Refusing to pay tithes to the empire is incorrect. The British opinion was more along the lines of expecting them to pay their fair share for the cost maintaining troops in the colonies.
King George III was tone deaf. The redcoats were acting like an occupying army which gave rise to the militia and the right to bear arms. He ignored the advice of some of his own ministers who saw the writing on the wall.
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I had a professor who often used the term, “It depends on whose ox is getting gored”. Meaning there are 2 sides to every story. That King George III was tone deaf maybe true. At the same time the colonials were getting quite used being left to their own devices and paying little or nothing to the crown. This began to be an issue when British troops were sent to fight the French and Indian war (which lasted 9 years). Troops and their protection weren’t without cost.
Militias existed (in the colonies) long before the American Revolution. The “right to bear arms” is not a uniquely Amercian. There is mention of such in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 (Protestants only).
This is going too far off topic. If you care to discuss history I will split this into another post.
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Might not be a bad idea to split this off as the “right to keep and bear arms” is a divisive issue. The well regulated militia could be discussed too.
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…but he was not blind.
He certainly followed all on CNN.
No objection, I’m hanging around the house like lots of folks.
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Nobody wants to go first, OK. I skipped a lot of history classes to go play hockey but do remember some parts very clearly.
Long guns were as ubiquitous back then as cell phones are now. A couple of priggish redcoats on patrol one night came upon a bunch of drunken locals. They were raising a ruckus in the middle of the night when respectable folks were trying to sleep.
These louts had been drinking white lightning and smoking primo weed all night so they were pretty wasted. They started making loud obnoxious remarks about the redcoats being told to shove off by the local maidens, flipping them the finger and making farting noises.
The redcoats overreacted. They padlocked the warehouse where the rabble rousing villains stored their cell phone batteries. That’s when things really started to go to hell in a hand basket.
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“No taxation without representation.” That’s the genesis of the problem with Great Britain, compounded by the crown’s refusal to grant additional lands west of the Appalachians. Basically the British government decided that its interests were at odds with that of the colonies as originally conceived, a betrayal that led to the inevitable chain of events that resulted in American independence. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the colonists refusing to pay their fair share.