in the face and genitals - even if the person has committed no crime - other than he "resisted" being grabbed.

If so, then the level of criminality, evil, and terrorism by the founding fathers and revolutionaries - presented as American heroes - is beyond imagination. Why aren't they vilified as the worst people to have ever lived in the USA. Solely over petty taxes and not liking some laws, they murdered police and resisted the police with armed, deadly force. George Washington engaged in a mass terror attack brutally on Christmas Eve no less, slaughtering the police.

If merely pulling your arm away from a police officer is so criminal, so unacceptable and so necessitates justifiable unlimited violent assault, there is no conclusion it seems can be reached that not only were the "founding fathers" and all revolutionaries all deserving of death as the most evil people in US history, but the principles they claimed they were killing the police for was fundamentally wrong.

Your view?
 
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My view is this is happening, among other atrocities in our government, because we are content with our lives. As long as our products and services are provided, we do what is expected of us. And, with fear of losing what we have we refuse to act upon what could make our society better. But that does take risk. The risk of getting hurt/punished seems to be too much to desire drastic change in our country.
 
Over and over and over I read members posting that if a person shows the slightest physical resistance - just pulling an arm away when being grabbed at - or trying to shield his face while police are beating his face shouting "give me your arm (so you can't shield your face)" - that alone justifies throwing that person chest down on concrete, piling the weight of a cast iron V8 motor on his back - hitting him in the face and head with a club and fists 50 times, while tasering him in the face and genitals - even if the person has committed no crime - other than he "resisted" being grabbed.

If so, then the level of criminality, evil, and terrorism by the founding fathers and revolutionaries - presented as American heroes - is beyond imagination. They should be vilified as the worst people to have ever existed. Solely over petty taxes and not liking some laws, they murdered police and resisted the police with armed, deadly force. George Washington engaged in a mass terror attack brutally on Christmas Eve no less, slaughtering the police.

If merely pulling your arm away from a police officer is so criminal, so unacceptable and so necessitates justifiable unlimited violent assault, there is no conclusion it seems can be reached that not only were the "founding fathers" and all revolutionaries all deserving of death as the most evil people in US history, but the principles they claimed they were killing the police for was fundamentally wrong.

Your view?



I haven't seen anyone actually advocating such an extreme view as your first paragraph paints.


Also, there's a difference in that there is no popular revolution currently in progress. The American revolution was sponsored by the leaders of the various states (colonies, then) at the time, for another.


All I've said is that fighting the po-po on the side of the road is a bad idea and not going to end well for you. As long as we have the option to take it up in court or at the ballot box, those are better ways of dealing with the problem of excessive police violence than resorting to individual or mob violence.



That, and that I have no sympathy for actual robber-thugs who get killed in the act or resisting arrest.
 
I haven't seen anyone actually advocating such an extreme view as your first paragraph paints.


Also, there's a difference in that there is no popular revolution currently in progress. The American revolution was sponsored by the leaders of the various states (colonies, then) at the time, for another.


All I've said is that fighting the po-po on the side of the road is a bad idea and not going to end well for you. As long as we have the option to take it up in court or at the ballot box, those are better ways of dealing with the problem of excessive police violence than resorting to individual or mob violence.

I'm not advocating anything, just following some logic of others in an history perspective.

Yes, I agree with you that anything but total submissiveness to police is unwise - instant, total compliance whatever it is. A person is totally helpless and defenseless in the presence of the police, and curiously only the police it seems.

However, that generally does not just mean you fight it in court. What it actual means is you instantly totally lose all rights and liberties going to jail, and for many means they will lose their housing, ability to buy food, and their children are either largely on their own or also seized by the government, and their resume permanently damaged too. It isn't just "got to court in the future and tell you side." It is "immediately go to jail and be ruined otherwise." But not for a 1/10th of a second even think of making any objection, resistance or protest to this.

