Spare a thought today for Americans who live abroad as we are unable to celebrate Independence Day in our native land, and must spend our time with our former oppressors, the British. Luckily, they are friendlier now than they were in colonial times but still...someone out there eat a hot dog for me, OK? And munch on some Fritos. Oh now I am feeling nostalgic.
I'll be spending the day in Salisbury. The chorus I sing with has a concert at the cathedral there tonight. I've lived in this country for almost 20 years and have never been to Salisbury Cathedral even though I have seen it out of train windows for years.
For over 750 years pilgrims have come to Salisbury to seek inspiration in the glory and peace of the building and surrounding Cathedral Close. Whether you come to worship, to marvel at or climb up to Britain's tallest spire, to be awed by the beauty and scale of the cathedral interior or to study the original Magna Carta in our Chapter House, we welcome you.
20 comments:
ENJOY SALISBURY, IT IS A GREAT CITY, PLENTY OF OUT OF THE WAY PLACES TO EXPLORE. I USED TO LOVE TO GO TO THE BOATHOUSE PUB. YOU USED TO BE ABLE TO HIRE A ROWING BOAT AND ROW ALONG THE RIVER. IT'S ALSO NICE JUST TO WALK ALONG BY THE RIVER, OUT OF TOWN. NICE ITALIAN RESTAURANT OPOSITE THE LIBRARY. IF YOUR HUSBANDS INTO REAL ALE, TRY THE CHOUGHS PUB ALSO NEAR THE LIBRARY. HAVE FUN.
Thank you Anonymous. My husband and daughter are going with me and said they'd have nothing to do while I rehearsed, and here you have given them a list of stuff. Thanks.
WOULD HAVE LOVED TO HAVE COME AND HEARD YOU, BUT PRIOR COMMITMENTS....
Ah, yes, the GLorious Fourth!
"No taxation without representation" was the American battle cry.
Try telling that to millions of immigrants, good enough to pay taxes and fight for the United States but not good enough to vote.
You are forgetting some things there Mr. Tarleton. Immigrants coming to the US knew what they were coming to and came willingly, happily, for the chance to gain a better life than they could have under European monarchies.
The Hessians liked it so much most of them stayed here.
If you are referring to more modern times, and something tells me you are, you must be talking about the millions of south-of-the-border immigrants, many of whom are here illegally. These people are net tax recipients, not net tax payers. Any of them serving in the military do so completely out of choice, as we have no draft. Any of them serving in the military get to take shortcuts in the citizenship process, along with getting money for college.
At least 20 million of these immigrants have no grounds for complaint at all. If they don't like conditions here they are free to go back home- that is, if voting is a more important right than eating.
We really don't need more people voting to give themselves gifts from the public purse.
I spent the day having a picnic at a friend's house - with soy hot dogs and hamburgers (she's a vegetarian) and baked beans and corn. Then we saw fireworks, and it was wonderful. I DID think of you.
Thank you Michigan Mom. That's all I needed was for someone to think of me while enjoying US independence -- x
Actually, I think the general was referring to the millions of legal immigrants who are subject to the draft and who pay their taxes, but have no right to vote.
We spent the weekend (which I prefer to honor mournfully as the day Vicksburg fell after the terrible siege, turning the tide of the war and pretty much sealing the doom of the Confederacy) at a blowout wedding up in "Yoknapatawpha" featuring delicious food and drink at numerous parties with lots of Sartoris types, nary a Snopes in sight! Lovely summer fashions, flowing champagne, the best Bloody Marys ever (secret, whispered to me by the bartender at the Saturday bbq, who also happens to be the mayor of Oxford and owner of Square Books, Richard Howorth, is adding pureed gazpacho made from vine-ripe tomatoes)...long conversations with such quirky interesting people, including Faulkner's great-niece-in-law Sally (Eliz, we met her husband's dad Jimmy Faulkner at Rowan Oak that day, and she loved the story)...at this same bbq, in addition to the buffet of cheese grits and grillades, there was a hired Lucky Dog wagon serving WEENIES to the children---LE had TWO! All this wasted on me as I don't do the meat thing, but the cheese grits were fluffy and divine. You bet I thought of you, Blog Dominatrix! You would have been in Southern Society Heaven!
