Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/dat...y.cfm?HHID=263
Contrary to the arguments above, I think an argument can be made that the American Revolution was a true revolution that created something new.
That may have been the result, and it certainly is the popular myth that American's like to believe, but in the throws of the events they were not looking to create a new government. Case in point, Sam Adams' (of brewing fame) comments on the Stamp Act:
For if our Trade may be taxed why not our Lands? Why not the Produce of our Lands & every thing we possess or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our Charter Right to govern & tax ourselves – It strikes our British Privileges, which as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common with our Fellow Subjects who are Natives of Britain: If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal Representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_Act_1765

It is true that in the end we created something new, but it did not start out that way. The ideas of popular sovereignty, equality before the law (as long as you were a free citizen, slaves could make no such claim), and the rule of law, were nothing new.

Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/dat...y.cfm?HHID=263This form of arrogance is a human trait that we'll unlikely overcome, but we should at least beaware of it so we minimize decisions based on our hubris views that convince us that we know the real underlying causes of conflict and worse then assume we have the solution.
Actually, that is kind of my point. We chose to see what we want to see. We cherry pic history to create the myth of a revolution. The United Stated may have started down the road towards a belief in inalienable human rights but it certainly was not built on it. Slavery was still present and women could not vote. For that matter, you pretty much needed to be landed to have rights. Even after the drafting of the Constitution in 1789 we still were not a "free" nation under Freedom House standards.

We reinterpret events to met the narrative that we prefer. Otherwise the colonists were simply a bunch of arrogant stingy tax evaders.