BREAKING NEWS

[Martin Hash]

The way you get liberty is a bunch of like-minded men (because men are ambitious, aggressive & violent) are given guns and told they can direct their own lives if they fight for it. It wasn't a handful of privileged Elites firing back at the British, it was little plot farmers who didn't even have enough to eat; they wouldn't have been there without the dream.

[Martin Hash]

The BLM brainwashing has been more successful than I previously thought?

[Xenophon]

The way you get liberty is a bunch of like-minded men (because men are ambitious, aggressive & violent) are given guns and told they can direct their own lives if they fight for it. It wasn't a handful of privileged Elites firing back at the British, it was little plot farmers who didn't even have enough to eat; they wouldn't have been there without the dream.

Hard times, coupled with the punitive taxes on the colonists necessitated by the French and Indian War, created the type of men who warred with Great Britain, not increased leisure time because of slavery. The Founders had self-interests in breaking away from Great Britain, of course, but they also stood to hang should their little rebellion not work out. The land west of Virginia that Washington was eyeing wasn't worth dying for, it was just an added bonus for him should things work out.

If increased leisure time had anything to do with encouraging liberty, we'd be a libertine society in the extreme. People cry about, "muh 80 hour work week", when the reality is that only a fraction of those 80 hours of work are productive for most workers. The justification for a 40-80 hour work week is an invention of bureaucrats. People have more real leisure time now than they ever have before, because their work allows for interspersed leisure throughout the day.

There was a push back in the 20s, I think, for a 30 hour work week. The idea was that people would focus more on their families and more self-improvement pursuits. The reality was that, wherever they tried it, people went to movies and bars to drink. Increased Leisure time, more than anything, can be a source of societal rot than it is the kindling of liberty.

[kybkh]

The BLM brainwashing has been more successful than I previously thought?

Would the revolution have occurred without the support of the slave holding landowners? If not, why not? Would it have been for the lack of like minded individuals? Or, would it been for the lack of wealth and intellectual resources they had to contribute to the cause?

The nobility of Europe were already in the ruling class. Was the French revolution started by the nobility or peasants?

[kybkh]

I still think you are missing my point.

Slavery enabled the revolution which enabled the creation of the USA which means slavery was a good thing to the extent it enabled the overthrow of a ruling class determined by birth.

[Martin Hash]

I still think you are missing my point.

Slavery enabled the revolution which enabled the creation of the USA which means slavery was a good thing to the extent it enabled the overthrow of a ruling class determined by birth.

Dude, you could make that argument about all of human history. When was there a time without slaves? When was there cultural advancement without slaves, for heaven's sake? How many wars were fought just to get slaves so that the conquerors could benefit those subservient to them? My goodness, change the definition only a tiny bit, and you're a slave. People working Minimum Wage are the serfs of the day. Many folks provide sex for money, kids even. Many people are at the beck & call of someone, all the time, with little leisure for themselves. Slaves are fucking everywhere.

I may be the only non-slave posting here.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I may be the only non-slave posting here.

Indeed.

Slaves received free room and board and food. We receive tokens for the same. Whether we have some extra tokens or not, is the only difference. And we can select our own masters, to some extent.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Aristocrats with leisure time secured our liberty. Libertines with the spare time to study classical Greece and Rome, read John Locke and take trips to visit David Hume and think about humanism and liberty and devise a system that would enshrine those values.

If it had been left to a bunch of semi-literate mobs the American revolution would have, probably within one generation, become just another European mercantile monarchy.

Loads of your common revolutionaries wanted to install Washington as a king, and would have it weren't for elites with superior education and superior minds telling them they couldn't.

+1 for Aristocracy, +1 for Elitism. Populists kick sand.

[SuburbanFarmer]

If it had been left to a bunch of semi-literate mobs the American revolution would have, probably within one generation, become just another European mercantile monarchy.

we managed to stave that off for a little while.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

If it had been left to a bunch of semi-literate mobs the American revolution would have, probably within one generation, become just another European mercantile monarchy.

we managed to stave that off for a little while.

U.S. liberty and dynamism is still a going concern, despite the catastrophizing impulse of activists or the 'very-online' who need to get a better hobby