TexasCHLforum.com

Jaguar wrote:On a lighter note...

The Annoyed Man wrote:-snip-

As it happens, my own ancestors on my father's side were tories, and post revolution they fled to Canada because of the rough treatment tories received at the hands of patriots immediately after the revolution.

-snip-

My ancestors on my father's side beat up your ancestors on your father's side.

It's all good now, right?

Maybe. You got any beer?

jimlongley wrote:

mamabearCali wrote:So we can possibly add minor assault to the some in the demonstration......still not terrorism.......Terrorism is meant to install fear into a large section of the populace, it is meant to demoralize a people, as I understand it the Boston tea party was meant to tell Britain we would not be taxed willy nilly, specifically on tea.

So " . . . no one got hurt . . ." morphs into "It's okay if someone got hurt." but it's still OK? Sorry, doesn't wash, if your original statement that no one got hurt, which was wrong, was meant to indicate that it couldn't be defined as an act of terrorism, then the fact that someone did get hurt makes it terrorism, as it puts people in fear of physical harm. Add to that the economic "hurt" and it becomes even more so. And if telling Britain that the tax was unacceptable by assaulting ship's crews and destroying property isn't, by telling Britain and a large portion of the colonies' population that you were willing to resort to violence, instilling fear into a large section of the populace, I can't imagine what is.

Jim, I'm having trouble tracking here.........are you saying that the Boston Tea Party was illegitimate because somebody got hurt? If that's the case, then were the patriots at Concord and Lexington also acting without moral authority? After all, they killed British soldiers in their protest.

We have a dilema here........Few would argue (at least here in America) that the Revolution was a bad thing. Granted, a peaceful granting of independence would have probably been better, but there was a recalcitrant party to this whole shebang, and that was King George—so a peaceful granting of independence was not a realistic possibility. Thus, the colonists were faced with two difficult alternatives: 1) remain colonies; or 2) fight for independence. As it happens, my own ancestors on my father's side were tories, and post revolution they fled to Canada because of the rough treatment tories received at the hands of patriots immediately after the revolution. But I don't blame the patriots for the hard feelings. Perhaps they should have been more willing to reconcile....but I digress. Be that as it may, the fact is that without violence, there would be no revolution, and without revolution, there would be no independence, and without independence, there would be no USA for us to fret over its political health. It is equally a fact that otherwise decent people suffered at the hands of patriots because they did not share the same fervor for independence.......or, they were genuinely against the idea. But, at what point does a person of that era stop being a terrorist, and at what point does he become a patriot? Moral relativism is just plain dumb because it makes the case that nothing is worth dying for, and certainly nothing is worth hurting someone else for.

There is certainly a time for peaceful civil disobedience, but Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's pacifism is not the ONLY thing that brought about Indian independence. It did not happen in a vacuum. It also took a fair amount of riotous rage and violence on the part of Joe Hindu against the brutality of British oppression to make it happen.

The problem with trying to define "terrorism" is that of legitimacy. When an illegitimate government is attacked by enraged citizens, that is patriotism. When a legitimate government is attacked by enraged citizens, that is terrorism. Governments earn their legitimacy. Our nation's founders jumped through many hoops to seek peaceful resolution to their complaints through legal channels before they resorted to violence as a final measure. So whether or not they are terrorists or patriots in your eyes or mine depends really on whether or not you think their complaints were legitimate or illegitimate.

Just consider that, without those people and that violence, there IS NO U.S.

Now, are they terrorists, or patriots? To NOT know that answer is to be subject to all of the Rawlsian falsehoods used to promote and sustain progressivism: Justice as Fairness, The original position, Reflective equilibrium, Overlapping consensus, Public reason, Veil of ignorance, and Political constructivism (could not find a link for this one). In any case, these progressive principles are all false constructs which overlook THE MAIN THING—that the people involved in such actions are not amoebas swimming around in a petrie dish. They are real live human beings, facing real live persecutions, and make real live hard decisions to rebel against those persecutions. In John Rawls's moral equivalence world of unrealistic philosophical constructs, we are not allowed to know the history leading up to the acts; we are not allowed to know the moral depravity of General Burgoyne toward the colonists; we are not allowed to know about the larger picture of unjust taxation; we are not allowed to know the eventual outcome of the Revolution; we are not allowed to know ANY of the context; etc., etc., etc. Under the Rawlsian principle of "Veil of Ignorance," we can ONLY consider the actions themselves, and whether or not they are acceptable........and by the way, who gets to decide what's "acceptable?"

Well, of course, in the progressive viewpoint, and under this false construct in which amoebas theoretically threw some tea into a theoretical harbor, in absence of any of the context, those amoebas are terrorists. But in the REAL world, where actual human beings of flesh and bone reside, who are subject to all the natural laws—INCLUDING THOSE WHICH IMBUE THEM WITH NATURAL RIGHTS—they are patriots.

