Just Saying Stuff Doesn't Make it so
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
More than the books they read, it was the times they lived in that shaped both the books they opted to read and how they interpreted their meaning.
Then as now, the books they read while in their collegiate courses tended not to be optional. And I submit that you have the last phrase just backwards--how they were taught to understood the books they read shaped the times in which they lived. (But this is a "chicken or the egg" type dispute in my view)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
I can read Mein Kamph and think, "huh, that's some crazy stuff." But if I were a 30-something German male reading it shortly after it was published I am sure I would perceive it quite differently.
That is quite correct, you would have perceived it as a 30-year old German living in post World War I Germany. Since I have no real affinity for what that was like (and I suspect you are in a similar position), I do not know what that reaction might be like. However, I can appeal to my experiences with the Hippie/Yippie/anti-Vietnam literature. I responded then as "Obviously someone has been taking way too many mind altering substances of questionable legality." But many of my peers became caught up in "right on" movements and, in the words of Buffalo Springfield, "singing songs and a carrying signs," protested things without any real knowledge about what they were doing or why.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
This was not a movement caused by an ideology of liberty and liberalism learned in Ivy League colleges that caused a few to become brainwashed and decide to challenge the very effective governance provided by their King. It was a populace that was evolving over generations to have very different expectations of governance and perceptions of themself than that shared by their government in England. When such gaps grow there is the potential for exploitation.
Where is your proof? You allege a much broader basis of support than my reading and research about 1770s America indicates. Based on anecdotal evidence, I'd say that in the aggregate, the Loyalists may have been about as numerous as the rebels with a whole lot of Mugwumps who would just as soon preferred to have been left alone than have to pick a side. You might remember that the Green Jackets of today's British Army started life as the Royal American Regiment before becoming the 60th Regiment of Foot and the King's Royal Rifle Regiment along the way to its present designation after fusing with other regiments (like the Ox and Bucks IIRC). Ban Tarleton also raised his British Legion from colonists. Look at this interesting link on Loyalist Regiments.
The rest of your post was a diversion from this sub-thread. The Arab Spring is not germane to what motivated the ostensible leaders of the American Revolution to foment revolt. We are not disputing the causes of revolution; rather we are disputing what was meant by the Founding Fathers in American government's foundational documents and whether those meanings are applicable as motivating influences for American defense policy today.