Re: Help design the ideal Presidential candidate

On May 8, 6:06 pm, Doug Wickstrom <nimshu...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On 7 May 2008 23:18:46 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch"
>
> <k...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >I thought which side fired "the shot heard round the world" was still
> >in dispute.
>
> Nope.  Colonials struck first, in Connecticut.  Never was in
> dispute.

Colonials were not well organized at that point. No one who had a
consensus of the people of New England or even Connecticut wanting
independence, gave any such orders.  Whatever the hell you are
speaking of was some sort of civil unrest and/or crime that had not
the British authorities been over reacted over the past several years
and continuing to overreact, they could have stayed in power, and kept
North American ruled by the UK.

The "shot heard round the world" took place at Lexington, and no one
is sure who fired first at that incident.  That incident is critical
as it was the first armed defiance of the King by colonial government
official using colonial government resources, of a colonial government
military force, namely the local captain of the Lexington militia.

He did not order anyone to fire, and explicitly ordered them not to,
and to have muskets on shoulders, not aimed, and lined up facing the
direction of the British were coming from.  The British regulars on
seeing them, fixed bayonets, a shot was fired by someone, and even
though the British officer in charge on the scene ordered them not to
do it, the rest of the regulars fired and charged with bayonets.  The
colonists fired a return volley and fled as ordered.

If anything that was a riot of regular troops and the colonial militia
showed it's discipline that day, excepting anyone who fired first on
the Brits.

After that, the rest of the day was pretty much downhill for the
British.  They went to Concord and sized ammunition as ordered, and
got their ***** kicked and chased back to Boston by the colonial
militia of the several towns surrounding Lexington and Concord.

The difference after that day was that the colonial governments had
acted against the crown and organized the defeat of regular British
forces, this was not the act of a few individuals, or criminals, it
was the act of the majority of the people with the sup****t and
sanction of their local governments, these being governments and
people of a large fraction, if not most of the Massachusetts Bay
colony.

Soon militias from the rest of that colony and others nearby showed up
and helped the rebels in following days.

Before that day, the King's government, was the government.

FYI, the big thing that turned the tide in the minds of the colonists,
was the British making the attempt to steal all the arms and powder
belonging to the people of Concord.  Which would have left them
defenseless against Indians or French raiders, or against the British
government.