Substitute “megachurches” and “large corporations” for “Church of England” and “King,” and you’ve pretty much got it nailed, don’t you?

Great clip, BT. Thanks

FWIW, the movie 1776 is just starting on TCM

And you think today’s knuckle-dragging, pee-party troglodytes believe any of this??

Naaa… it’s different from what was sent by Dick Armey, rush and glenn… so it can’t be the truth…

That was a great series… We must remember this the “People’s” Country and not Corporation’s play ground to exploit at our costs.

Authoritarians, pure and simple. If the Taliban were in charge, these folks would be Taliban (although they appear pretty damn close now, IMO).

Dammit, forgot to wish you a great fourth also BT.

Enjoy and be safe.

All pups, have a great fourth and please BE SAFE.

I lost a close friend on a holiday (drunk driver) years ago and I’ve never forgotten it.

Just wanted to throw this out there:

Do you know what country went on to house most of these loyalists after the US gained independence? Canada.

So all those conservatives? They mostly went north and formed a country with universal health care, substantial social safety nets and federally legal gay marriage.

Kinda makes you wish they’d stayed.

Edit-Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day 2010. Smile :-)

You are misunderstanding your quote. There is a huge difference between the Torie Party and those who were called tories because they opposed the American Revolution – supporting or opposing breaking away from a government is vastly different from feeling how a certain government should be run. There were conservative and liberal tories just as there were conservative and liberal revolutionaries.

I have always found interesting the expressions used to convey the important principles that underlie the founding of Northern states and what those countries have become since.

U.S. – Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Canada – Peace, order, and good government.
France – Liberty, equality, fraternity.

And so on. Food for thought.

The people’s country? Oh please. This country was set up from the start to make sure the rabble was always kept under control. The rich and powerful never have any intention of allowing the masses to rule. Then or now. Never have and never will.

This is not your land. It’s theirs. They own and they run it.

“The King should have all power.”

What is this power of what you speak if not the power of life and death and short of that your liberty to live freely as you wish. An Presidential American hit list, how constitutionally absurd.

What a great set of ideals and principles our constitution represents. Though never perfected we are always moving closer to the ideal or falling back.

These last few years have proved a test but 4/20/10 refocused our our infantile outlook. May we move forward to the ideals and processes laid out in this great document.

Heh yeah. And they had the East India Company to deal with back then. The worlds largest corporation at that time. It was the corporations tea that the people of Boston destroyed.

The Canadian public was treated extremely poorly until after WWII. By and large they followed British austerity policies during the Great Depression and they served as the British Empire’s cannon fodder for the full duration of both World Wars.

The trend seems to be reform after long periods of extreme abuse.

Obviously if you and your fellow conservatives would have been there during the Revolutionary War period you would have supported the existing authority at the time– namely, the King. Conservatives are nothing but authoritarian kiss asses.

Jefferson was a republican. States rights were his big issue. Libertarians are closer to what the forefathers were. Words meanings change. Gay used to mean happy.

I have been saying this for years…this is also why we have NO female Potus!

Dude, you kill me. Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic Party.

You clearly don’t know me and I think you should brush up on your history. Other than agreeing on revolution itself, our Founding Fathers had a wide range idealogies. For instance Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson weren’t exactly two idealogical peas in a pod. Even George Washington in his day was seen as a tyrant who betrayed the cause of the Revolution by having a strong central government with him at the top of it.

Yes, the history in this thread is a mess.

1) Historians know that it is pointless to look for any substantive definition of “conservative” and the reason is fairly obvious. Too many people have been trying to conserve too many things in too many places for too long. Louis XVI was a conservative, Stalin was a conservative, our present pope is a conservative, the Saudi royal family are conservatives. These of course have little in common as they are all trying to conserve different things. But, we should all look forward to the day when we are conservatives as it would mean that we are living in a society that is worth conserving. Add to all of this the rhetoric of politics where terms get abused. Was G. Bush a conservative? Many would say he was a radical who changed our Constitution.