Not all leaders supported the revolution and it began more spontaneous, for which seeing armed protests breaking out in cities against law enforcement seemed to give many leaders (for the most part the super rich and influential) and opportunity to have their own country and more power for themselves.

I'm must raising a discussion about the American Revolution, not making a declaration about it for or against.
 
Now, having said that, I agree we have a problem with unjustified or questionable police violence in this country.


I regret to say I have had to change my view of police in general to "potentially dangerous in an unpredictable way, and not to be trusted more than is unavoidable" as a general rule of thumb.

Which is why I advocate police body cameras as a nation wide mandate. They're proven to cut down on use of force, and help separate legit claims of brutality from BS claims. Win-win. We need this.


We also need a different attitude about policing, and an understanding that the police are far more effective when trusted by the public..... and that that trust has to be earned.

A Brit member has convinced me that Peel's Principles would be a good place to start...

Peelian Principles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Over and over and over I read members posting that if a person shows the slightest physical resistance - just pulling an arm away when being grabbed at - or trying to shield his face while police are beating his face shouting "give me your arm (so you can't shield your face)" - that alone justifies throwing that person chest down on concrete, piling the weight of a cast iron V8 motor on his back - hitting him in the face and head with a club and fists 25 times, while tasering him in the face and genitals - even if the person has committed no crime - other than he "resisted" being grabbed.

If so, then the level of criminality, evil, and terrorism by the founding fathers and revolutionaries - presented as American heroes - is beyond imagination. Why aren't they vilified as the worst people to have ever lived in the USA. Solely over petty taxes and not liking some laws, they murdered police and resisted the police with armed, deadly force. George Washington engaged in a mass terror attack brutally on Christmas Eve no less, slaughtering the police.

If merely pulling your arm away from a police officer is so criminal, so unacceptable and so necessitates justifiable unlimited violent assault, there is no conclusion it seems can be reached that not only were the "founding fathers" and all revolutionaries all deserving of death as the most evil people in US history, but the principles they claimed they were killing the police for was fundamentally wrong.

Your view?



The USA's founding fathers fought for freedom for themselves, but they didn't give that freedom to black slaves or women when they set up the USA. :roll:
 
I'm not advocating anything, just following some logic of others in an history perspective.

Yes, I agree with you that anything but total submissiveness to police is unwise - instant, total compliance whatever it is. A person is totally helpless and defenseless in the presence of the police, and curiously only the police it seems.

However, that generally does not just mean you fight it in court. What it actual means is you instantly totally lose all rights and liberties going to jail, and for many means they will lose their housing, ability to buy food, and their children are either largely on their own or also seized by the government, and their resume permanently damaged too. It isn't just "got to court in the future and tell you side." It is "immediately go to jail and be ruined otherwise." But not for a 1/10th of a second even think of making any objection, resistance or protest to this.

Not all leaders supported the revolution and it began more spontaneous, for which seeing armed protests breaking out in cities against law enforcement seemed to give many leaders (for the most part the super rich and influential) and opportunity to have their own country and more power for themselves.

I'm must raising a discussion about the American Revolution, not making a declaration about it for or against.



Yeah, this is true, and for those who are actually innocent, it truly sucks.

If you can't bond out, you could sit awaiting trial literally for years. 30 days is usually enough to cost your job, and 90 days is often enough to cost most people their home. Lawyers, at least those worth spit on a griddle in the courtroom, are hideously expensive. That's another problem. "Public pretenders" aren't worth much mostly.


I'm not saying it doesn't need changed; it does.
 
The USA's founding fathers fought for freedom for themselves, but they didn't give that freedom to black slaves or women when they set up the USA. :roll:


Some wanted to. The economic and political problems in doing so delayed it for a few generations, but it eventually happened.
 
