Today we celebrate the beginning of American assholism.
On this day in 1776, a bunch of assholes who who didn't want to pay taxes decided to declare their independence from Great Britain.
These same taxes that they would have had to pay if they still lived in England.
Let's all eat hot dogs and burgers as we celebrate our 231 years of being assholes.

Congratulations. 231 years well spent. What are the highs and lows?

taxation without representation... you know like DC.

madlee wrote:taxation without representation... you know like DC.

Exactly.

The American Revolution isn't my strong suit, and I take issue with a lot of the main players involved and the whole mythology around them, but considering how angry I get about friends of mine (hell, an entire city of almost 600,000 people) that are at the mercy of an elective body they have virtually no say in, I can see someone getting.... um... pissed about dealing not only with taxes they felt were intrusive and unfair, but also facing armed soldiers that are there to make sure you'll pay every last dime, as well as putting down anything else deemed a threat to the status quo.

Couple that with some direct and indirect results, like the Bill of Rights and being one of the first successful resistance movements to British imperial power, and I think it's tough to simply say the American Revolution was an "asshole" thing to do.

Also, I'm not gonna say Thomas Paine was wrong. So there's that, too.

Unrelated, but twenty five years ago yesterday, this got recorded in Los Angeles:



July 3rd, 1982, you gave me one of my favorite albums, so you are not crap.

Jim Koch.