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Defiant loyalists paid dearly for choosing wrong side in the American Revolution

smithsonianmag.com

21–30 of 207 posts

Re: Defiant loyalists paid dearly for choosing wrong side in the American Revolution

#21
post #2

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I think early American settlers had a little extra moxie because there was excitement about how they were in a new world (to them, literally) and they were thinking big and creating something new.

It used to be that every American was basically frontiersman or explorer that was pushing boundaries, but things settled down and now people are largely content and nestled in place.

Re: Defiant loyalists paid dearly for choosing wrong side in the American Revolution

#22
post #2

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Modern conservatism grew out of authoritarian monarchist philosophers of the French revolution. It's inherently tied to supporting an unquestionable social hierarchy with rulers at the top, be they kings, presidents or billionaires.

It's not so much as the philosophy is dead, but more that it's finally achieving it's goals. Anti authoritarianism is just a rhetoric device. Just like saying trans people shouldn't be allowed to use the bathroom is a rhetoric device for achieving the goal is forcing trans people out of existence, either by making their lives such hell that they take their own lives, or that they go back to the closet.

Re: Defiant loyalists paid dearly for choosing wrong side in the American Revolution

#23

Now I want to see 'Tories' used derisively in modern American politics.

Go ahead. In the UK there’s regular Tories (Conservative Party), red Tories (Labour Party under Blair or Starmer), tartan Tories (SNP), etc. In the US it seems like you only have red and blue Tories.

Actually there's a massive difference between Democrats and Republicans in the US, and that difference matters a lot

Re: Defiant loyalists paid dearly for choosing wrong side in the American Revolution

#24
post #2

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Surely you recognize the same “representative government forms the core American value” you laud is both the mechanism by which the current administration was elected, as well as the same mechanism that passed the immigration laws that are being enforced, right?

ICE's actions are wildly illegal. None of this false equivalence nonsense.

Re: Defiant loyalists paid dearly for choosing wrong side in the American Revolution

#25
post #12
post #2

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I think a lot of people believe that there ought to be a statute of limitations on immigration; if you've been peacefully living and working in the country for many years, what's the actual public purpose of deporting someone? Including breaking up a family?

Re: Defiant loyalists paid dearly for choosing wrong side in the American Revolution

#26
post #14
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it died over the last few years. I think it's been dead for decades. Most Americans only seem to be anti-authoritarian when the authority is part of the opposing political party. This is nothing new. What is new is how much presidential power has expanded - allowing for increasingly authoritarian policies.

I would say that it's not "new" that presidential power has expanded. That's very new, and every president over my lifetime has expanded it bit by bit. 4547 is just doing so at a much more rapid pace and using obscure laws that no one wanted to take the time to clean up. I expect that if we get out of this the American populace will insist Congress tighten up its books and repeal and clarify some of its more obscure…

> I expect that if we get out of this the American populace will insist Congress tighten up its books and repeal and clarify some of its more obscure laws.

Thanks for the chuckle!

Re: Defiant loyalists paid dearly for choosing wrong side in the American Revolution

#28
post #2

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I don't know what happened to our values

Concentration of media has allowed conservative think tanks to shape people's values. Ten years ago [0], this meant all conservatives were getting marching orders from Fox News. Today, there is the illusion of choice among conservative media outlets (Fox News, X, Newsmax, etc.), but they all send the same message. Even traditionally more moderate outlets, like the WSJ, are being bought by the corporate class and shifting their message to the right.

0 - https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2014/10/21/political-...

Re: Defiant loyalists paid dearly for choosing wrong side in the American Revolution

#30
post #2

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"critical of people for defending the city from ICE stormtroopers. I see people justifying paper-checking, something I'm sure we roundly mocked the Soviets for doing - I thought gestapo agents checking the papers of people in the streets was commie shit?" Truly curious, what methods are you suggesting we use to keep our immigrant population tracked and controlled? If the immigrants aren't leaving after being asked ni…

> what methods are you suggesting we use to keep our immigrant population tracked and controlled?

You can't track and control only immigrants. Any such system would include tracking and controls of citizens, simply in order to sort them into the "not immigrant" category.

Hence all the "papers please".

(Not to mention the false positive problem!)

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