French block airlift of British troops to Basra

Stephen Harding wrote in message ...
Vince Brannigan wrote:

Peter McLelland wrote:


It is interesting that the constitution they
adopted was merely an improved version of the UK one with and elected
second house and an elected king.

Actually no. The US federal system was a complex balance of powoer on
both national and local levels that had no UK counterpart. States in
fact were much closer to the UK model than the Federal government.

I believe David McCulloch's book "John Adams" says that a committee was
formed to study various forms of democratic government through history,
in order to attempt to discover strengths and weaknesses of the various
forms. I think John Adams was a member of this committee because of an
earlier work he did on the subject.

The prime mover was of course James Madison, who certainly borrowed
ideas on democratic governance from others, but the form of the US
government, as defined by its Constitution, was pretty well original
in its sum.

Certainly not a rip off ["mere improvement"] of the British system.

From my view point, for what that is worth, I think the revolutionary
constitutin was an excellent piece of work but you cannot deny that
many aspects of it were very much driven by the UK model which was
before the US developed their republican model one of the most
democratic systems, with the possible exception of the Netherlands,
about at the time.

Peter

Stephen Harding wrote in message ...
Peter McLelland wrote:

Stephen Harding wrote in message ...
Vince Brannigan wrote:


A description of some activities in the American colonies. Not a characterization
of the pro-Revolution crowd.

Smuggling was rampant and England as well at the same time. Prominent people
also benefited from it, as they did from piracy as well. Doesn't make England
an nation of pirates, or any opposition to the crown driven by it.

It's a lame, one dimensional characterization.

Whilst smuggling was common on both side of the Atlantic, in the UK it
was accepted that it was against the law, where as in the colonies the
attitude was that whether it was against the law or not it should be
allowed, smuggling was one of the new American freedoms

"Smuggling" in America was often simply not selling, or more importantly,
not buying, goods from Britain as required of a good colony.

Remember, the concept of having a colony was to buy raw materials from
the colony at low cost, and then sell manufactured goods from those raw
materials at high cost.

Did I ever say this was not the case, most of the basis of the revolt
in America was economic.

The issue of whether the owners were in the majority is meaningless.
rich americans are currently in the minority but control everything for
their benefit./

Fair enough. But if you're talking revolution, and a very risky one at that,
you'd better have more than the landed, propertied gentry involved. You need
some help from common people who think the activity is going to get them more
than just killed, imprisoned or financially destitute.

Much of the 'political' agitation which helped lead up to the revolt
in the colonies was orchestrated by a few 'professional' agitators who
had skipped to the colonies after the UK had become to hot for them.
The story they promoted in America was much the same as they had tried
in the UK, but in the US they managed to get serious backing from a
number of the large landowner/business men in the colonies, who could
see that independance would be financialy beneficial for them and
their friends.

Ahhh yes, the evil corporate interests were doing their despicable deeds
even then! And they did it much as they do it today, with such skill and
subtlety, that the dumb public has no clue they've been manipulated.

I hear this all the time about todays politics, so it is interesting to
see this theme being retrofitted to past history.

Much of recent history has been greatly influenced by economic
considerations, dammit the whole British Empire was based on the
generation of wealth from the colonies. There is no real reason to
shay away from such things, it is what drove all our for fathers, and
what drioves us.

Peter

Owe Jessen wrote in message . ..
Am Mon, 06 Oct 2003 12:13:48 -0400, schrieb Stephen Harding
:


You're wrong. The American colonies had a very large middle class. A high
percentage of property owners, particularly farmers, but also tradesmen and
professionals. It's something very few societies have been able to accomplish.

This is very important in interpreting the motivation in favor of revolution.
American colonists by and large were not landless, propertyless, angry people
with nothing to lose by going against a powerful colonial establishment.



Wasn't the french revolution primarily driven by the middle classes as
well? Historyically, as tought in the school, these revolutions (like
those of 1848) were a move of the people who had economic power to
gain political power as well.

Most political change has been driven by those who generate the
wealth, if for no other reason they can 'pay the npiper', and stand to
gain the most. Even the Russian revolution was driven by those who had
the fortune to be born into famillies that could affod education. The
poor are forever the foot soldiers.

Peter

Stephen Harding wrote in message ...
Brian Sharrock wrote:

From your side of the Atlantic, I suppose everybody over the
horizon seems to be 'Euro', but to me, a Briton, the idea that
there'' some kind of "Euro spin" over the rebellion of some British
colonists funded by the French Kingdom in the furtherance of a
republic is laughable. I know it's probalby hard to examine the

I understand there are "Europeans" and there are "Britons". I've
become quite anti-European as I age and carelessly lumped the UK with
Europe. I think most Americans consider the Brits "different" from
the "Continentals" even though technically (I think), you're all Euros.

