And those folks were darn lucky that there was a big bunch of land available
which hadn't been claimed by modern governments yet. Now these conditions
largely don't exist anymore. The settling of the New World could only be
done once; thank goodness it turned out as well as it did (for everyone but
the natives, at least...) I think a lot of people forget this when they
compare things in the US to things in other countries, or things now to
things then. It was a unique time and place, and there was a huge
advantage to being a young, fresh, new society with so much unclaimed land.
Some day there will be new frontiers on other planets but until then,
I don't see such an easy escape from the existing governments. Any future
revolutions we have in the US will have all the same problems of revolutions
in older established countries, say, France or Russia; that of trying to
cast off the old ways and being unable to really completely start over,
because the past is always there to haunt you.
On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 07:01:31PM -0600, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> Not at all, sir! In fact it's a good illustration of how things ought rightly
> to be. If you don't want to obey the laws of one society, then leave that
> society and join or build another. The means by which this is done vary widely,
> and if you think that it's appropriate, for example, that, say, pot smokers, a
> substantial share of the criminal element in the U.S, have what it takes to (1)
> go elsewhere and start over, or (2) overthrow, presumably with violence, the
> existing system, then they should have at it, taking their chances as they go.
> What's wrong is for them simply to thumb their noses at the law and the society
> that established those laws, still reaping all the benefits, yet violating the
> basic social contract.
>
> After all, the Americans' distaste for English social standards, whether it was
> for the British unwarranted taxes or British disdain for the working stiff, was
> what "impelled them to the separation" in the words of one of the perpetrators.
--
_______ Shawn T. Rutledge / KB7PWD ecloud_at_bigfoot.com
(_ | |_) http://www.bigfoot.com/~ecloud kb7pwd_at_kb7pwd.ampr.org
__) | | \________________________________________________________________
Received on Sat Jul 07 2001 - 20:38:25 BST