Let's Be Respectful but Honest

The more I learn about the American Revolution, the more inglorious it becomes. If anyone wants to have a discussion on this, I am more than willing to bite (but of course, no one cares so I’ll continue talking to myself).

Our nation views the Revolution as something of a miracle, a momentous event in history that foreshadowed all the greatness in the future of the United States. There were the self-evident truths that would later become the calling card of the country (at least conspicuously). And since Jefferson wrote those words in June of 1776, the nation has adopted them as personal mantras and the world has known, forever and ever amen, that America stands for such things (I’m jesting slightly, people).

Then there was the Continental Army, the ragtag group of soldiers that stood up to the greatest military force the world had yet seen. Headed by His Excellency, George Washington (the mythic hero of all space and time who can do no wrong [and didn’t, surely]), the army defeated a very stalwart entity and gained freedom (the catchword of the last 200 years) for the colonies, freeing them from the tyranny of an oppressive government, an overbearing monarch, and wrongful taxation.

And finally, there was unity, great and awesome unity; it sprang forth from the Well of Freedom and engulfed the Nation so readily, so rapidly, that we came together, banded as brothers and sisters among chaos, and stood up to the Axis of Evil (Great Britain and Great Britain accessories, er, mercenaries [Scots and Germans]). We were so unified it was freakin’ ridiculous, people. And though we have had trouble over the last 200 years, we have remained one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Really, it’s a beautiful narrative, one deserving of a Pulitzer of something, or maybe the Newberry considering its childish bravado and fantasy. But in any case, the reality of it is quite comical; and by comical I mean, hella-different.

About the only thing I can agree with from the above is the first statement: the American Revolution was a miracle, perhaps even a miracle of miracles; and, most certainly, it foreshadowed all the “greatness” in the future of United States. From an outside perspective, the collective colonies were betting against the house and the house was Great Britain. And the first rule of casino gambling? The house always wins. Always. Unless you count cards. In that case, the house loses. Unless you get caught. In which case they take all your shit and beat you up. Unless you’re black. Then they kill you.

But seriously, people, it was a freakin’ miracle…at first! After some examination, one realizes that Great Britain had to fight two wars: one over land and one over minds. The war over land seemed a foregone conclusion until one recalls that America was a pretty big place back then, considering relevant spaces in Europe and such. It was a lot of ground for 40,000 British troops to secure, and ended up costing them the war. The colonies were entrenched in their own houses, and so it was very difficult to hold entire swaths of countryside because the British couldn’t control the population – they simply didn’t have enough manpower.

And the war over the minds of the people was also a foregone conclusion. A good deal of colonists were pissed off as it was, but when British troops started fuckin’ shit up, killin’ people randomly, and burning down houses, those still harboring loyalist sentiment sobered up pretty fuckin’ fast. And by sobered up I mean, grabbed a gun and started shooting back.

So the miracle of miracles is really a superficial consideration. A sober analysis reveals a less complicated plot structure. Don’t get me wrong, it was still hard and shit, but we had a lot more going for us than we all realized at the time.

But on to the self-evident truths. These awesome words guaranteed equality for all (without initial qualifications in the Declaration itself). And that’s it. Er, they were supposed to guarantee equality for all, but then people realized that they couldn’t possible let people who didn’t own land vote. Nor could they let non-whites and women vote or own land. I mean, come on, that would be preposterous, right? Oh, and let’s not forget slavery. When you perpetrate mass enslavement against a single race of people you can’t go around talking about self-evidential equality for all. But this point is well observed and so I’ll say no more.

As for these words becoming an American Mantra, I feel that is correct. We did, eventually, get a bunch of stuff right, even if it took us countless generations of obviously immoral conduct to straighten things out. We’re still a long way from a truly egalitarian society in which these self-evident truths are fully guaranteed to all, but hey, it’s a work in progress.

Now we’ve come to my favorite part, the Continental Army. We’ve been led to believe that it was made up of freedom fighters, those hardened revolutionaries who fought for justice and equality and dove nose-deep into the trenches against British regulars. This, of course, is fiction. The far majority of “soldiers” that constituted the Continental Army for most of the war were immigrants – Scots, Germans, Irish-es, and so on – who, frankly, had no better prospects. Work was scarce and the army gave three square meals a day (on most days), and so service was a good idea. A great deal of the born-in-America Americans were militiamen who mostly disregarded orders, came and went as they pleased, and tried very hard not to do much of anything. So, once again, the immigrants were doing work that no one else wanted to do. Sound familiar?

All this jabber about George Washington being the Greatest Entity in the History of the World is a far cry from the guy himself. Sure, Washington had a number of great and admirable principles that he mostly stuck to. Sure, he led the army through some awful times and somehow came out on the bright side. But he was human. He was just like the rest of us. He had his faults (SLAVERY!) and was no saint or god or king or whatever the hell everyone calls him. The faster we view him as a human, as one of us, the faster we’ll be able to realize some of his victories and accomplishments in our own time. When you put him up on a pedestal, you make him psychologically difficult to imitate.

And this goes for all the Founding Fathers, and for anyone we put ahead of ourselves on some other plane outside of our dimension, because they were so amazing or whatever. Drop the extra-dimensional superlatives and realize that they began life as a simple person, just like you and me.

A lot of the self-evidential truths we fought for, as I mentioned, disappeared into the air. The claim that we freed ourselves from a tyrannical, oppressive, and taxing regime is true. And so is this: we gained a regime that was, at times, tyrannical, oppressive, and taxing. Certainly, we were better off with the new style, but to say that we went from one extreme to the other is to misunderstand what happened.

Our Great National Unity has remained intact, so the assertion goes, since that fateful day somewhere in the years 1775-1787 when we made all this shit happen. Aside from the Civil War, whose name implies disunity, I might add, we have had our schisms, our monumental differences, and numerous episodes in which all hell could have broken loose at any moment. And those are the real miracles, the times in which we didn’t disseminate into various warring factions like so many tribes. The fact that we are still connected as a single nation is incredible and we should be proud of this. But do not assume constant unity nor a unity that permeates the whole country, at any time.

So do not say our Declaration of Independence has always rung true or that the Pledge of Allegiance speaks sacred and necessary truths. Furthermore, don’t get angry at people who point this out (like me). For if liberals are always pointing out our faults, then conservatives are always trying to hide them. (Obviously, this isn’t true in every liberal/conservative case. It’s merely a rhetorical flourish that is correct more often than not.)

What I’m trying to say is this: I’m fine with recognizing events in history for what they were, but I’m totally not fine with all the absolutes we throw around – unified forever, freedom for all, unqualified tyranny to unqualified democracy. We serve ourselves and each other much better when we throw absolutes in the trash and reveal the shifting aggregate that is history, our history, and acknowledge our faults, support our strengths, and move on to a better future.

If we continue to view our history as a sparkling, placid lake with very few ripples, most of which were minor, then we do ourselves a disservice. Make no bones about it: history will avenge itself through repetition if we sustain our current thought