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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 said:
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.

"
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Those mountain folks lived in areas that were very difficult to travel to and among; they were very isolated. They had kin and neighbors around who would help and cover up whatever needed covering. There was no rapid overland transportation, and no instant communication as there is today. Those folks were on the edges of the frontier and accustomed to making their own way, their own "law", and enforcing it.


Nothing really quite like that nowadays.
 
joko104 said:
At what stage does that bring Mr. Garner back to life?
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Nobody said it would. At what stage would fighting have preserved his life? He was outnumbered and out gunned.
 
There is no money or staff for 400,000 rape kits. What does that mean?

Memphis is hardly the only city that has started tackling the backlog. After 11,000 untested rape kits were discovered in a Detroit police storage facility in 2009, 1,600 have been tested and about 100 serial rapists have been identified—with 10 of them already convicted. Meanwhile, Cleveland police have cleared their backlog, sending the last of 3,985 rape kits discovered in 2009 for DNA testing this summer. So far, about 170 men have been indicted thanks to the forensic evidence.

There are hundreds of thousands of unsolved major felonies. Not enough staff. Not enough manpower.

But there is the money and time to have 4 officers take down a man that someone phoned in saying he was selling cigarettes one at a time without a license. There is time and money to have 4 officers present to arrest 2 girls for selling lemonaide. There is enough jail space for millions, but not enough then for truly murderous criminals. There is plenty of money for armies of regulators and inspectors for the billions of pages of regulations.

It has become about the words "the law" - and whether than means jaywalking or being a serial rapist, there is no distinction - other than a ticket to that jaywalker is profitable.

I'll ask it again. Do you think that is what the American Revolutionaries were fighting for under such banners as live free or die?
 
joko104 said:
At what stage does that bring Mr. Garner back to life?
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It doesn't.
Clownboy is simply saying that there are avenues for a redress of grievances.
How effective those avenues actually are is the big question.
To the best of my knowledge, the cop who applied the banned chokehold in the Garner case was not punished.
He's really, really sorry, though.
 
Brave people who resisted a dictatorial regime oppressing them from far away. That oppression was violent, unjust and ill conceived and the revolution was totally justified IMHO.
 
joko104 said:
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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They were traitors to their country. They led a violent rebellion against their king, in order to avoid paying taxes. The decision to eventually give up, on the part of the British government, was one of the worst government mistakes in the history of the world, albeit understandable given their lack of hindsight.

As a side note, the thirteen colonies were the most lightly taxed and leniently ruled parts of the British Colonial Empire, which goes to show that rebellious movements must be thoroughly crushed from the start and not pandered to.
 
Goshin said:
Nobody said it would. At what stage would fighting have preserved his life? He was outnumbered and out gunned.
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At no stage could he have preserved his life. To your point of how things are now that a person should instantly and totally be submissive we are not in dispute.
 
radioman said:
It doesn't.
Clownboy is simply saying that there are avenues for a redress of grievances.
How effective those avenues actually are is the big question.
To the best of my knowledge, the cop who applied the banned chokehold in the Garner case was not punished.
He's really, really sorry, though.
Click to expand...

I am not in any manner supporting looting or arson in this comment. But having made that condition, "riots" that threaten the orderliness of "power" in such raw numbers and destructive force sometimes is the only thing likely to bring major change. The American Revolution was an extremely violent - and organized - "riot" in a sense, though became one very structured and more appearing then military.

It was riots that brought down the monarchy in France. Mob actions that often have the greatest effect. Yet the effect can be even by a few.

I read some time ago that the government had basically given farmers any loans they wanted, their family farms for generations as collateral. The economy turned south as did crop prices, and banks began a mass campaign of foreclosures and seizing all equipment. Then one day an old farmer, ordinary guy, wired the end of a 12 gauge barrel to the back of a banker's neck - and the protests at farms was growing - with growing concern the farmers were going to start shooting. The foreclosures stopped. Though certainly that old man went to prison.

The destruction, protests, political fall out, media attention, all will have effect as it motivates those in power and of wealth to act. The one thing that the most powerful and wealthy are vulnerable is to violence, the only threat they have. As long as people are docile, it is no threat. If they aren't, everything they have, their city, their wealth or even their own lives go at risk.

