Happy Rebellion Day
I intended to write this on July 4th, Independence Day here in the USA, but I’m a world-class procrastinator so here it is, five days late.
Independence Day sounds a lot better than Rebellion Day, don’t you think? And yet what were the ‘founding fathers’ doing but rebelling against the British who had funded much of the infrastructure here in the Colonies? Today we would call them freedom fighters, but the Brits would call them rebels or perhaps terrorists. Vandalism, arson, riots - I’m pretty sure the ‘patriot act’ would give grounds for harsh penalties and arrests if you tried that today. Go ahead, take over a naval vessel, dump the crew on shore and then sink the boat. See if the press cheers you on for your brave freedom-fighting ways.
Here is a nice listing of those terrorist acts perpetrated by our patriot heroes of yesteryear.
For further comparison, how about those evil Taliban and Afghan terrorists and warlords? When they ousted the Soviets in the late 80’s did not the Afghans consider themselves freedom fighters? As a matter of fact, didn’t *we* consider them as such?
Yes we did. According to the book “Charlie Wilson’s War” one of those ‘freedom fighters’ helping the Afghan cause was Osama bin Laden. Haven’t heard him called a freedom fighter in awhile, have you? Wow, talk about your chickens coming home to roost! Unintended consequences indeed. He benefitted from our CIA training and supplies and then formed al Qaeda. But most Islamic ‘terrorist’ extremists think they are fighting for freedom just like Sam Adams and Patrick Henry were.
Any way, here’s to rebellion and freedom and throwing off repression, as long as you’re not throwing off our American repression. That can be dangerous!