That is why I am baffled by people who fall for the relativistic argument. For their arguments to make sense, the real world and the people in it must necessarily be reduced to amoebas in a petrie dish and judged from behind Rawls's Veil of Ignorance.................and frankly, with as much as we know to be fact about our history, to impose a philosophical veil of ignorance on the process is simply inexcusable.

But what do I know?

Oldgringo wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:

Oldgringo wrote:

baldeagle wrote:

Oldgringo wrote:@ Baldeagle: "...no other founding fathers but ours". Really? Who started all of the other countries and religions of the world, eh?

It would help if you could actually name one.

Look here for a few.

I don't think either Jesus or Mohammed are on the above list but they would certainly qualify as founding fathers, don't you think?

nana nana na na!

Now, I am really out of here. Night night.

And again, you're talking about the rest of the world. WE HERE are talking about the AMERICAN education system, AMERICAN educators, AMERICAN history, AMERICAN taxpayers, and AMERICAN students. I don't really care what happened in Egypt or Papua New Guinea because whatever happened there is totally irrelevant to the topic of this thread. Basically, you picked a fight over an irrelevancy, toss out a "nana nana na na" and then you split. Wow. You really ought to abandon the idea of being a teenager forever.

And, you might get over yourself, too.

You threw the first punch. To quote yourself, "dont start none, and there won't be none."

Oldgringo wrote:

baldeagle wrote:

Oldgringo wrote:@ Baldeagle: "...no other founding fathers but ours". Really? Who started all of the other countries and religions of the world, eh?

It would help if you could actually name one.

Look here for a few.

I don't think either Jesus or Mohammed are on the above list but they would certainly qualify as founding fathers, don't you think?

nana nana na na!

Now, I am really out of here. Night night.

And again, you're talking about the rest of the world. WE HERE are talking about the AMERICAN education system, AMERICAN educators, AMERICAN history, AMERICAN taxpayers, and AMERICAN students. I don't really care what happened in Egypt or Papua New Guinea because whatever happened there is totally irrelevant to the topic of this thread. Basically, you picked a fight over an irrelevancy, toss out a "nana nana na na" and then you split. Wow. You really ought to abandon the idea of being a teenager forever.

Dragonfighter wrote:

baldeagle wrote:When you swim in the moral cesspool of liberalism, this is what you get. An act that involved dumping tea bales in the bay to protest taxation without representation and didn't harm a single human being becomes the moral equivalent of flying jets into buildings to murder thousands of people and beheading living individuals because they disagree with you.

If you buy into that, you're part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Succinct and to the point...as always.

Exactly.

Oldgringo wrote:From the English point of view, the so-called Boston Tea Party was most definitely an act of terrorism.

It seems to me that "terrorism" too often boils down to, 'whose ox is being gored'. IOW, those demons whom we denounce as terrorists think they are doing the right thing for their ox. We, OTOH, think they are violating our ox and demand punishment for such heinous acts of terror. In summation, public death to those who would violate our sacred ox....I think.

Maybe so, but this is not England, it is the United States of America, and this is Texas, not Wales. The alleged "terrorists" who dumped the tea in to Boston harbor were American Patriots. And as for the "english point of view," enough Americans were killed in WW1 and WW2 saving the failed state of Great Britain from German dictators that they no longer have the right to call our patriots "terrorists." The individual(s) who wrote this lesson plan are not worthy of collecting a paycheck in this country, particularly a taxpayer provided paycheck.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/26/texas ... terrorism/

A lesson plan in schools across Texas depicts the Boston Tea Party, the historical protest against taxation without representation and a seminal event leading up to the American Revolutionary War, as an act of terrorism.

The lesson plan, designed for world history and social studies classes, remained available to teachers as recently as January of 2012, CBS Houston reports, and was promoted by the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative.

.....and this was taught in Texas, where the independent spirit is alleged to survive. This is the first I've heard of this. Forgive me if it has been previously discussed. I saw the headline on Drudge Report earlier today. The children who are currently growing up to be voters, were exposed to this kind of hard leftist tripe not too long ago. Some may be still so exposed. And even where this curriculum has been dropped, what has a group as insidious as this one replaced it with? Am I the only one who thinks that TESCCC bears much closer examination? They received $25 million in state funding last year alone. THAT gives John Q. Public the absolute right to know what these creeps are doing.

Seriously folks, if a vipers nest like this isn't brought to the light of day and stamped out, then Texas is only a decade away from becoming California. My son is grown up and done with school. Like I said, I had no idea that this stuff was going on. How many of you who have kids in school right now are 100% aware of whether or not your kids are being spoon fed this kind of revisionist crap?