2) Turning to English history, the meaning of “Tory” changed quite a bit over the century leading up to the American Revolution. At different times, Tories were in favor of episcopacy for the Church of England (something conservative), opposed to excluding Catholics from the throne (something tolerant), opposed to anti-Scottish bigotry (something tolerant), opposed to excessive power in London (something progressive), and by 1776, “Tory” was simply an epithet for one who was especially close to George III. No Tory at any time believed that “the Church of England and the King should have all the privileges and power”. That is just really really bad history. The King had been checked at least five centuries prior with the Magna Carta.

3) During most of the 18th century, the Whigs and/or different factions of Whigs were in power in England. England was a constitutional monarchy by this time. They had the Magna Carta and also had their revolutions the previous century. For the most part policy towards the colonies was made by Whig ministers in Parliament not King George III.

4) If all this seems complicated, it is. But there is much to be learned from English history. One possible solution to our problems is that employed by the English in their Glorious Revolution which really was glorious. Nobody died. In short, they had so many divisive problems in the 1680′s, that they just decided the best thing to do was bring in William and Mary from Holland to assume the throne. Worked pretty well. Nobody died and England was able to overcome all of the extremely divisive problems it was having. LEARNING ABOUT ALTERNATIVES IS WHY WE VALUE HISTORY AND THE HUMANITIES. IT IS NOT A FUCKING JOKE AND IF YOU DON’T MAKE TIME TO STUDY HISTORY, YOU ARE SIMPLY IGNORANT. Sorry for the caps, but some like to pretend that there are no reasons to study history and the humanities or, alternatively, that the reasons to value the humanities are complicated. They are not.

LOL

They are good at hit and run posting bullshit that has no basis in reality whatsoever (oh well should’ve guessed that) and then never here to face up to their lies.

there were two parties. The federalists and the republicans. Jefferson was a republican. Hamilton a federalist. Washington and Adams were neutral. You kill me.

you are thinking the democratic republican party. They called themselves republicans. Republic. Get it. We are a republic of states.

I think the other poster is talking about small r rather big R:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism_in_the_United_States
This in regards to Jefferson on state’s rights, which this was done in response to Adam’s Alien and Sedition Acts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_and_Virginia_Resolutions

Book Salon a couple of flights upstairs with Alexander Zaitchik’s Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance hosted by Sara Robinson

Yep. Jefferson would not recognize the republicans of today. Nor the dems.

“1) Historians know that it is pointless to look for any substantive definition of “conservative” and the reason is fairly obvious.”

I would agree with that. My original post was a matter of trying to be accurate, rather than making a partisan political statement. Along the same lines also being “liberal” – because W ran deficits, does that mean that he’s following in the liberal ways of Jefferson and anyone who opposed W is a modern day King worshipper…obviously opposing W doesn’t make one an authoritarian.

Yep. Jefferson would not recognize the republicans of today. Nor the dems.

Which is why this:

Jefferson was a republican.

is bullshit.

Today’s parties don’t come particularly close to the parties then. I could find Jefferson quotes that would align well with the Democratic Party of 30 years ago and you could find Jefferson quotes that would align well with Republicans.

It’s actually not that complicated.

The American Revolution was a triumph of liberalism. Those opposed:

Larabee (1948) has identified eight characteristics of the Loyalists that made them essentially conservative.

I was referring to English history as being complicated. And yes I agree, the Loyalists were most certainly conservative. And, yes, they were referred to as “Tories” in America, but many of them would have also described themselves as “Whigs” or a faction thereof. In England, most people who opposed American independence as well as most who were sympathetic to American independence would have described themselves as “Whigs” or a faction thereof. “Tory” was more of an epithet than anything by this point with somewhat different meanings in England and America. Indeed, a formal “Tory” Party stopped existing by 1760. One restarted later, but that is another complicated story.

Here’s something else to smile about. Hell, laugh your ass off about. In the good old days, there were no income taxes. Taxes were placed on wealth and commerce. The trade in tea was highly taxed, as tea was one of the world’s most traded commodities. Becasue of the taxes on tea, there was a thriving black market in the stuff, and there was a whole fleet of fast sailing vessels that smuggled tea into the Colonies. British tea merchants complained to The Crown that the black market was killing their business, and demanded they do something about it. So The Crown repealed the tax on tea. The smugglers and black marketers were immediately out of business. So when the first shipment of tax-free tea arrived from England, the black marketers boarded the ships and threw the tea into the harbor. This was the Boston Tea Party. Because of a TAX CUT.