That sounds like advocacy of revolution, but it isn't. It is about the ying-yang balance of power. There should not be too much power in the hands of authority. There should not be too much power in the hands of the mob. Where is the balance?

When police can gang jump people merely for momentarily resisting just being questioned about something petty - and this resulting in violence against those citizens resulting in their deaths - the power is too shifted to authority. I do not mean Michael Brown. I mean Mr. Garner.

It is a question of power. If it goes too far one way or the other, the result will be counter power and often violently and destructively.
 
Paleocon said:
As a side note, the thirteen colonies were the most lightly taxed and leniently ruled parts of the British Colonial Empire, which goes to show that rebellious movements must be thoroughly crushed from the start and not pandered to.
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Great post, Paleo!!
You've secured my vote downstairs.
Well done.
 
Paleocon said:
What does that mean?
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Well, with the Vegas rules and all, I have to be cautious here.
Does your computer have a "basement"?
Can you go "downstairs"?
 
radioman said:
Well, with the Vegas rules and all, I have to be cautious here.
Does your computer have a "basement"?
Can you go "downstairs"?
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What on Earth are you going on about?
 
Goshin said:
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.
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I think the OP has a point, but as you point out, it is portrayed in the extreme. What most people are saying regarding alleged resisting arrest is more practical advice.

However, to the OP's general point, I do believe that our founders would be portrayed as hooligans and criminals in today's world, especially by our own government, and double-especially if their actions were to be directed at our own government. That's the funny thing thing about revolution, the righteousness of the cause is really irrelevant. It's who the cause is against that matters.

I probably went too far off-topic. Sorry.
 
joko104 said:
I am not in any manner supporting looting or arson in this comment. But having made that condition, "riots" that threaten the orderliness of "power" in such raw numbers and destructive force sometimes is the only thing likely to bring major change. The American Revolution was an extremely violent - and organized - "riot" in a sense, though became one very structured and more appearing then military.

It was riots that brought down the monarchy in France. Mob actions that often have the greatest effect. Yet the effect can be even by a few.

I read some time ago that the government had basically given farmers any loans they wanted, their family farms for generations as collateral. The economy turned south as did crop prices, and banks began a mass campaign of foreclosures and seizing all equipment. Then one day an old farmer, ordinary guy, wired the end of a 12 gauge barrel to the back of a banker's neck - and the protests at farms was growing - with growing concern the farmers were going to start shooting. The foreclosures stopped. Though certainly that old man went to prison.

The destruction, protests, political fall out, media attention, all will have effect as it motivates those in power and of wealth to act. The one thing that the most powerful and wealthy are vulnerable is to violence, the only threat they have. As long as people are docile, it is no threat. If they aren't, everything they have, their city, their wealth or even their own lives go at risk.

That sounds like advocacy of revolution, but it isn't. It is about the ying-yang balance of power. There should not be too much power in the hands of authority. There should not be too much power in the hands of the mob. Where is the balance?

When police can gang jump people merely for momentarily resisting just being questioned about something petty - and this resulting in violence against those citizens resulting in their deaths - the power is too shifted to authority. I do not mean Michael Brown. I mean Mr. Garner.

It is a question of power. If it goes too far one way or the other, the result will be counter power and often violently and destructively.
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As I've been saying, the Ferguson riots and the rancher thing out west, along with a lot of other smaller, less noticed events, are part of a push-back effect that is beginning to gain steam in this country, pushing back against government overreach, authoritarianism, and excessive use of force by government agents and police.


People tend to focus on the specific events where the push-back happens, like Brown and that rancher whose name escapes me at the moment... and say "well, they were in the wrong, per XYZ blah blah".... yes, that's true. The rancher's claims to the grazing without taxes were dubious, and Brown was a violent thug who probably did attack that officer violently.

BUT that isn't the whole point.... you have to look at the big picture, and the big picture is a LOT of people are growing uneasy, dissatisfied and edgy about various forms of government overreach and excessive force, and there is an undercurrent of anger, distrust and frustration building, looking for excuses to be vented. Neither Brown nor the rancher were good examples as both were questionable, but when The People get mad enough they don't care.


I'm expecting to see more Push-back in the near future...
 
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