It's the 2nd paragraph of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence that gets most of the attention:

BUT !!

Most of TJ / DOI is a laundry-list of whining:

What do you think?

U.S. "citizens":
- pay a higher percent tax under their own rule than they did under KG3.
- Have more red-tape regulations opposed on them in the 3rd Millennium than they did as royal subjects.

And what of the tradition of Independence Day fireworks?
It's a thinly disguised representation of the carnage-causing munitions of (the Revolutionary) war.

Q1: Are the People of the United States better off under self-rule, than we'd be as members of the U.K. today?

Q2: Are the Peoples of Earth better off, with the U.S.A. up to its usual shenanigans?

What does U.S.A.'s "Independence Day" anniversary celebratio

cheese burgers : ) ~
he he he

Are the peoples of the Earth better off without verbal attacks on the USA?

Q1: Are the People of the United States better off under self-rule, than we'd be as members of the U.K. today?

Q2: Are the Peoples of Earth better off, with the U.S.A. up to its usual shenanigans?

Q1 they are not under them selfs they are under the queens rule

Q2 no the usa government is bad : ( and is not in to protecting its people and has not been for a long long time

1. Ive been to the UK. The question requires back seat driving to answer. We dont know what the UK may have been like without the advent of the USA. As far as the countries as they are today. I don't think one is any better or worse than the other. Except in matters of valuing human life, maybe, where UK seems to exceed.

2. People of the earth are no better or worse off simply by 300 mill out of the 7 billion who populate it.

{�ondon �alling} ---- I wonder how much you'd whine if you were racked stretched and beaten after being fed moldy bread and rotten apples in the hold of a ship for 3 months. It doesn't matter, they'd just have you drawn and quartered anyway.

I think Im gonna be thankful for the life I have. I have it pretty good....able to retire fairly young, own my own home, can go shoot a few squirrels and deer in the fall, do some fishin when I want...etc..... Im gonna spend this Fourth remembering men like my dad....who came from a lil pissant dot on a map in NE Louisiana, fought in WWII, and fought at Remagen...not because he wanted to, but because he was called...and remembering uncles and friends of the family who also answered the call....and went on to raise families and sons and daughters who lived pretty damn good lives.

Im sure the U.K. folks love their lives.....but I do too. Could it be better where I live? Sure....but it damn sure could be a lot worse.


Who gives a $hit.....things that go "boom" are fun to me....bring it on.


To be really blunt.....I honestly dont care. Im gonna enjoy the weekend, focus on the good in my life, and to hell with the rest. I suggest all do the same.

Happy Fourth of July ERRYBODY!





My AmericaB!tch-O-Meter is off til at least Monday

Well....the great thing is, you can find a bigger one if ya want......or, if youre being sarcastic, you can DWI.

Either way, let me reach deep in my "give a frick" pocket and see what I find......

...nope...thats some lint.....


....still digging.....


......whaddaya know, not a damn thing there.

The formation of the US has been a beacon to whole world. It's politicians haven't always done the right thing but most in the world understand what the flag stands for ... freedom to make the best of yourself.

Errors:

"And what of the tradition of Independence Day fireworks?
It's a thinly disguised representation of the carnage-causing munitions of (the Revolutionary) war. "

Nonsense. Fireworks as celebration features pre-date the Revolutionary War, even in the rebelling colonies. This claim is a modern era bit of politicized distortion. Anti-SOMETHING, I'm not sure what, but it's complete and utter Bollocks.


"U.S. "citizens":
- pay a higher percent tax under their own rule than they did under KG3.
- Have more red-tape regulations opposed on them in the 3rd Millennium than they did as royal subjects. "

Debatable. I don't know the exact quantity of monies involved, but it's beside the point anyway. The rebellion was against taxation WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. Not taxation in general.



Wrong question. The U.K. was changed by our rebellion, and in a thousand other ways since then by the changes in, and dissolution of the rest of the Empire. There IS no way to answer the question as asked.

