re: The American Revolution-Ken Burns

It’s Ken Burns.

It’s going to be a bunch of liberal gobbledygook.

We homeschool. When they mentioned Phylis Wheatley my wife said her and our girls had been studying her writings. I immediately paused the documentary and said something to the effect of "Hold on! You are teaching our white girls about slavery and female black writers? As a right-wing homeschooling family, you have a responsibility to whitewash history and remove any reference to slavery and black people in general". Hopefully, she obeys, or there will be consequences.

*In case I ever run for office, let it be known this was all tongue in cheek*

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After three episodes I have an opinion that the Loyalists may have been the sane ones and that the ones shouting "Liberty!" and "Freedom!" were greedy opportunists.

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I have not watched a single minute of the documentary series so far, but I am definitely curious if Ken Burns has added in the context as to why the Colonials reacted so aggressively to Britain's measures against them.

While the Colonies ostensibly belonged to Britain, the distance between them and London made it so there was a bit of neglect between the mother country and the Colonies for about 156 years (from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 until the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763). In that period of time, the Colonies learned to govern themselves. While there were governors appointed by the Crown, these governors generally allowed the colonial legislatures (elected from the people) to run the individual colonies. They would create and levy their own taxes, develop their own economic and trade systems, and a whole host of other things.

Then, all of a sudden, the British government began to take a keen interest in the comings and goings of the 13 Colonies after more than 150 years of salutary neglect. Taxes were levied against them in Parliament without proper representation - a violation of the British constitution. When the legislatures of these colonies, who had so often levied their own taxes, condemned the actions of Parliament they often found themselves dissolved by increasingly active royal governors.

The grievances the colonists had with Britain were ultimately real and serious. It depends upon your point of view if they were serious enough to escalate to open rebellion and war.

There was one point where historian Alan Taylor makes the following statement:

"In the colonial world and the European world, democracy had a bad name. It was a synonym for "anarchy." It had a reputation as being turbulent, as a system exploited by ruthless politicians called "demagogues"-- people who pandered to the passions of common people in order to whip them up and get them to do passionate things, and to get government to serve them and to prey upon the property of more wealthy people. So, democracy is not the aspiration that creates the Revolution. The Revolution creates the conditions for people to aspire to have a democracy."

Then they cut to the narrator discussing how merchants in Boston and New York were boycotting British goods.

No mention of how democracy wasn't the goal of the leaders of the revolution and the founding fathers. They too saw democracy as chaotic and extreme.

“Remember, Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself….It is vain to say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy.” John Adams

“Democracy is the most vile form of government…democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with the personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” James Madison

“Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments… But if we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.” Alexander Hamilton

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It's Ken Burns.

It’s going to be a bunch of liberal gobbledygook

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He's funded by PBS, The Adobe Foundation, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Anne Ray Foundation, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, Atlantic Philanthropies, Bill and Melinda Gates...

99% of what he's saying, is being pushed by a liberal agenda. He's just a puppet.

This French historian chick named Iris on episode 4 is absolute smoke

Good lord . I would marry her

DAR will check him on this one

& she looks better on the broadcast. Iris de Rode.

nipple alert

I’m one episode in and my biggest issue is I already know all this stuff. When you already know what’s happening the long explanations and quotes from books makes it seem a little slow and overplayed.

I feel like I know a lot more about the causes and effects of the revolutions rather than the revolution itself (outside of the 8-9 famous battles and events). So hopefully once it gets into the actual revolution it’ll hold my attention better.

No issue with call outs to whatever groups of people, he’s not telling any lies