It was their homeland and they were victims of tyranny, and they didn't arm themselves for purpose of terrorizing or killing unarmed citizens in the vein of al qaeda or whatever. Now, they were possibly terrorists when they went after native tribes, who were likewise defending their lands
 
The USA's founding fathers fought for freedom for themselves, but they didn't give that freedom to black slaves or women when they set up the USA. :roll:

Yeah the revolution definitely wasn't an altruistic act
 
It was their homeland and they were victims of tyranny, and they didn't arm themselves for purpose of terrorizing or killing unarmed citizens in the vein of al qaeda or whatever. Now, they were possibly terrorists when they went after native tribes, who were likewise defending their lands

What tyranny? Taxes too high? Police bursting into their homes? Being jailed not having been found guilty of anything? Their personal property being seized? The police were not going around killing people. What was the tyranny?

The topic of Native Americans is a different, though I suppose related, topic.
 
Some wanted to. The economic and political problems in doing so delayed it for a few generations, but it eventually happened.



Correct, but you and I both know that it took quite a while and a civil war to make that happen.
 
Over and over and over I read members posting that if a person shows the slightest physical resistance - just pulling an arm away when being grabbed at - or trying to shield his face while police are beating his face shouting "give me your arm (so you can't shield your face)" - that alone justifies throwing that person chest down on concrete, piling the weight of a cast iron V8 motor on his back - hitting him in the face and head with a club and fists 25 times, while tasering him in the face and genitals - even if the person has committed no crime - other than he "resisted" being grabbed.

If so, then the level of criminality, evil, and terrorism by the founding fathers and revolutionaries - presented as American heroes - is beyond imagination. Why aren't they vilified as the worst people to have ever lived in the USA. Solely over petty taxes and not liking some laws, they murdered police and resisted the police with armed, deadly force. George Washington engaged in a mass terror attack brutally on Christmas Eve no less, slaughtering the police.

If merely pulling your arm away from a police officer is so criminal, so unacceptable and so necessitates justifiable unlimited violent assault, there is no conclusion it seems can be reached that not only were the "founding fathers" and all revolutionaries all deserving of death as the most evil people in US history, but the principles they claimed they were killing the police for was fundamentally wrong.

Your view?

My view is that you will build any strawman, invent or mischaracterize any event to forward your hatred of being policed. Revolution (successful) is not a good model to evaluate terrorism against. The police are not the agents of a foreign government. The police are the agents of your local government in which you have full representation and recourse.
 
What tyranny? Taxes too high? Police bursting into their homes? Being jailed not having been found guilty of anything? Their personal property being seized? The police were not going around killing people. What was the tyranny?

The topic of Native Americans is a different, though I suppose related, topic.

no representation, living under a police force they had no control over. Look what happened when they did take arms. They had every right to separate from a monarchy thousands of miles away that most had never even seen
 
My view is that you will build any strawman, invent or mischaracterize any event to forward your hatred of being policed. Revolution (successful) is not a good model to evaluate terrorism against. The police are not the agents of a foreign government. The police are the agents of your local government in which you have full representation and recourse.

Actually that is all wrong. Police are local, county, state and federal. The British police were no more foreign in American than the police are foreign in Hawaii. The British police in American were no different than the other British people living in America as everyone (not counting Native Americans and slaves) were all British citizens. An American British citizen has exactly the same rights as a British citizen in England did.

The movie "The Patriot" is one I particularly liked and even was in an argument with someone how in that movie the two young boys took up rifles to shot soldiers to save their brother - and how unthinkable it is to so many today of boys that young being trained in firearms and to have them use them for defense of the family.

In that movie, there is the line "Why would I replace 1 tyrant 3000 miles away for 3000 tyrants one mile away?"

There is merit in that question. Individually, what recourse does a person have? The only recourse any person has is the recourse others allow that person to have.
 
no representation, living under a police force they had no control over. Look what happened when they did take arms. They had every right to separate from a monarchy thousands of miles away that most had never even seen

What control do you have over the police force? Have you ever seen your police chief or President Obama personally?

A French philosopher named Torqueville traveled the USA way back went and marveled at the concept of democracy - that uneducated ordinary people would self govern. Yet he predicted that eventually it would become the most policed and regulated society of all, the tyranny of the mob combined with self interests.