However, if it is assumed that the US would never have existed, then this portion of the world would probably be worse off, simply because the US would not have existed to provide successful opposition to the German, Japanese, and Soviet imperialist expansions of the latter centuries.



The answer to this, depends on which exact "shenanigans" you are referring to. Since you DO use the words "usual shenanigans," the strong implication is that you are personally prejudiced against the United States, so you really do need to specify in detail which if the things you already think are bad acts, that you have in mind.

As for myself, as an actual SERIOUS historian, I know that the US has done positive, negative, and indifferent things as regards many other nations, so this question is also impossible to answer seriously as asked. The inclusion of political prejudice in the question makes it a rude and insulting manipulation, rather than it being a legitimate question at all.

Depends on how you want to measure "better off."
The only way you really mention is how much in taxes we pay and how much red tape we have to go through.

If those are the only criteria on how to measure "better off," (taxes and red tape) then yes, the people of the U.S. are better off under self-rule.

There was an article and analysis in the last year or so about if the U.K. left the E.U. to become a U.S. state, it would be the poorest state.

And red tape is a double edged sword.

The same red tape that constrains people constrains government.
Government is not supposed to be efficient.
Efficient government has a tendency to do things overnight without debate. I don't really want to wake up tomorrow in war with some country and having the draft implemented because one guy or one small group in the government needed to do so right that second.
Red tape is just like the punch cards that used to be necessary to tell computers what to do.


In some ways this purposes that no one else is up to any shenanigans.
That all other countries are just sitting there all altruistic worrying about how to live peacefully with their neighbors, and that pesky Dennis the U.S. menace kid keeps pulling shenanigans out of meaningless spite or naivety.

I think if we're going to start asking if the earth is better off without certain countries we shouldn't be starting with the U.S.


Let's say that's true.
So what?
Like all other traditions and rituals it's meaning changes to whatever the people want it to mean.
Is Christmas christmas anymore? Or just "holidays?" Or some pagan festival? Or about consumerism and Charlie Brown and family?
How about Easter? You see a little girl in a pastel dress eating a colored egg, point and scream "cannibalistic whore! You've eaten the body of christ on his resurrection day! Your shenanigans are a thinly disguised worship of the christian hoax!"
...I'd pay to see that, actually. Especially if you then pushed her down and ran off with your hands waving over your head.

Certainly. There are surely countless other criteria.

I'm trained as a scientist.
So when practical, I avoid qualitative criteria, and prefer quantitative criteria.

I've often read that the most famous of the Townsend Act taxes, the tea tax, was three pence per pound.
But no report I've ever read expressed it as a percentage.
But I found a PhD candidate historian and asked.
Here's what she wrote me:

My thanks to KD for this information.

So ct, how much tax do you pay on tea these days?

Perhaps in some sense.
But I think it's more realistic to think of citizen rights vs government authority as inversely proportional.

"Government is not supposed to be efficient." ct

Ironically ct, I asked my high school history teacher what the most efficient form of government was. He said: "Benevolent Despotism."

You may have inferred what I did not imply.

EVERYone else may. That's immaterial.
My question was not, are we the only ones?
My question was:

The question stands.
In less than 10 minutes it will be July 4, 2015 here in the Eastern TZ.

It is this historic anniversary and matters related thereto that this thread was intended to be about.

We pretend to like peace.
But in the new millennium we've been at War more than one War per decade. That doesn't seem too peaceful to me. I suspect that's above average, planet wide.

Not only does the U.S. spend more on military than any of the other 27 NATO member nations.
The U.S. is reported to spend more on military than all 27 other NATO member nations, COMBINED!!

It's hypocrisy, and potentially self-delusion / propaganda.
If we like War so much, why must we pretend to like peace? "To thine own self be true"?

If President Bush (younger) thought Saddam had WMD, why did Bush not send Blix or Ritter back in there, find them, neutralize them, and remove them?

Nope.
Bush wanted Saddam out.
And as we can now clearly see; it has been an exceedingly costly U.S. foreign policy blunder; perhaps the worst in all history.

Thanks ct for your thoughtful insights here.
I appreciate your constructive approach.

