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July 4, 2018
Looking back on past patriotic posts
Holidays always seem to make me want to look back, and I always get a special kick out of mining the archives of this blog (which has been going now for more than 14 years). Reviewing the archives, I realize I have not regularly done a special Independence Day post, but every so often I am inspired to do so. Looking back, I particularly recall an effort to honor Frederick Douglass's famed Independence Day oration from 1852 through a post titled "What to the American imprisoned is the Fourth of July?".
Here are a few other posts on this patriotic day from years past (folks can try to guess the year of the post for sport):
- Celebrating liberty, Blakely-style
- Celebrating liberty in the country leading the world in incarceration rates
- Celebrating our declaration of rights to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"
- An Independence Day open thread seeking comments on liberty and freedom in the US
- Another July 4th open thread seeking comments on liberty and freedom in the USA
- Celebrating "the blessing of liberty" as the big winner in the SCOTUS Term just completed
- "Everyone should go to jail, say, once every ten years"
Also interesting in hindsight is a post from a decade ago, "Thinking creatively about different SCOTUS short lists," which is a reminder that just 10 years ago there was all sorts of pre-2008-election chatter about whom Prez candidates Barack Obama and John McCain might appoint to the Supreme Court. In addition to thinking about how much (and how little) has changed in the past 10 years, that post led me to thinking about how much (and how little) can and will change in the next 10 years.
July 4, 2018 at 10:36 AM | Permalink
Comments
This is an analysis I made a decade ago.
The Revolutionary War Was Just Another Huge Lawyer Elite Mistake.
Taxes were doubled from 1% to 2% of GDP. The lawyer elite did not want to pay. They come up with a lot of liberal masking ideology bullshit to start a catastrophic war with England. It was strictly about the money. All claimed liberties were to go only to this lawyer white elite and to their pals.
Where was this taxation to go? It was to go to the ruinous cost of the English military in perpetual war against Native Americans, attacking the interests of the white lawyer elite.
With the help of France, they beat the English. Twice, again in 1812.
Had we stayed an English colony, slavery would have ended in 1833, by law, not in 1863, by war. This law would have been enforced by a sheriff, not by an army causing 850,000 deaths. Race relations would have been resolved quickly, not over 150 years.
In the first application of judicial review, 50 years after the Marbury decision, lawyer dunderhead, Roger Taney, cancelled the Missouri Compromise and violated a ratified international treaty by the Dred Scot decision. That was a major factor setting off the Civil War. Did you know, the decision is covered in high school, but for some strange reason, not law school?
Distance learning lawyer, Abe Lincoln, Mr. "Please, Do Not Sue Your Neighbor," still had a chance to avoid war. He was proposed several alternatives. This lawyer dunderhead chose war, to explode the size of government, a wholly owned subsidiary of the lawyer profession.
Under English rule, we would have had a Parliamentary democracy, as Canada does. We would be less extreme, less crazy, more like Canada.
July 4 is less a day for celebration of freedom, more a day of bereavement for lawyer stupidity and selfishness.
Posted by: David Behar | Jul 4, 2018 12:54:51 PM
France was upset by its losses in the French and Indian War. That is where George Washington learned the military leadership business.
France was too weak and poor to confront the British. So the French hatched a scheme to undermine the colonies, with undue influence on the decision to get Independence. They secretly supplied 90% of the initial funding. Ben Franklin had secret meetings with French officials at a hotel, le Comte de Vergennes. A covert campaign on social media was launched to demonize the British.
The naïve lawyers of the Colonies were no match for the experienced and scheming French plotters.
Posted by: David Behar | Jul 4, 2018 9:44:37 PM
I am calling for an investigation into French collusion. The investigation will go back 240 years, but that is not a problem. Robert Mueller can be named to head the investigation.
Posted by: David Behar | Jul 4, 2018 9:52:18 PM