His view what that the majority rarely agrees on anything and that everyone the majority doesn't like will thus be outlawed. In this, nearly everything will become illegal or at least everything extremely regulated. Given that most people are low educated, this also meant the government would come to have unlimited power as the importance of any one individual increasingly diminished. What is the power of 1/350,000,000th of the whole group? None.

There are now billions of pages of laws, ordinances, regulations and rules - for which we are required to know all of them. "Breaking the law" is self proving misconduct of itself. It has evolved to even momentary mere resistance is intolerable. The power of authority absolute. The power of the individual against authority
diminished to nothingness. Forget about the instinct of repelling against adversely being grabbed at. Figure how to block the instinct to cover your face if being beaten or resisting your arm twisted up behind your back. Condition to be silent while your body and face are being rammed down into concrete.

Do you REALLY think this is what the American Revolutionaries were fighting for? That they were outraged at how weak and tolerate the police and the British crown
was?

The very first roots of the American Revolution actually began with backwoods mountain folks who were increasingly responding to being told what to do by the police by shooting them. Way out in the mountains, it was easy enough to get away with. The idea of just killing the "redcoats" (the police, which also were the local police in many instances caught hold). When it got big enough, then and only then did the rich and famous decide to go for creating their own country.

"He resisted authority" - and solely for that reason is beaten or crushed to otherwise lethally assaulted. That is what Torqueville believed the American concept of rule by the uneducated masses would ultimately lead to.
 
Actually that is all wrong. Police are local, county, state and federal. The British police were no more foreign in American than the police are foreign in Hawaii. The British police in American were no different than the other British people living in America as everyone (not counting Native Americans and slaves) were all British citizens. An American British citizen has exactly the same rights as a British citizen in England did.

The movie "The Patriot" is one I particularly liked and even was in an argument with someone how in that movie the two young boys took up rifles to shot soldiers to save their brother - and how unthinkable it is to so many today of boys that young being trained in firearms and to have them use them for defense of the family.

In that movie, there is the line "Why would I replace 1 tyrant 3000 miles away for 3000 tyrants one mile away?"

There is merit in that question. Individually, what recourse does a person have? The only recourse any person has is the recourse others allow that person to have.

They WERE agents of a foreign government by the time George Washington was involved. And really, you don't know what recourse you have to something you suspect is local police brutality? Really, you can say that with a straight face?

Btw, yes, I have met and spoken with the Beaverton Chief of Police. That you haven't met yours, that's all on you.
 
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They WERE agents of a foreign government by the time George Washington was involved. And really, you don't know what recourse you have to something you suspect is local police brutality? Really, you can say that with a straight face?

There is the video of the fellow who went to police stations to ask for a form to report police misconduct. He was refused. Told to leave. Harassed and even arrested instead.

There is the video also on the forum of the woman who was video taping and arrest, she was ordered to move her car, didn't because police standing around her, but an officer slammed on the floor outside the view of the camera and then jerked her out of the car, threw her down and arrested her falsely for attempting to run over the police - taking her phone and erasing the video. Fortunately, she was one of the 100 people who had her phone backed up by a cloud.

Has that officer been charged with anything? No. Will anything undo her being assaulted? The cost of the bond or her car impouned? The arrest of attempted murder of a police officer on her record? That is permanent.

What is her recourse?

Tell me what you think is the recourse a person has to police abuse?

Maybe surprisingly, I'm not totally against police abuse and sometime think it's a good idea and the right thing to do. BUT that is those instances it is merited. Slug a police officer just to do so? Beat the hell out of that guy, sure. Lesson learned. There are other instances.

Mr. Garner didn't even begin to approach it in my view. Yet the question isn't about "recourse." "Recourse" will not undo anything. The question is about the requirement of absolute, total and instant submissiveness.
 
