On Oct 8, 2008, at 11:41 AM, Sean Andrews wrote:
>
> ...Of course then there is the issue of taxes, which both of them
> seem to
> want to appear Reaganite on: is this just a peculiar American
> fetish--we are, after all, the product of a tax revolt,,,
A common misconception. The "Boston Tea Party" was a protest against a tax *decrease* and the slogan "taxation without representation" was nothing but the slogan of slaveowners and squires demanding their own place in the British Parliament.
The real issue--the only real issue--of the American "Revolution" was the right of the colonists, led by a land speculator, to exterminate and "ethnically cleanse" the native American population of the Ohio Valley and then onward to the Pacific without having to ask permission from London (although many were also concerned about rising antislavery sentiment in England).
Shane Mage
"This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures."
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 30