• w2tpmf@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were born in Virginia. Ben Franklin was born in Pennsylvania. 48 of the 56 signers of the declaration were born in America. Only two were born in England.

      Please tell us how these men fled from the British empire.

    • TheChurn@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      They rebelled against the empire because they wanted lower taxes. The freedom from tyranny narrative was concocted to get buy in from the lower classes who had to actually die for the revolution to succeed.

      The rehtoric never matched reality - “All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights”… except all those slaves and Indians.

      • Dadd Volante@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        It wasn’t really the taxes, that was their excuse to get the masses to agree to a rebellion.

        The main reason was land. They wanted to expand west to continue growing cotton and tobacco. Kentucky and Tennessee were ripe for cultivation, however, the British empire had made a proclamation in the 1760s saying the colonies were not allowed to expand further into native territory.

        The taxes were a tactic to get the poor people to die for them, so they could get rich off of stealing more land for these crops that destroyed the soil they already had

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Citation needed. Please show me how you are able to determine the motivation of people who died about 2 centuries before you were born and by the records we have of them show that they argued about everything, hence are unlikely to have a shared conspiratorial vision.

            • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Citation needed. Please show me how you are able to determine the motivation of people who died about 2 centuries before you were born and by the records we have of them show that they argued about everything, hence are unlikely to have a shared conspiratorial vision.

              Since you evidently need to be reminded what I asked you not what you wanted me to ask you.

      • MxM111@kbin.social
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        6 months ago

        Taxes by somebody else (taxation without representation) is a sort of non-freedom too.
        Yes, it took some time to implement principles in federal constitution in all the states.

        • TheChurn@kbin.social
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          6 months ago

          “No taxation without representation” is also a drastically misunderstood line.

          What they were effectively asking for was self-governance, being removed from parliamentary control.

          Given the technological limitations of the time, there was no way to effect a representative scheme in parliament with a constituency that was a 12-week round trip away. Furthermore, there were serious discussions of adding seats to parliament for the colonies, and the colonies refused to send anyone.

          The Assembly of Massachusetts Bay was the first which ever took exception to the right of Parliament to impose Duties or Taxes on the Colonies, whilst they had no representatives in the House of Commons. This they did in a letter to their Agent in the summer of 1764 … And in this letter they recommend to him a pamphlet, wrote by one of their members, in which there are proposals for admitting representatives from the Colonies to fit in the House of Commons … an American representation is thrown out as an expedient which might obviate the objections to Taxes upon the Colonies, yet … it was renounced … by the Assembly of the Colony which first proposed it, as utterly impracticable.

          And

          Whilst [the radical colonists] exclaim against Parliament for taxing them when they are not represented, they candidly declare they will not have representatives [in Parliament] lest they should be taxed … The truth … is that they are determined to get rid of the jurisdiction of Parliament … and they therefore refuse to send members to that assembly lest they should preclude themselves of [the] plea [that Parliament’s] legislative acts … are done without their consent; which, it must be confessed, holds equally good against all laws, as against taxes … The colony advocates … tell us, that by refusing to accept our offer of representatives they … mean to avoid giving Parliament a pretence for taxing them

          • MxM111@kbin.social
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            6 months ago

            What they were effectively asking for was self-governance, being removed from parliamentary control.

            Yes, how else it can be interpreted? This is what freedom is on state level - self governance.

            • TheChurn@kbin.social
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              6 months ago

              how else can it be interpreted?

              As a call for representation in Parliament, the body levying taxes.

              The slogan wasn’t “No taxation unless we are an independent political entity”.

              • MxM111@kbin.social
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                6 months ago

                I don’t know. Since this slogan was always related to revolution against British, I always thought it was not about “gives us representation”, but about “stop taxing us, we want to be free of you”.

      • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        Why pay taxes if you could just kill them all ? I can understand if you were in england, kind hard to escape them or exterminate them. But in america, the few of them that would cross the ocean, can just be disposed of as they arrive, already exhausted from the trip. Why give them a single penny ?

    • testfactor@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      You know, that definition of flee where you stay put and don’t go anywhere. I like that definition of the word too. ;)