Hmm, makes me wonder if that would have changed the Colonies to be more like England or if England would have been changed because of the colonial influence on the laws? I do, however, think that the US would be an independent state at this point, like Canada and Australia.

Saudi Arabia was never colonized.

"...the fury in the streets among the mostly Muslim youth has underscored the lack of political representation for this growing segment of French society."

What the heck does this even mean? How are they less represented than any other segment of French society?

They had to buy their own oil fields from us.

10% of the population with no reps? It's like Jim Crow America.

Who colonized Saudi Arabia, their Filipino servants?

No, it's not. Who's stopping them from voting?

Standard Oil.

It's our fault again. Damn.

> "What a bunch of babies."

Taxation without representation is tyranny. With 18th Century communications technology, representation was impractical for a colony thousands of miles from Parliament. As one American put it, "The Member from Georgia would represent Georgia for six weeks. After that, he would represent a drawing room in Mayfair."

So people in Colonial times believed in colonialism. A colony contributed to the Empire by being exploited economically. Its industry was kept undeveloped, so the mother country had a captive market for its high-margin goods, and a captive source for cheap raw materials. Colonists let themselves be exploited in this way instead of being taxed.

What the colonists objected to was being double-billed: exploited and taxed.

Bob, How different is that from modern times, except they embed into the Washington dinner party circuit quicker than six weeks.

Yet expenditures without representation were hunky dory. We were babies.

Watched the same program, had some of the same thoughts. I just dislike mobs. The whole bit about Hutchinson made me feel for him a lot.

However, I take comfort that we had patriots like Adams who could be both decidedly for revolution, but also for fairness (he defended the British Soldiers from the "Boston Massacre".)

Bob - it doesn't quite square with the fact that Ben Franklin spent 20 years in England as our rep and when it got down to it, he was on our side. And we sent lots of people like that, ambassadors and the like, doing important work in our name for decades before the telegraph. And conversely the British had their armed forces over here working in their name. It did work when it was tried.

As George Washington said, the American Revolution was a clear case of Divine Providence intervening in history. Proof of it is that a bunch of babies established the greatest nation on earth, and the only one whose laws were based on Christian principles.

Outmaneuvering the world's greatest power both militarily and diplomatically was quite a feat for your 'bunch of babies'.

It was easy--the Brits have never maintained control of a reluctant colony. To ask self-determination is to receive it.

I guess the 20,000 Brits who stormed Long Island didn't really mean any harm.

Tom;

The American colonies weren't considered an important theatre of operations at the time. We think that of course we were the center of the world, but the reality is the American colonies were a dumping ground where incompetent but well bred British generals were sent so they couldn't screw up something important.