fandomhigh | US Government (Friday, January 20, 4th period)

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US Government (Friday, January 20, 4th period)

Josh looked up from his newspaper, where he had carefully been drawing horns onto a photograph of the Secretary of State, when his government class began arriving.

"Today we'll actually start talking about the American part of American government." He pointed to the board. "As most of you know, the Americas were discovered by Columbus...well by a bunch of other people first, and then Columbus, and Columbus was still convinced he had found India because Columbus was a moron, but if you want my rant on this you should've signed up for US history. So Columbus found a couple of continents, and soon all the major European powers were over here searching for gold and oppressing the indigenous population, as you do.

"The English arrived in the 1600s--about a hundred years late to the party--but they made a huge impact on this country." He grinned at Lee. "Sorry, kid, more about England today. The English colonies were different because you didn't have to be English to live there--you could be from anywhere and if you were in an English colony, and admittedly, were a white guy, you were granted the same rights and privileges as an Englishman living back in England."

"The 13 colonies in North America had a pretty decent relationship with England. But they had been colonies for 150 years, and that's important to remember. Generations had grown up in America and were developing their own culture, and wanted their voice to be heard in decision making. England? Not so interested in that."

"Things came to a boiling point when England instituted a series of taxes on the colonies to help pay off the debt for the French and Indian Wars. Without asking the colonists' opinion on the matter, or really caring that their response was, to paraphrase, 'aw, hell no.' The tax on paper--the Stamp Act, passed in 1765--pissed people off because before there was TV, the only way to get news circulated was on paper, and the colonists were huge into letter-writing, pamphlet making, and newspapers. But the Tea Act in 1773 was the last straw. The colonists came up with the super-spiffy chanty motto 'no taxation without representation'--something you'll see on license plates from Washington DC, which is a conversation for another time--and threw all of the tea that was supposed to be taxed into Boston Harbor."

Josh looked up. "This was called the Boston Tea Party because we have a sense of humor about things sometimes. The British, as you might imagine, didn't react with laughter. They closed Boston Harbor, clamped down on the Massachusetts government, and pretty much led directly to the battles of Lexington and Concord that started the Revolutionary War."

He reached onto his desk and picked up a copy of the Declaration of Independence. "Which leads us to perhaps the best written 'screw you and the horse you rode in on' document in the history of this planet. The Founders of this country wanted to make it perfectly clear to the world why they were severing ties with England. So they listed the many, many, many things that England, its parliament and its king had done wrong."

He held the paper in front of him. "But the part that has stuck with us is the 35 words in the second paragraph." He cleared his throat. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

He put the Declaration down. "We discussed how this was cribbed from Locke last class. We won't get into the definition of 'men' in that sentence, or if we think that the United States has lived up to that ideal, or if 'pursuit of Happiness' is legally binding." He sighed. "Though I do give you permission here and now to smack any crazy person who writes a letter to the editor declaring pursuit of happiness a constitutionally granted right. It's not in the Constitution, and they should learn to read."

He passed out copies of the Declaration of Independence. "Okay. I want you to go through the list of grievances that the colonies had with England and tell me the one that would make you the most cranky. For homework, I want you to get started on reading the Constitution."

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Which grievance with England makes you most aggrieved?

"Well, I'm pretty much irritated with everything English," Lee says, peevishly.

Sam grinned. "Hey, at least you believe the country exists now. That's progress."

"Anything that relates to the stuff in the Declaration?" Josh asked. "Or just their, I don't know, scones and crappy weather?"

Duo has a dark look on his face. "Everything England did is a load of crap. The Americans were totally right for telling them to piss the hell off, those bastards." He shifts his broken arm irritatedly. "Though if I had to choose, I'd pick the one about England protecting their unauthorized military from punishment for murdering anyone while on 'duty.'" He snorts. "That one's just lovely."

"I've gotta agree with Duo. Not that everything England did is crap, even though most of it is, but about the protection of the unauthorized military from punishment. The military should be by the people, for the people. It's there to protect the citizens and the land, not to oppress them. Members of the military have a hard enough job to do when they're doing just what they're meant to do. They get harassed for doing a hard job. But anyone who crosses that line and abuses their power should be punished for it. Not punishing them, even condoning that kind of behavior like England did, undermines the whole system."

Josh nodded. "Good points, both of you."

"Agreed, Kawalsky, man. Though I'm of the opinion that it would be best if there weren't any military at all, as in, no need for it. But as long as there's gotta be one, it shouldn't be on the terms England was settin', like you said, makes the whole system weak. And it makes it hard for those of us who're willin' to take on the hard job of being a soldier; gives us an even worse name."

"I agree. The soldiers had a lot of power there, but taking away their restrictions like that allowed too many of them to shirk their responsibility. That's just wreckless and wrong."

"I'm gonna go with repeatedly dissolving the Representative Houses, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people." Sam did roll her eyes a bit, though, at the manly firmness part of the statement. "Basically, every time people tried to do anything, King George took action against them. It was impossible for people to speak their minds or govern themselves."

"Okay, the manly firmness might've been a bit over the top," Josh said, "but the king did have this nasty habit of dissolving Houses of Commons that disagreed with him."

"Sounds like a bad romance novel," Sam retorted. "And considering that King George thought he was on the throne by divine right, the representatives were lucky he didn't just kill them."

Josh shuddered. "Yeah, now I've got a mental image with the romance novel thing. Thank you for that."

Sam grinned mischeviously. "You're entirely welcome. Blame the Founders."

"I blame them for many, many things," Josh said. "For this? I blame you."

Re: Discussion question...

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Re: Discussion question...

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Re: Discussion question...

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"It's all pretty bad, but I think I have to go with making the military seperate from and stronger than the civil courts. That seems to pretty much say, 'the person with the guns wins, and we don't care what anyone else thinks.' Especially when you think about the thing Charlie mentioned, that soldiers couldn't be prosecuted for murders. If they can't be touched criminally or civilly, that pretty much means the people were just stuck with whatever the British armies did and had no legal way to act against them."

Josh nodded. "Excellent point. A lot of this dovetails into how our Constitution was written, especially relating to civilian control over military affairs."

"No trial by jury, definitely," John says. "That's one of those things that we take for granted in this day and age. Back then, one person was judge, jury and possibly executioner. There was no ability to hear both sides of the issue and, I'm sure, innocent people were convicted because of it."

"People who asked political inconvenient questions were certainly not looking forward to anything like a fair trial under the British system, that's for sure." Josh nodded. "Good thoughts."

"Well, pretty much everything kind of sucked. But if I had to pick just one, I'd go with where England decided to get rid of nice useful laws in the colonies, and take away their charters, and generally totally change the system of government. If some guy across the ocean decided he was going to take away my system of law just because he could, I'd be pissed too."

Josh grinned. "Yeah, pissed is a good way of putting it. Pissed and armed? Wasn't a good combination for the British."

"I agree with Angela on the rendering of the military independent of, and superior to the civil power," Elizabeth said. "If we look at martial law, which, is potentially what could of occured, then many of the other grievances listed would have also increased due to this form of rule."

"Good point," Josh said, smiling.

"I'd have to say the part about impressment of sailors and making them turn on there own countrymen and families. That's just cruel. And the only way out was suicide? Wrong."

Josh nodded. "Good example."

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