That perhaps is the source of the American problem with Europe. Europe
is complex, it is dynamic, and it is often just as perverse as the
USA. We cannot all be lumped together in one pot, but our difference
are different to US internal differences, so you tend to ignore them,
a mistake I fear. Just as an example, I am British, but I am a Scot
also, I also hold and am proud to do so the Queens commision. My
allegances are complex, but we can cope with this, and it helps
sometimes when we are faced with situations like the Balkans, because
we understand that there are layers of what matters. Life is complex.


underlying myths and shillobeths that you've been taught since
Kindergarden but perhaps not everything you've be taught is true?
Most folks get older, I nearly said mature, on along the way towards
the grave cope, or adjust, to the reality of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy
and other props ...

Ahh yes, the characterization of those who disagree with you as ignorant or
naive, and certainly in need of true education.

Not eally cultures differ, what is important to me, and makes me take
action may well be different to the things that make my neighbor get
going. I know I see things differently to many in the US, but I can
see that we do have many common values and that by working together we
can peerhaps solve some of the worlds problems.

That does not mean that I will ever be able to understand baseball,
although I think I see thepoint of US Football, which is in my opinion
a poor substitute for the mans game Rugby.

Conservatives seem to trash political opponents as "immoral" while liberals
seem to go the "ignorant" route. You seem to be liberal

As long as you keep lower case letters for liberal and conservative IK
dont actually see them as incompatible philosophies.

Peter

(Peter McLelland) wrote in message . com...
Stephen Harding wrote in message ...
Brian Sharrock wrote:

From your side of the Atlantic, I suppose everybody over the
horizon seems to be 'Euro', but to me, a Briton, the idea that
there'' some kind of "Euro spin" over the rebellion of some British
colonists funded by the French Kingdom in the furtherance of a
republic is laughable. I know it's probalby hard to examine the

I understand there are "Europeans" and there are "Britons". I've
become quite anti-European as I age and carelessly lumped the UK with
Europe. I think most Americans consider the Brits "different" from
the "Continentals" even though technically (I think), you're all Euros.

That perhaps is the source of the American problem with Europe. Europe
is complex, it is dynamic, and it is often just as perverse as the
USA. We cannot all be lumped together in one pot, but our difference
are different to US internal differences, so you tend to ignore them,
a mistake I fear. Just as an example, I am British, but I am a Scot
also, I also hold and am proud to do so the Queens commision. My
allegances are complex, but we can cope with this, and it helps
sometimes when we are faced with situations like the Balkans, because
we understand that there are layers of what matters. Life is complex.


underlying myths and shillobeths that you've been taught since
Kindergarden but perhaps not everything you've be taught is true?
Most folks get older, I nearly said mature, on along the way towards
the grave cope, or adjust, to the reality of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy
and other props ...

Ahh yes, the characterization of those who disagree with you as ignorant or
naive, and certainly in need of true education.

Not eally cultures differ, what is important to me, and makes me take
action may well be different to the things that make my neighbor get
going. I know I see things differently to many in the US, but I can
see that we do have many common values and that by working together we
can peerhaps solve some of the worlds problems.

That does not mean that I will ever be able to understand baseball,
although I think I see thepoint of US Football, which is in my opinion
a poor substitute for the mans game Rugby.

That is true. My grandfather played both pro rugby and US Football.
And insisted to his dying day that only a Scot would be stupid
enough to show up at a Football game dressed for rugby. Since even
the English have brains enough to bring pool sticks.

Stephen Harding wrote in message ...
Brian Sharrock wrote:

From your side of the Atlantic, I suppose everybody over the
horizon seems to be 'Euro', but to me, a Briton, the idea that
there'' some kind of "Euro spin" over the rebellion of some British
colonists funded by the French Kingdom in the furtherance of a
republic is laughable. I know it's probalby hard to examine the

But, as fate would have it Briton has always found that laughable,
which is why they're about the only nation left on Earth
that even studies the American Revolution.

While if you ask most Americans what the US's big war was,
it would be the US Civil War, not the British Civil War.

"ZZBunker" wrote in message
om...
Stephen Harding wrote in message
...
Brian Sharrock wrote:

From your side of the Atlantic, I suppose everybody over the
horizon seems to be 'Euro', but to me, a Briton, the idea that
there'' some kind of "Euro spin" over the rebellion of some British
colonists funded by the French Kingdom in the furtherance of a
republic is laughable. I know it's probalby hard to examine the

But, as fate would have it Briton has always found that laughable,
which is why they're about the only nation left on Earth
that even studies the American Revolution.

Please tell your programmers that although they've
'got' the parsing part of whatever is driving you to
auto-respond;-
_Briton_ is not a nation but an adjectival word meaning
a person from Britain.

