Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
I believe all of that was paid for by the taxes which caused the rebellion in the first place. Besides, that's the fun of being an enemy. You can stiff your creditors much more easily when they're the bad guys.

And I've never fully understood how people who came over here from Europe to start fresh allowed the European monarchies to take over anyway. Who decided that the Americas belonged to the English, or French, or Spanish crowns? Probably the same people who decided that the American West belonged to the American people (read WASP's) instead of the natives who lived there.
Bad guys? Us? Never!

Who had depended upon the British Army and the Royal Navy to defend them from the territiorial ambitions of the French and Spanish? Who needed money and supplies from the Mother country to establish and then defend them against the Indians and the other Powers? Who needed manpower and resources to build the colonies up and develop them?

Remember, colonies were not established for the good of the colonials, but for the benefit of the founding powers. Colonies were expected to show a profit or provide a strategic stronghold. They were owned by the French, Dutch, Spanish or British by right of discovery and possession, or conquest, or treaty, in just the same way that the US later claimed control over all of the other 37 states and the American colonies such as Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, US Virgin Islands, and all the rest.

But once greed and corruption had taken hold in the colonies, who was it who treated with enemies of the Crown? The colonials. Who was refusing to pay lawful taxes? The colonials. Who attacked and intimidated Crown Agents simply for doing their duty by attempting to collect revenues due? Colonials. Who poured boiling tar over Loyalists and rolled them in feathers before driving them out of their property and sequestering it for themselves? Treacherous, criminal colonial rebels.

No, despite what "The Patriot" tells you, despite even what your history books tel you (remember, history is written by the victor) the War of Independence was an act of treason, not for liberty, but for American greed (in place of British greed I concede willingly); and it was fomented by the French and Spanish who sought to undermine British supremacy in America. Frankly, I believe Americans show very little gratitude to the French and Spanish, without whose aid they would not have achieved independence - at least, not at that time.