Okay. Jimmy Carter on Hardball. What was wrong with what he said?

[Norbert]

Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War, more than any other war up until recently, has been the most bloody war we've fought. I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war.

Had the British Parliament been a little more sensitive to the colonials' really legitimate complaints and requests the war could have been avoided completely, and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a nonviolent way.

I think in many ways the British were very misled in going to war against America and in trying to enforce their will on people who were quite different from them at the time.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/10/20/124125.shtml

Of course, the neocons like to tie this up into one neat little package and say, "Hold the phones. Jimmy Carter thinks the American Revolution was unnecessary. He's crazy." The gist what I am getting from President Carter, in a nutshell is this. The British imposed a tax, even though the tax wasn't all that much, the Colonists took issue and raised a stink. The British government wasn't going to listen to anything the "lowly" Colonists were going to say and basically told them "Shut up and pay the friggin' tax." The rest is American history.

Just like the Iraq war, the American Revolution could have been axoided, just like he said.

[Name removed]

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[Gore1FL]

4. That was my reaction when he said it.

Bloodiest day in U.S. history was the Battle of Anteitem. The bloodiest battle on American Soil was Gettysburg.

Of course -- even with the 80,000 or so deaths represented in the above, the greatest number of deaths were caused by disease.

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. In sheer numbers, maybe.

But casualites as a percentage of the population were probably higher in the American Revolution.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. Welcome. I thought so too?

[ever_green]

2. I heard him on NPR yesterday

I agree with him. I think most wars are unnecessary and avoidable.

[Cat Atomic]

3. Sounds like he's talking about the US in Iraq, and Newsmax is just

doing the usual right-wing smear. If they could put their idiot propaganda war aside for five minutes and consider what he was saying, they'd probably agree with it.

It would've been easy for *BRITAIN* to avoid the Revolutionary War, if they hadn't been so incredibly arrogant in their dealings with the colonies. It might've been possible for the U.S. to avoid a guerilla war in Iraq if we'd only handled the early stages of the occupation competently, and not acted with complete disregard for the Iraqi population. If the situation is to be improved, that lesson has to be learned.

Is it that damn hard to read between the lines, Newsmax?

[VolcanoJen]

5. It ends as it began. It's your pocketbook, stupid.

Carter's right, in more ways than one... you just have to read between the lines.

[aquart]

6. Well, sure, if you think it was about the tax.

Or even about representation.

But it was also about expansion. The British government wasn't encouraging expansion beyond the Alleghenys beyond Appalachia. They were maintaining control with land grants among other things, and they weren't willing to challenge Indian possession for reasons I haven't a clue about......I just know expansion was a deep-rooted part of the Revolution.

Jimmy Carter makes a profound error in assuming the peaceful independence of Canada and Australia would have happened without our revolt. Had no colony ever taken up arms to break away, why would any motherland ever consider letting go? On the other hand, one really good example can be an excellent teacher. Give independence or it will be taken. Do you want to go there? I adore Jimmy Carter, and respect him. But he's wrong on this.

[jacksonian]

8. I find the notion that without the American Revolution as model

no colony would have ever broken away from a motherland a mite simplistic. Land title was yet another issue they could have gotten a policy grip on. Imperial Europe was a doomed dream, not a stasis waiting for John Hancock and Patrick Henry to come along. Carter has a good point with his hypothetical, and the connection to Iraq is obvious.

[Craig Roberts]

7. He didn't say anything we didn't learn in high school American History

The colonists were willing to work with the British for some kind of compromise, but the British were inflexible and arrogant. They were contemptuous of all American efforts to negotiate a solution, including insulting and publicly humiliating Benjamin Franklin in London where he was representing the colonial cause. The British played into the hands of the more radical American leaders like Patrick Henry, who soon radicalized the whole colonial political elite with their fiery rhetoric.

From the British perspective, the Revolutionary War was not a war that had to happen. They probably could have avoided it if they had not been so stubborn and disdainful of American sentiments.

[Blue Wally]

9. A little bit deeper than that.

Colonial shipping interests wanted to trade dirtectly with the Brit (and Spanish) Caribbean sugar colonies trading North American food products for sugar and specie. Brit shipping interests wanted the trade to go through London and get the middleman's share. This was the underlying cause of both the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Neither war was particularly bloody in terms of combat deaths.

[Cooley Hurd]

10. Why do Repugs have such problems with reading comprehension?

I just skimmed the article and it was abundantly clear what he was talking about (that the British could've avoided war by giving the colonies proper representation in the House of Commons).

Why can't Johnny Retardlican read? :shrug:

[ladybugg33]

11. Most are illiterate and rest just plain stupid

:hi:

[AngryAmish]

12. My problem with what he said

is that I would not want to live until 1947 under the British boot like India.