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this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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askchapo
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The British press and government explicitly called them terrorists.
But the other side of it is just as laughable. Whenever the framers of the constitution wrote about what they were trying to do, they would endlessly hand-wring about how bad it would be for everyone to have a say in government. They thought only rich land-owning men had proved themselves worthy to hold power. You know, them and all their friends. The american "revolution" had more in common with a coup than any sort of real liberatory movement.
Well it was still a step in the right direction, distributing power a bit more locally instead of living as a colony under a monarchical foreign power. You may also recall that initially they went too far in decentralizing power before the Constitution replaced the articles of confederation. Even then voting rights were mostly decided by each state, some allowing non land owners and even free black men (though sometimes later removing that right) to vote pre 1800s. Whatever they may have discussed, voting and ability to participate in government was enjoyed by over half of the citizens, which is a significant improvement over the foreign tyrant they had previously. But regardless of how the British tried to label colonial rebels, and regardless of how much the rebels didn't get right, I'm on the side of the historical revolutionaries.
I always get a kick out of how silly they were and how bad at designing governments they ended up being. Like you pointed out their first attempt was a shitshow, and when you read the federalist papers he outright says the entire plan is for there to be no political parties, if we get those it won't work and we'll all be fucked.
And yet as soon as King George relinquished the presidency we had a two party system, in fact the Constitution more or less makes a two party system inevitable. And it has no provisions for the legislature being unable to legislate etc, basic stuff that the British had already had to solve with their Parliament.
And yet they're supposed to be these incredible architects of a genius system of intricate checks and balances.
Makes you wonder if our success as a nation had more to do with explosive growth, immigration, and opportunity. Or maybe the system worked well under those conditions, but now the whole environment is steady state and it doesn't work quite as well.