The REALLY odd part about all of this, imho, is that the type of person who previously fought on the side of freedom, now is mislead to be acting on behalf of the oppressors.
I think there’s some American mythology causing you to see things this way. In short, the American revolution was fueled by Washington recruiting a lot of drunks and fuck ups, and after they won the war they wanted Washington to be king. Similar to Scotland and the movie Braveheart, the mythology has gotten so popular that they start to think the majority or even all of the fighting force was ideologically aligned to some idea of freedom and inalienable rights or something. It wasn’t.
Tbf, they did not desire taxation without representation, and a local king would have met the goal for them to feel “represented”. At least more so than the remote one in England, who had to spend tons of money on far-away matters such as dealing with France, Spain, Portugal, etc. A local King would instead spend money on local matters, such as dealing with the indigenous peoples present in the Americas. Still taxation, but they would benefit from it more.
Democracy hadn’t been a thing since ancient Greece, after which it languished under Turkish rule for several hundreds of years, and I wonder how much most uneducated people at the time knew even about that. Though some French philosophers such as Voltaire, and the English Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (I had to look him up: he was Genevan:-) were popular reading at the time, among the elites, and possibly they shared some of that as stories at the local pubs or whatnot. So anyway, it makes total sense to me that they wanted him to be a King: that was all that they really knew about, at the time, to meet their goal?
But now I am saying that the situation is reversed: the ones pushing for the RADICAL changes, especially using VIOLENT means to overthrow the government, are not trying to throw off the shackles in order to return America to a more pristine state of “democracy” - the so-called “conservative” Republicans want to overthrow democracy, and instill Trump as their emperor. That’s moving backwards, towards fascism and away from democracy (VERY unlike the case with Washington, where they intended a more sideways move, not fully knowing that more was even possible).
Likewise, the UK wanted to exist within the scope of the EU but also not at the same time so… bye-bye I guess. Now they are shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED that they are “out”. Even they seem to think now they have moved backwards, and many report wishing that they could undo what was done. They can do as they please yes, but they seemed not to realize that others have that same privilege as well. Especially the ones living in other countries, now shocked to find that they may be expected to pay taxes in those sovereign nations - what did they THINK was going to happen!?
Americans I presume would eventually be the same - not enjoying life under Trump’s boot heels, but like Brexit, the ability to return would have been lost. The ones pushing for that WANT the democracy gone, and for it to be replaced with a more useful (to them) fascism, bc with globalization and automation, they do not have need of a large educated workforce, such as doctors and scientists, and they seem to be wanting to “streamline” the population, much as companies are currently streamlining their direct employees. An example is Trump’s COVID policy of “just let them eat cake die”. Fewer resources taken up by worthless people - like Oxygen consumption and smaller populations being less susceptible to pandemics - leave more for the rich to have whatever they want.
I think there’s some American mythology causing you to see things this way. In short, the American revolution was fueled by Washington recruiting a lot of drunks and fuck ups, and after they won the war they wanted Washington to be king. Similar to Scotland and the movie Braveheart, the mythology has gotten so popular that they start to think the majority or even all of the fighting force was ideologically aligned to some idea of freedom and inalienable rights or something. It wasn’t.
Tbf, they did not desire taxation without representation, and a local king would have met the goal for them to feel “represented”. At least more so than the remote one in England, who had to spend tons of money on far-away matters such as dealing with France, Spain, Portugal, etc. A local King would instead spend money on local matters, such as dealing with the indigenous peoples present in the Americas. Still taxation, but they would benefit from it more.
Democracy hadn’t been a thing since ancient Greece, after which it languished under Turkish rule for several hundreds of years, and I wonder how much most uneducated people at the time knew even about that. Though some French philosophers such as Voltaire, and the English Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (I had to look him up: he was Genevan:-) were popular reading at the time, among the elites, and possibly they shared some of that as stories at the local pubs or whatnot. So anyway, it makes total sense to me that they wanted him to be a King: that was all that they really knew about, at the time, to meet their goal?
But now I am saying that the situation is reversed: the ones pushing for the RADICAL changes, especially using VIOLENT means to overthrow the government, are not trying to throw off the shackles in order to return America to a more pristine state of “democracy” - the so-called “conservative” Republicans want to overthrow democracy, and instill Trump as their emperor. That’s moving backwards, towards fascism and away from democracy (VERY unlike the case with Washington, where they intended a more sideways move, not fully knowing that more was even possible).
Likewise, the UK wanted to exist within the scope of the EU but also not at the same time so… bye-bye I guess. Now they are shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED that they are “out”. Even they seem to think now they have moved backwards, and many report wishing that they could undo what was done. They can do as they please yes, but they seemed not to realize that others have that same privilege as well. Especially the ones living in other countries, now shocked to find that they may be expected to pay taxes in those sovereign nations - what did they THINK was going to happen!?
Americans I presume would eventually be the same - not enjoying life under Trump’s boot heels, but like Brexit, the ability to return would have been lost. The ones pushing for that WANT the democracy gone, and for it to be replaced with a more useful (to them) fascism, bc with globalization and automation, they do not have need of a large educated workforce, such as doctors and scientists, and they seem to be wanting to “streamline” the population, much as companies are currently streamlining their direct employees. An example is Trump’s COVID policy of “just let them
eat cakedie”. Fewer resources taken up by worthless people - like Oxygen consumption and smaller populations being less susceptible to pandemics - leave more for the rich to have whatever they want.