Happy Independence Day, y’all. Welcome back to the Gilman House. I know it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted, but I had been kinda burned out. I’m hoping to get back to posting content now.
But enough about that. We’re here today to talk about the 4th of July, otherwise known as Independence Day. As any grade school kid can tell you, Independence Day is the annual holiday that marks the moment when proto-America declared that it wasn’t going to listen to Daddy England anymore. No, it was going to pack up its shit and head out into the world alone. Maybe they would start a band. It would be great.
England of course respected this decision and everything was cool forever.
Yea turns out that tyrannical governments don’t just let you leave without a fight. Of course we know what happened in the end. The brave Patriots defeated the mightiest empire in the world, with no help at all from anyone else, and now we celebrate Independence Day by blowing our own hands off with fireworks.
Anyway, fast forward like 300 years and we find ourselves in a remarkably similar situation to what the Founding Fathers found themselves in way back in the 1700’s. Don’t believe me? Let’s go down the list, and let’s see how that rebellious teen ended up turning into dear old dad in the end after all.
Taxation Without Representation
The number one reason that the Revolution happened, we are often told, is because England was unfairly taxing the colonies while denying them seats in the House of Representatives. The argument was that if the government was taking our money, obviously we should have some say in where that money is going, and the chance to represent the interests of the colonies for policy legislation.
Sounds reasonable. I mean, we’ll ignore the fact that the founding fathers weren’t actually talking about representation for everyone. Just land-owning, white men. What demographic were the fathers again?
Everyone else was kinda shit out of luck. Yes, including poor white men.
But anyway, the point is that people were pissed at being taxed and then having their opinions ignored. Who wouldn’t be? So they ended up fighting a whole revolution to get some of that sweet, sweet representation.
Present Day
So being that we fought a whole war over this issue, it would logically follow that we would ensure that this never happened again. Right? Right? You already know what’s coming.
Turns out that in today’s world, we have little to no say in what laws get passed in our own country. We do get taxed though. Like a lot. And as our libertarian friends love reminding us every tax season, taxation (without proper representation) is theft. Yes I changed it, because their actual credo is stupid. But that’s a topic for another day.
What happened the last time our government taxed the shit out of its citizenry and refused to give them a meaningful voice in that government?
Global Empire
One of the defining features of the British Empire was that it spanned the entirety of the world. Hence the famous saying, “The sun never sets on the British Empire”. Well, nowadays the saying should be amended to be, “The sun never sets on the American Empire.”
But wait, you cry out from your Cheeto-stained computer chair. America isn’t an empire! It’s a democracy!
First of all no it isn’t. It was originally intended to be a democratic republic. Not the same thing. Second of all, it isn’t even that really.
America is an empire.
Consider all of the American territories throughout the world. In addition to what we call the “mainland”, continental United States, we have Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Northern Marianas, and many more small islands that we’ve just sort of “acquired” since the end of World War II.
That’s a lot of territory when you add it all up. And it’s all. over. the planet. Remind you of anything?
And that’s not even taking into consideration all of the economic control America exerts around the world. Consider, as an example, what the US has done to Venezuela. Venezuela was on its way to being a fine socialist nation before the US decided that wasn’t “correct”. So they’ve waged economic warfare on Venezuela for decades in the form of sanctions and embargoes. The result is the Venezuela of today.
Other examples would include Cuba, most of the Middle East, and basically all of Central and South America. The United States also has some capitalistic claws embedded in Western Europe.
Lastly, we have military bases in almost every country on the planet, and we tend to liberally send the army everywhere on “peacekeeping” missions. This definition of peace seems to be “when everyone is dead, there will be peace”.
So we’ve got a world-wide empire that, dare I say it, even outstrips the British one at its height. Seems like a good candidate for a villain that needs to be overthrown.
Largest Military Ever
This is a short one. At the time of the Revolution, the British military was arguably the best in the world. Unrivaled dominance on the sea, better equipped and trained soldiers than other countries (certainly better than the fledgling colonies), and the best tacticians around.
Compare this to the United States of today. We have the largest military ever. No, seriously. In the history of the world, there has never been a larger or more well equipped military. That’s a little ridiculous.
And just like the British Empire before us, we use it to enforce our own agenda throughout the world. Just ask Brazil, Cuba, or any other country that has had the misfortune to do something the US doesn’t like that day about that.
Protests Heralding Revolution
Hey so who remembers this thing called the Boston Tea Party? Probably all of you considering it’s one of two major events that gets drilled into our heads when we learn about the Revolution (the other being the Boston Massacre, which I’ll get to in a second).
The “tea party”, besides being another example of our less-than-stellar track record when it comes racial sensitivity, was a protest based on the tax placed on tea. People didn’t like paying more for tea so they threw it in the harbor. Was it illegal? Yes it was. But they protested anyway.
How about the Boston Massacre? This is the one where a group of protestors were gathered around protesting general unfairness. The twitchy British soldiers fired a shot (or maybe a stone was thrown first, the exact instigating factor is unclear) and before anyone really knew what was happening, five protestors were dead and six had been injured.
Unlike today, the soldiers are actually arrested and tried, some being found guilty of manslaughter. Pity we don’t do that anymore when the cops brutalize protestors.
These events, and others, eventually led to the revolution being declared and are the reason we have an Independence Day today. You’ll notice that these events began as simple protests. Kinda like what’s happening right now.
So What’s The Point, Man?
The point is that the last time we had a tyrannical government that ignored our voices and did whatever it wanted in our names we didn’t take it lying down. We stood up and changed things. The Founders didn’t let the fact that they were up against the largest military power in the world deter them. They did it anyway because it was the right thing to do.
So am I saying that we should rise up, take up arms, and launch another bloody revolution? No, because that would be considered inciting a riot and I don’t have a lawyer on retainer.
I’m just saying that history has shown us that it is possible to triumph against impossible odds. David beats Goliath. The colonies beat Britain (with a fuck ton of help, but still). We can beat our own tyrannical government.
So this Independence Day, while you’re sitting around your grill in your hermetically sealed apartment, using skewers and those weird grabby-hand things to pass hotdogs and hamburgers around while you stand a responsible distance away from each other, just take a moment to reflect on these things.
We did it once. We can do it again. Maybe we can even do it right this time.