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Over and over and over I read members posting that if a person shows the slightest physical resistance - just pulling an arm away when being grabbed at - or trying to shield his face while police are beating his face shouting "give me your arm (so you can't shield your face)" - that alone justifies throwing that person chest down on concrete, piling the weight of a cast iron V8 motor on his back - hitting him in the face and head with a club and fists 25 times, while tasering him in the face and genitals - even if the person has committed no crime - other than he "resisted" being grabbed.

If so, then the level of criminality, evil, and terrorism by the founding fathers and revolutionaries - presented as American heroes - is beyond imagination. Why aren't they vilified as the worst people to have ever lived in the USA. Solely over petty taxes and not liking some laws, they murdered police and resisted the police with armed, deadly force. George Washington engaged in a mass terror attack brutally on Christmas Eve no less, slaughtering the police.

If merely pulling your arm away from a police officer is so criminal, so unacceptable and so necessitates justifiable unlimited violent assault, there is no conclusion it seems can be reached that not only were the "founding fathers" and all revolutionaries all deserving of death as the most evil people in US history, but the principles they claimed they were killing the police for was fundamentally wrong.

Your view?

My view is that the cause of our credit towards the founding fathers being heroes is only because the American revolution was achieved. Right now police militarization and the British military are a little different in aspects surrounding the history of then and now. You have to realize what had occurred that actually caused the revolution to happen. The United States sent a deceleration of independence because the British parliament wouldn't recognize the American colonies as being an active member in the British empire.

So initially the circumstances are different because we have given the police this role in our existence. I think a more proper discussion would be something to the effect of if Puerto Rico wanted independence and we sent our military there. The problem is that this militarized colonialization has occurred throughout our history

I honor the founding fathers because of their initial attempts to destroy monarchies and extreme governments tyrannical abusing citizens. We need to understand the messages of people like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson because the initial governmental policies we have had throughout our history is been the opposite of the actual purpose of the revolution in the first place
 
Whether the Founders and company were heroes, freedom fighters etc or traitors and terrorists depended on which side of the fight you were on, mainly.


The judgment of history is they were heroes and freedom fighters... because we won.



"Treason doth never prosper.
Why doth it never prosper?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason!" - Will S.
 
There is the video of the fellow who went to police stations to ask for a form to report police misconduct. He was refused. Told to leave. Harassed and even arrested instead.

Tell me what you think is the recourse a person has to police abuse?

Maybe surprisingly, I'm not totally against police abuse and sometime think it's a good idea and the right thing to do. BUT that is those instances it is merited. Slug a police officer just to do so? Beat the hell out of that guy, sure. Lesson learned. There are other instances.

Mr. Garner didn't even begin to approach it in my view.

You speak with your state representative and the state police about your complaint. The state DOJ will gladly hear from you. And that's all without even having to mention the federal option. You have the civil option of going to court. And hell, you can easily go to the press. You are really that unaware of the system you've lived in your entire life? That's not the system's fault, that's yours.
 
The USA's founding fathers fought for freedom for themselves, but they didn't give that freedom to black slaves or women when they set up the USA. :roll:

Nor did any other country at that time....IIRC

Oh it was outlawed in Iceland in the 1100s.
 
"Treason doth never prosper.
Why doth it never prosper?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason!" - Will S.

Great quote.
 
You speak with your state representative and the state police about your complaint. The state DOJ will gladly hear from you. And that's all without even having to mention the federal option. You have the civil option of going to court. And hell, you can easily go to the press. You are really that unaware of the system you've lived in your entire life? That's not the system's fault, that's yours.

At what stage does that bring Mr. Garner back to life?
 
The movie "The Patriot" is one I particularly liked and even was in an argument with someone how in that movie the two young boys took up rifles to shot soldiers to save their brother - and how unthinkable it is to so many today of boys that young being trained in firearms and to have them use them for defense of the family.
Times change.
Perspectives change.
Nowadays, those un-uniformed boys would be called "unlawful enemy combatants" and sent to Gitmo, or worse.
 
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