American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World

I've been hearing that the War for Independence wasn't a war against a foreign foe, but was a civil war. Toss in how much it messed up the country whether the foe was domestic or foreign. Part of my fascination for this is that the scholars who address this issue point out that Tory meant conservative, as it still does.

Even more interesting to me is that there were many more loyalists out there than most people realise. Particularly in the southern states. I've seen comments where people from the south will say there were battles fought without a British presence during the War for Independence. I would also add the coercive nature of the rebels, particularly in New England.

Toss in that the militia needed to be under some form of civilian control, which is really what the "well-regulated" means. Even if you want to use the "well trained" meaning, there needs to be some form of structure because fighting a war requires a lot more than just being a good shot. There has to be discipline and serious drill, which comes from, well, organised training. Or as the Supreme Court said in Presser, which pretty much dealt with the militia:

The right voluntarily to associate together as a military company or organization or to drill or parade with arms, without, and independent of, an act of Congress or law of the State authorizing the same, is not an attribute of national citizenship. Military organization and military drill and parade under arms are subjects especially under the control of the government of every country. They cannot be claimed as a right independent of law. Under our political system they are subject to the regulation and control of the State and Federal governments, acting in due regard to their respective prerogatives and powers. The Constitution and laws of the United States will be searched in vain for any support to the view that these rights are privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States independent of some specific legislation on the subject.

The issue was the common defence and how it would be structured. not personal weaponry.

Unless you can show me those exact words in the constitution, then you're wrong and I am right because it does make it clear if you go a little beyond "we the people"  that the document addresses the common defence.

Myth Busting the American Riflemen of the Revolution Part 2: The Septics were the better troops.

The myth is that the minutemen drove them out at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. Not at all. 

Is Luigi Mangione a vigilante or a terrorist?

 Ok, I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. In fact, they tend to overlap.

I need to set up some definitions. I will define vigilantism as "collective coercive practices undertaken by non-state actors in order to enforce norms (social or judicial) and/or to take the law in their own hands". 

British criminologist Les Johnston suggests several criteria for defining vigilantism in his article What is Vigilantism?:

it involves planning and premeditation by those engaging in it; its participants are private citizens whose engagement is voluntary; it is a form of autonomous citizenship and, as such, constitutes a social movement; it uses or threatens the use of force; it arises when an established order is under threat from the transgression, the potential transgression, or the imputed transgression of institutionalized norms; it aims to control crime or other social infractions by offering assurances (or ‘guarantees’) of security both to participants and to others.

The punisments meted out by vigilantes can be quite spectacular and symbolic: vigilantes cannot arrest all criminals but can make punishment into a symbol to frighten others. Sanctioning often takes the form of physical punishment, public humiliation or, more rarely, execution. These sanctions are an attempt to control by exemplary punishment. So, the use of lynching is an example of both vigilantism and terrorism.

Terrorism  is "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

What we have is the common factor of violence used to enforce, or create, a norm. Extra-legal or extra-Constitutional use of threats, or physical and psychological violence to punish, or to cause, incite or stoke fear and hate are common to both vigilantism and terrorism.  I would say that it's sometimes hard to distinguish between the two since they share the characteristics of (1) use of force (2) for a political purpose. 

Some might want to say that vigilantism is supposed to enforce the "law", or at least the established order. On the other hand, it is a non-governmental actor using force most of the time in violation of the law. To go back to the lynching example: the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) targeted African-Americans as well as Jews, immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Catholics, Muslims, and atheists. The KKK used physical assault and lynching, against politically active blacks and their allies, even if the latter were whites. This was all done in opposition to the civil rights movement.

As I said, there is not a clear line between vigilantism and terrorism: both use violence for a political purpose.

Myth Busting the American Riflemen of the Revolution

Yet another myth goes down the crapper.


And while we're at it, the guns used by the Rebels were either English Brown Besses or French Charleville. The Navigation Acts pretty much precluded any home made guns by the Americans. BTW, note that the Brown Bess has "Tower", as in Tower of London, which is where the Royal Armoury is located and GR with a crown showing it was property of the British Government. I think there broad arrows as well, which means this was British government property.

In other words, the guns were STOLEN!


And stop calling the French "Cheese eating, surrender monkeys" since the US wouldn't exist without their help. Besides, the Swiss fit the cheese eating description much better if you know Swiss history.

OK, Luigi Mangione supporters!

 Yeah, I want to see him convicted.

And for some very good reasons, which I am going to try to explain for your sick minds.

Let's start off with what Brian Thompson did was NOT ILLEGAL! Yeah, no law against it. You might have been able to sue him, but you couldn't send him to prison for his business decisions regarding healthcare coverage, but being unethical doesn't make it illegal. The revolting nature of the business decisions of Brian Thompson and UnitedHealthcare, its cruelty, much though we may deplore it, is not a legal basis for murder. And if you have issues with what Thompson did there are methods in the system for you to change it.

But you are a bunch of lazy fucks who aren't going to do the serious work needed to change the system. I am trying, but I am on my own.
And you're not helping!

Next, murder IS ILLEGAL. Toss in that just because you don't like something doesn't give you the right to kill outside the law. You are just as bad as the anti-abortion activists who have no problem with killing abortion providers.

And where will it take us if you want to have the fucked up belief that killing someone outside the law is in any way justified? The pictures are of Alan Berg. He had outspoken atheistic and liberal views along with a confrontational interview style. He was known for upsetting some callers to the point they began sputtering, whereupon he would berate them.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés of the Moderate Voice website wrote in 2007: "He didn't pick on the poor, the frail, the undefended: He chose Roderick Elliot and Frank "Bud" Farell, who wrote The Death of the White Race and Open Letter to the Gentiles, and other people from the white supremacist groups... the groups who openly espoused hatred of blacks, Jews, leftists, homosexuals, Hispanics, other minorities and religious groups".

Berg was assassinated by members of the white supremacist group The Order, which believed in killing all Jews and sending all black people to Africa.

As I have pointed out before, your support for Mangione takes you into extreme right wing territory. Toss in that you don't help your cause because you make it plain that Mangione's actions WERE political, which puts him square into the defintion of being a terrorist.

Some people don't get that it isn't how many people you kill that makes you a terrorist, but your reason for killing the people.  If Alan Berg had been killed by someone he pissed off, that wouldn't be terrorism. But the fact that he was killed by the Order because of his beliefs: that he "was mainly thought to be anti-white and he was Jewish."

Let's go to the definition of Lynching:

Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of informal group social control, and it is often conducted with the display of a public spectacle for maximum intimidation.

Of course, Emmet Till wasn't lynched by a mob. So, a lynching can also be used to mean an act of violence used to intimidate. And it wasn't just blacks who were lynched. I would suggest looking up Wiley Brownlee.

But, an act of violence done for political reasons fits the description of terrorism: whether you like it or not.

So, is this something you really want to be associated with: especially when Mangione's confession.

Er, "manifesto" is made public? I don't think you will want your internet history coming out when you find out what an arrogant little psycho Mangione happens to be. You may be smart, but you are the epitome of ignorance if you are supporting him.

I would like to think that the light turned on in your head if you read this, but probably not.

After all, do you want to live in a world where people get away with murder?