Having some free time between the lunch and evening wedding, I biked from our hotel to the bookstore and bought two GREAT books---*Julie and Julia*, a must-read by a sassy blogger who is now a highly-paid writer, and Winston Groom's much-praised *Vicksburg 1863* in honor of the day! This morning we packed up and drove north to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, for a little getaway with our bikes.
So that's been our Fourth Weekend! I'm on LE's laptop, so hope this will send. The countryside up hre is lovely---near the Missouri border, and very much reminiscent of the Pyrenees in France.
I was wondering where you were, BWJ. What a fantastic weekend you had. Will check out your blog for pictures later. thanks for the report.
> our former oppressors, the British.
I'm trying to think of ways in which the British colonialists on the North American continent were *in fact* oppressed by the motherland British.
Could someone help? :-)
Here you go Howard, the oppression was clearly enumerated in the Declaration of Independence:
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
And in addition:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Does that help, Howard?
> Does that help, Howard?
Not really, I'm afraid, GW.
Anyone can cut and paste from the Declaration of Independence; what I was hoping for was an analysis of what ills the various bits and pieces of propaganda actually sought to address -- the historical context, the actual instances of oppression.
So, for instance, it would be useful to have, where the DoI has "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures" a note on when and where this took place, and whether it really was an oppression -- a commentary, if you like.
I suppose what I am most interested in is whether the British colonists of North America were more oppressed than, say, these other occupants of the continent:
1) the population of African slaves
2) the aboriginal inhabitants
3) non-Anglo Saxon immigrants from Europe
4) those who were not franchised to vote in local legislature because they had not sufficient property, or were women
5) those disqualified from voting because of their religious faith.
Is it not possible that the British colonists of North America oppressed the above-listed classes rather more than they themselves were oppressed by the homeland British?
No, Howard, it is not possible because all those you listed were under the same oppression from the British.
The aboriginal inhabitants were in many cases bloodthirsty savages who roasted colonists alive, scalped them, raped and disemboweled their children. They weren't fancy pants gay activists parading around in feathered headdresses.
Britain profited greatly from the african slave trade, and profited as well from enslaving people of other lands.
Why should non-property owners be given the right to vote in a republic? That is a feature of degenerate democracies which only institute a more sophisticated form of slavery. Women didn't need any right to vote because they were represented under the coverture of their husbands, which gave them some special rights of protection in property.
If a colonist didn't like the religious laws of one area, he was free to move to another, at any rate the constitution did away with all that sort of nonsense.
If you want an anaylsis of the complaints voiced in the declaration, research it for yourself. There is plenty of information available on each claim, not that any of it would sway your warped view that somehow moving to America made the colonists somehow inherently more evil than those people who stayed in England and prostrated themselves before a family of royals who didn't even wipe their own asses until after 1900, who claimed a divine right to rule others, who were by treaty with the vatican Jesus' tax collectors.
You don't really seek any serious response, you are just making a somewhat gay appeal to others to participate in your silly America bashing, as if seeking indedpendent rule is in some way to be deplored. I guess to the British mindset it largely is, so many of you seem to need a nanny on the throne to tell you what to do.
What a strange response by GW!
Is it lack of confidence in his/her position that makes her/him take refuge in bluster and idiocy, I wonder?
Try to keep your knuckles from grazing along the floor, GW, and good luck!
As I am rather fond of this GW person, I must take exception to your comment, Howard! What would this site do without its dissenters and Devil's advocates, to keep things lively? I have neither the time nor the inclination to Google and research and comb back through documents like the Declaration or the Constitution, but it's mighty entertaining when others bother to do so, and fire off a response, from either camp.
You say "knuckle-dragging blustering idiot," we say "bleeding-heart leftie wanker" and MY, don't we all come to understand one another better, with such meaningful dialogue!??
> I am rather fond of this GW person
Oh, me too, bwj! While I far prefer well-reasoned and appropriately-evidenced discussion to a mere exchange of insults, GW's response to me seemed to be begging for the latter, so I was doing my best to indulge her/him!
I think it's a little suspect to cite the declaration of independence as factual evidence of oppresion.
It's certianly evidence that the writers had complaints against the crown, but it's by definition a biased source, as it only tells the colonists side. Maybe it looked somewhat different from the British side?
It's quite possible that the crown administrators thought they were acting completely reasonably. They might have taken the view, for example, that establishing the colonies had cost a lot of money and the crown was therefore entitled to run them as it saw fit. Who were these colonists to have an opinion, just because they happened to live there?
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