• merc@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    How directly was he involved in the negotiations? Often the king is the ultimate authority in a country, but they don’t actually make many decisions themselves.

    It’s well known that the colonists were looking for a reason to break away, and that the taxation issue was a convenient excuse. After all, taxation without representation was the norm. It wasn’t like all of England had the vote and had representatives in parliament. Entire cities had zero representation but were still taxed. Ireland had been part of the British empire for ages and it didn’t have representation.

    • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Well, having a verifiably insane monarch sure couldn’t have helped.

      It’s obviously foolish for anyone to try and argue exactly what happened when for which reasons, we weren’t in those rooms having those conversations so we’ll never really know. We do know that the colonists hated what they considered overreaching British control (it was kind of the reason they left in the first place), and we know that the British were broke af and desparate to wring every penny they could out of the colonies to pay for wars on the other side of the ocean (sounds familiar). But you bring up a good point in Ireland, they were famously treated so well by the British and therefore were predictably loyal and peaceful subjects of the Crown 🤣🤣🤣

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        We do know that the colonists hated what they considered overreaching British control

        Do we? Or is that the story that has been written after the fact to justify what they did and make it seem more noble?

        It sounds to me like you’re a product of the US educational system and have accepted what you learned there without questioning it.

        • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Yes we do, it’s literally the reason they left in the first place. There were protests all across the colonies, the British even repealed the Stamp Act due to the blowback. There are pamphlets, books, and vast quantities of recorded speeches and debates from both sides of the Atlantic on the issue. From before the revolution.

          Sounds to me like you’re a product of the Ignorant Blowhard educational system and have assumed you know everything about everything with little evidence to support the assumption.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            Yes we do, it’s literally the reason they left in the first place.

            According to what you learned in an American elementary school?

              • merc@sh.itjust.works
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                2 days ago

                They’re of course going to give you the surface level, popular version of what happened. If you want to actually know the real story you need to talk to historians.

                • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  No you need to talk to people who have been dead for hundreds of years, your entire argument is based on not trusting historians.

                  • merc@sh.itjust.works
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                    1 day ago

                    Historians are the ones who break through the myths. Myths are what you’re taught in school. In school they told you all about how the US founding fathers were heroic figures fighting for their freedom…