this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
713 points (95.8% liked)

Atheist Memes

5594 readers
3 users here now

About

A community for the most based memes from atheists, agnostics, antitheists, and skeptics.

Rules

  1. No Pro-Religious or Anti-Atheist Content.

  2. No Unrelated Content. All posts must be memes related to the topic of atheism and/or religion.

  3. No bigotry.

  4. Attack ideas not people.

  5. Spammers and trolls will be instantly banned no exceptions.

  6. No False Reporting

  7. NSFW posts must be marked as such.

Resources

International Suicide Hotlines

Recovering From Religion

Happy Whole Way

Non Religious Organizations

Freedom From Religion Foundation

Atheist Republic

Atheists for Liberty

American Atheists

Ex-theist Communities

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Other Similar Communities

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

They rebelled against the empire because they wanted lower taxes. The freedom from tyranny narrative was concocted to get buy in from the lower classes who had to actually die for the revolution to succeed.

The rehtoric never matched reality - "All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights".. except all those slaves and Indians.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It wasn't really the taxes, that was their excuse to get the masses to agree to a rebellion.

The main reason was land. They wanted to expand west to continue growing cotton and tobacco. Kentucky and Tennessee were ripe for cultivation, however, the British empire had made a proclamation in the 1760s saying the colonies were not allowed to expand further into native territory.

The taxes were a tactic to get the poor people to die for them, so they could get rich off of stealing more land for these crops that destroyed the soil they already had

[–] afraid_of_zombies 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Citation needed. Please show me how you are able to determine the motivation of people who died about 2 centuries before you were born and by the records we have of them show that they argued about everything, hence are unlikely to have a shared conspiratorial vision.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm sorry you never heard of the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Google is your friend.

[–] afraid_of_zombies 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Citation needed. Please show me how you are able to determine the motivation of people who died about 2 centuries before you were born and by the records we have of them show that they argued about everything, hence are unlikely to have a shared conspiratorial vision.

Since you evidently need to be reminded what I asked you not what you wanted me to ask you.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Nerp.

Not worth my time. Sorry you hate reading.

[–] afraid_of_zombies 2 points 6 months ago

And I am sorry you think you can just lay a massive claim with no evidence to support it.

Can you even name 5 of the signers without looking it up? No? So how did you mind read them?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Taxes by somebody else (taxation without representation) is a sort of non-freedom too.
Yes, it took some time to implement principles in federal constitution in all the states.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

"No taxation without representation" is also a drastically misunderstood line.

What they were effectively asking for was self-governance, being removed from parliamentary control.

Given the technological limitations of the time, there was no way to effect a representative scheme in parliament with a constituency that was a 12-week round trip away. Furthermore, there were serious discussions of adding seats to parliament for the colonies, and the colonies refused to send anyone.

The Assembly of Massachusetts Bay was the first which ever took exception to the right of Parliament to impose Duties or Taxes on the Colonies, whilst they had no representatives in the House of Commons. This they did in a letter to their Agent in the summer of 1764 ... And in this letter they recommend to him a pamphlet, wrote by one of their members, in which there are proposals for admitting representatives from the Colonies to fit in the House of Commons ... an American representation is thrown out as an expedient which might obviate the objections to Taxes upon the Colonies, yet ... it was renounced ... by the Assembly of the Colony which first proposed it, as utterly impracticable.

And

Whilst [the radical colonists] exclaim against Parliament for taxing them when they are not represented, they candidly declare they will not have representatives [in Parliament] lest they should be taxed ... The truth ... is that they are determined to get rid of the jurisdiction of Parliament ... and they therefore refuse to send members to that assembly lest they should preclude themselves of [the] plea [that Parliament's] legislative acts ... are done without their consent; which, it must be confessed, holds equally good against all laws, as against taxes ... The colony advocates ... tell us, that by refusing to accept our offer of representatives they ... mean to avoid giving Parliament a pretence for taxing them

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What they were effectively asking for was self-governance, being removed from parliamentary control.

Yes, how else it can be interpreted? This is what freedom is on state level - self governance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

how else can it be interpreted?

As a call for representation in Parliament, the body levying taxes.

The slogan wasn't "No taxation unless we are an independent political entity".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I don’t know. Since this slogan was always related to revolution against British, I always thought it was not about “gives us representation”, but about “stop taxing us, we want to be free of you”.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago

Why pay taxes if you could just kill them all ? I can understand if you were in england, kind hard to escape them or exterminate them. But in america, the few of them that would cross the ocean, can just be disposed of as they arrive, already exhausted from the trip. Why give them a single penny ?