Well, for me the 4th is about freedom and about the fact that we had the balls to take on the biggest empire at that time for what we believed in.

For the " can do" attitude and for the lifestyle and choices that can be attained in America. For the right to praise it or condemn it. To practice whatever faith you want.

Yes, we make mistakes and are far from perfect and have a long way to go. Our politicians at times embarrass us and our policies are confusing and not always right. And we have no shortage of internal issues ( race, drugs, guns)

But, I have traveled most all over the world and I have gone to countless U.S. Embassies in my travels. All were crammed with people trying to get into America, just hoping for a shot at what I take for granted.

So, I celebrate America on the 4th. And my freedom to say as I want and be whatever I want to work to be.

July 4th, the day we decided to give you America

ooh come on jo really,,ya'll still pissed that you lost the revolutionary war?,we still like you guys,,

Edited for attacking members as opposed to the topic.

soufie
Site Moderator

According to Wikipedia, a citizen of the United States has to pay up to 39.6% on their income taxes in the highest tax bracket (of 7 brackets).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Taxable_income

Also according to Wikipedia, a citizen of the United Kingdom has to pay up to 45% on their income taxes in the highest tax bracket (of what appears to be 4 brackets).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_Kingdom#Personal_taxes

This is not including such things as export taxes or tariffs on basic necessities (keep in mind that at this point, the colonists were still British citizens, so tea WAS a necessity!**), which is what the Revolutionary-era colonists would have faced.

**I am joking only to the extent that this is not true.

Yep, but it's some consolation to us, or me personally anyway, that America is such a great Country.

Enjoy your day

not sure about all that op ... but I am thankful to have been born
here...and to live in a country ...where a female is not discriminated against... like some other country's treat them ... or I would not have been able to do a lot of things here like I did ... and I am pretty happy about that ... to have been around in a era where women can stand for something ... and be heard ...

Factual error:


False. Perhaps you are conflating some of the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner, with the celebration of Independence day.

Here's a link showing that the celebration use of fireworks, specifically for Independence day, was proposed BEFORE the war of revolution:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/explainer/2012/07/history_of_fireworks_in_america_why_do_we_celebrate_fourth_of_july_with_fireworks_.html

Use of fireworks have been used to celebrate since they were invented. Because they go Flash and Bang, and are fun. Not because they remind everyone of carnage.

Your comparisons of taxes then and now isn't valid. As someone else pointed out, if you compare taxes on a single item (tea) with overall taxes today, it's an apples and oranges kind of situation.



Well duh. No disrespect at all intended, but EVERYONE has more of both now than then. Again, it's not a valid argument. You seem to be trying to claim that had we not rebelled, we would still be living exactly as we did in the 1770's.

Regulations gather as people discover additional things which need to be addressed. There was a time when everyone in power thought we could dump anything and everything into the nearest river, and wait while it washed away to who-knows where. Regulations were put into place when we finally understood that "who-knows-where, wasn't nowhere.

In fact, some of the primary reasons given by the rebels in the Declaration itself, were in fact attempts by the King and Parliament, to add regulations and taxes in order to address concerns which THEY had to discover the hard way. Such as that it was too expensive to try to protect a distant colony using entirely home country funds, and that the Colonies needed to contribute to their own defense. Which the rebels didn't want to do.

That's what housing troops in private homes was about. It was an early version of what certain "conservatives" would these days, call "privatization." Instead of paying for expensive homes for the troops, the colonies had to provide housing.

Had the colonists not revolted, what you call "red tape" and regulations would have come anyway, because the problems that said regulations were put in place to address, would have come anyway.



I would hope that as such a scientist, you would recognize that before you can utilize quantitative criteria, you must first prove that the quantities that you are trying to use, actually apply to the situation you are trying to understand. And further, before you can draw such broad conclusions as you have here, you must further prove that you have included ALL of the applicable quantitative information.

By the way, in that vein, can you please explain the term "shenanigans" quantitatively? It certainly appears to me, to be of the judgmental "qualitative" sort of terminology.