Rusty's Naval/Military History thread

[Buster's Uncle]

You have no pat response to a passionate run on sentence wall of text about a profoundly complex subject?

And yeah; we should.

[Buster's Uncle]

Elok's a cool guy I'm trying to headhunt over here from 'poly OT, where he doesn't belong any more than Lori does.  I thought you'd enjoy this, Rusty.

Originally Posted by Elok

Briefly: our settler-types out west kept stealing land from the Indians, in spite of endless treaties by the Brits that we would stop. This irritated the Indians and led to wars and massacres, which in turn irked the Brits. Said Brits lacked the manpower to police such an enormous frontier, but they repeatedly ordered the bumpkins to knock it off with the land theft. This merely made the locals ornery, and defense costs for the colonies kept rising.

 So they tried to recoup their losses on the colonies by raising taxes, which made smuggling more profitable. Most of the northern FFs had at least partial ownership in smuggling schemes, and got mad when the Brits cracked down on their activities. These taxes were "without representation," but that is irrelevant since our population was too low for any fair representation to make a difference. Anyway, lots of angry northern smugglers. Unrest grew quite violent in the north, especially in Boston; many of the "outrages" cited in the DoI refer to purely local issues there, brought on by royal attempts to restore law and order.

 Southern planters were also resentful of the Brits, but in a passive way. They thought of themselves as aristocrats, but their slave estates weren't profitable enough to let them live that way, so folks like Washington and Jefferson always thought their British purchase agents were cheating them on all the fancy imported crap they bought. This got generalized into a dislike of all things British. But they didn't get rowdy until the idiot governor of VA, Lord Dunmore, threatened to arm their slaves against them if they didn't cut out the seditious talk. That drew them into the fight.

 The war itself was prosecuted with great ineptness. The British took over a couple of Northern cities, then hung around scratching their balls. At one point we had the opportunity to kidnap an enemy general--I think it was Howe, not sure. Washington and his men conferred over whether to try it, but Hamilton said no, on the grounds that, if we took that general out of the picture, the king would have great difficulty finding someone equally incompetent to replace him. That's almost verbatim what he said, we have the original letter.

 It lasted about five years anyway because we were hampered by the same revolutionary ideals we now celebrate. The colonists were too leery of authority to allow any government to tax them, so everything was funded by endlessly printed money. Cue hyperinflation. Our troops were paid in Monopoly money, when they were paid at all. Said troops were mostly militia, because we were also reluctant to have a standing army. Our experienced soldiers kept leaving once their twelve months were up. It drove Washington nuts. Good thing we were endlessly bankrolled by the French government, huh?

 Basically, our whole concept of our founding is preposterously whitewashed. I don't see the point of getting angry because Texas replaced our stupid secular myth with a stupid religious myth. We had something that served to flatter us one way; they made it into a different kind of lie. Big deal.

[Rusty Edge]

Yeah. Cool. I'm not sure about the population comparison. Philadelphia was one of the larger English speaking cities back in the day, but that generally sums it up.

I've often thought that given the choice between no tax and no representation, we'd vote no tax every time.

Or that the revolution could have been avoided if they had a transatlantic cable, or

America had been governed as an extension of England, being taxed and treated the same by law rather than as an occupied territory, or

That trouble-maker in any era Sam Adams, had been jailed or hung.

*****************************************

That said, having surveyed West Virginia or whatever counties, and having fought the French and Indian War, only George Washington had a realistic grasp of the scale and difficulty of the war. That gave him a huge advantage.

[Buster's Uncle]

Hopefully this is my last word on the 'Southern" thing, absent anyone wanting to discuss, but I left out that we're lazy and alcoholic and have hillbilly feuds.  -Also the superhuman strength, the only positive one, but standard for rural hicks everywhere.

-Does ignorant, prone to sexual deviance and substance abuse and violence, lazy, stupid, inexplicably and implacably hostile, and granted some animalistic superpower sound familiar to anyone?

-It's a standard litany of prejudice, save towards the Jews.  If I could swap the strength for enlarged genitals, I'd be black, judging from the bigots' dictionary.  Give THAT one a good think.

[Metaliturtle]

Hopefully this is my last word on the 'Southern" thing, absent anyone wanting to discuss, but I left out that we're lazy and alcoholic and have hillbilly feuds.  -Also the superhuman strength, the only positive one, but standard for rural hicks everywhere.

-Does ignorant, prone to sexual deviance and substance abuse and violence, lazy, stupid, inexplicably and implacably hostile, and granted some animalistic superpower sound familiar to anyone?

-It's a standard litany of prejudice, save towards the Jews.  If I could swap the strength for enlarged genitals, I'd be black, judging from the bigots' dictionary.  Give THAT one a good think.

Wait I thought this was about boats...

[Buster's Uncle]

Yes.  The Merimac.

[Geo]

What's that? You have a merry mac?

[Buster's Uncle]

I have merry friends, which is better.

So what's up wit' you this week?  Clearly something's going on in RL...

[Geo]

Fatigue is what's going on IRL... and (just before posting this) finishing viewing 2 old British scifi series.
Need my nest cleaned out.
Need this damn Tau Ceti mod worked on so I can move on to other things.

[Buster's Uncle]

You wrote me a Fake PM yesterday, BTW.  Go look.  I'm very tired, myself, today.

Sorry about all the OT in here lately, Rusty.

[Geo]

You wrote me a Fake PM yesterday, BTW.  Go look.

Please spare me.

To put the thread somewhat back to rails: tomorrow marks the bi-centennial anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo here. It involves several thousand actors and their gear, 200+ thousand visitors, and so on...

https://www.waterloo2015.org/en/reenactors

[Buster's Uncle]

You've been to this before, I believe - care to share impressions of previous events?

Please spare me.

?  Not a fan of my comedy libel stylings?  Who knew?  I told mom about what you wrote, FWIW, so not vulgar this time.

[Geo]

You've been to this before, I believe - care to share impressions of previous events?

Nope. Too crowded to my taste. I only once went to the adjoining museum of the battlefield during a lower grade excursion

Please spare me.

?  Not a fan of my comedy libel stylings?  Who knew?  I told mom about what you wrote, FWIW, so not vulgar this time.
[/quote]

I wasn't talking about how your kind mother feels, but on me being dragged into this fake PM game of yours.

[Buster's Uncle]

  Okydoke - I wouldn't want to tease anyone who can't take it.

Fatigue seems to have you in a mood, so no sweat.

[Buster's Uncle]

Rusty - a little guidance here; I fancy your main historical interest is roughly Napoleonic-Victorian and military/naval.  How interested in me linking stuff like this?

Ancient Greek 'Antikythera' Shipwreck Still Holds Secrets
http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=16576.msg74170#msg74170