On this date in 1770, government troops opened fire into an angry mob of Boston citizens, hitting eleven, and killing five. The soldiers were charged with murder.
Nowadays, of course, they'd have sovereign immunity, and you'd be a wookie-suited, tin-foil beanie wearing, black helicopter believing whacko if you said anything bad about their actions. Besides, some of the victims were probably hippies. Or on drugs. Or terrorists. Or something.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
15 comments:
Thanks Tam, that dusted the cobwebs off what I remembered of the event. The concept of branding,(as the convicted soldiers were), as a punishment is an interesting one. Perhaps if brought back, it's use might help keep some of the snakes in Washington in line as they plot to lighten all of our bank accounts.
But I doubt it.
heh, WV-RETYPER...that's me
You forgot one:
Abusing children.
This now means anything from stomach-turning depravity down to spanking.
Is it odd that now that the Left is in power, you don't hear the name Crispus Attucks during Black History Month?
Sovereign immunity means something completely different when the actual sovereign can call you out for your actions, as opposed to the impersonal state. Just as the wives of Henry VIII.
Black history indeed. I was taught back in the dark ages that Attucks was a slave or indentured servant. I was taught wrong: he was a "mixed race sailor."
So he'll be up during Mixed Race History Month, and it had better be a long one.
Actually, I think they WERE considered terrorists in those days.
Yep. Dangerous firebrands and loose cannons who would hurt the cause.
"Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason"
Sir John Harrington (1561-1612)
Thanks for that reminder.
I've sometimes tried to make a similar point about the founding fathers. We remember them as classically educated men in wigs, as many were, but they were simultaneously a motley collection of smugglers, tax evaders, propagandists, organizers of illegal militias and stockpilers of military small arms and artillery. If they lived today they'd get raided by the ATF.
Dave, how right you are. Of course, if they lived today, the ATF wouldn't make it back to Boston alive.
They were also defended by none other than John Adams, who secured their acquittal, IIRC.
Despite the fact I'm glad things eventually turned out as they did, the soldiers didn't over react. They fired into an aggressive mob that had sticks and paving stones, at the least.
It's not like they shot an unarmed woman in the head while she held her baby, or anything...
Yes, they were in a tight spot. I find it telling that the provocateur apprentice was giving a soldier shit for, supposedly, not paying his wigmaker's bill to the guy's boss. Other than on "Sopranos," who today has that kind of allegiance to their employer? A different world.
WV sorasmu, the state a world-ruling billionaire is in when he can't make up his mind, OR,
some seriously XXX Dr. Seuss.
...wookie-suited? That's harsh.
Anyway, it raises my respect for Adams a skosh more.
And even today, there probably wouldn't be 8x10 color glossy photographs with a paragraph on the back describing the scene on each one. Too incriminating later.
Noah, heh. Y'r honor I cannot tell a lie, I put that wigmaker's bill with my mark on it inside that icy snowball.
And he said to me, Kid...
Post a Comment