While if you ask most Americans what the US's big war was,
it would be the US Civil War, not the British Civil War.

Once again, although your words imply an acceptance of
the hypothesis that the regrettable conflict in the North American
colonies _was_ a civil war between essentially British participants -
until the overt involvement of French arms and funding - 'we'
do not normally refer to that rebellion in the colonies as a
British Civil War. [The 'British' civil war, that is a war involving
all of the nations comprising 'Britain , fought on the soil of Ireland
is considered to have reached an apex (or nadir) at the Battle of
the Boyne where a different bunch of Frenchies, and sundry Hollanders,
seemed to have been involved. I'm not sure of the attitude of the
contemporary colonists in North America to these ,presumably, far-off
events.
The colonists seemed to have gone with the flow and not exhibited
any desire to retain their presumed allegiances to the Stuart Monarchs
that had granted them charters]

--

Brian

Peter McLelland wrote:

Stephen Harding wrote in message ...

Ahhh yes, the evil corporate interests were doing their despicable deeds
even then! And they did it much as they do it today, with such skill and
subtlety, that the dumb public has no clue they've been manipulated.

I hear this all the time about todays politics, so it is interesting to
see this theme being retrofitted to past history.

Much of recent history has been greatly influenced by economic
considerations, dammit the whole British Empire was based on the
generation of wealth from the colonies. There is no real reason to
shay away from such things, it is what drove all our for fathers, and
what drioves us.

Certainly true. Don't mean to imply the revolution was purely some
idealistic crusade to put human rights above all other factors.

Economics always has, and always will be, a powerful motivating force
in the behavior of governments and individuals, and there is nothing
really wrong with that in basic concept.

What I argue against is the notion that the American Revolution (or
even American actions today) are driven solely by economic forces
(and usually portrayed as underhanded ones at that). The OP to this
sidetracked OT thread appeared to portray the revolution as motivated
by raw [and illegal] self serving low life that manipulated the
majority of Americans into revolt. That is simply not the case.

In fact, most all Americans at the time considered themselves British,
with British rights, and came around rather slowly to the concept of
independence from British rule.


SMH

Peter McLelland wrote:

Stephen Harding wrote in message ...
Brian Sharrock wrote:

From your side of the Atlantic, I suppose everybody over the
horizon seems to be 'Euro', but to me, a Briton, the idea that
there'' some kind of "Euro spin" over the rebellion of some British
colonists funded by the French Kingdom in the furtherance of a
republic is laughable. I know it's probalby hard to examine the

I understand there are "Europeans" and there are "Britons". I've
become quite anti-European as I age and carelessly lumped the UK with
Europe. I think most Americans consider the Brits "different" from
the "Continentals" even though technically (I think), you're all Euros.

That perhaps is the source of the American problem with Europe. Europe

No. The American problem with Europe is largely one of divergent interests.
Europeans don't understand, or simply don't care to consider American
interests, assuming the US is basically another European country across
a very wide channel.

At one time, that characterization was pretty much true. That is no longer
the case, and becomes less so each year.

is complex, it is dynamic, and it is often just as perverse as the
USA. We cannot all be lumped together in one pot, but our difference

Yes, the normal "perverse" USA. I think you'll find the USA just, if
not more dynamic and complex than Europe. Perhaps you have your own
characterizations and stereotypes to re-examine?

are different to US internal differences, so you tend to ignore them,
a mistake I fear. Just as an example, I am British, but I am a Scot
also, I also hold and am proud to do so the Queens commision. My
allegances are complex, but we can cope with this, and it helps
sometimes when we are faced with situations like the Balkans, because
we understand that there are layers of what matters. Life is complex.

Yet you seem to believe there is one "American" character. That is not
the situation. Any cultural, ethnic or religious division or "layer"
you want to point to in Europe will more than likely be easily matched
with one comparable in the US.


SMH

Brian Sharrock wrote:

"ZZBunker" wrote in message

But, as fate would have it Briton has always found that laughable,
which is why they're about the only nation left on Earth
that even studies the American Revolution.

Please tell your programmers that although they've
'got' the parsing part of whatever is driving you to
auto-respond;-
_Briton_ is not a nation but an adjectival word meaning
a person from Britain.

Since you mention it, does British English actually support the word
"adjectival"?

While if you ask most Americans what the US's big war was,
it would be the US Civil War, not the British Civil War.

[...]

The colonists seemed to have gone with the flow and not exhibited
any desire to retain their presumed allegiances to the Stuart Monarchs
that had granted them charters]

Well ancestors on my fathers side of the family "went with the flow"
to Virginia after Charles lost his head.

Cromwell didn't seem too well disposed towards loyalists any more
than American revolutionaries it would seem.


SMH