George Washington has been named as the greatest foe ever faced by the British.The rest of the top five were:
In second place was Michael Collins, the Irish leader, ahead of Napoleon Bonaparte, Erwin Rommel and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.Very surprising to me was the omission of William the Conqueror, who delivered by far the most devastating defeat ever suffered by the English army.
But that's not why I posted this. I posted this because of the joke poster Ace put up:
Which shows that even our most sainted Founding Father in this famous painting was really fighting dirty.
In reading further, it says that the candidates had to be from the 17th century onward. I think it was more of a popularity contest than any study by the British Army museum, though the justifications given for Washington are good. Also interesting that Britain's most worthy opponent was, more or less, a fellow Brit.
That poster is awesome.
ReplyDeleteI read Glenn Beck's "Being George Washington". If the accounts of what he did are true, then he was a true bad ass.
Yep, sadly that picture is a relic of a bygone era. Today America is an imposing huge tree that is rotted out on the inside that has been defeated from within. Although I think America has a few good years left.
ReplyDeleteI was reading somewhere about the Revolutionary War that only 1/3 of the people in the colonies back then actually fought the Revolutionary War. 1/3 were loyal to the British, 1/3 only cared about going to work and getting a paycheck, and 1/3 actually care about freedom and risked everything to include the lives of their family and themselves and all of their wealth. I like to do a thought experiments and wonder about the people I know and wonder which third they belong in. I don't think too many people would be willing to have their family taken away from them to have them imprisioned or killed and loose all of their wealth to fight for freedom. It is easy to sit back and say "yeah I would be that third that actually cared about freedom and risked everything". I also saw a documentary about China's economy on CNBC and some of the Chinese that were interviewed had the attidude that "yeah we don't have freedom but we just have to deal with it and live our lives the best we can. Why risk everything and go to prison".
Down through history it has always been a small minority that fought for and carried freedom down through the ages. Most people just want to get by and live what life they can.
Yeah, particularly with Washington and many of the other leaders of the revolution. Just look at Washington: a wealthy landowner in Virginia, probably one of the richest people in Virginia, and he put it all on the line, as well as his own life, for the fight for Independence. Me, I'm not sure if I will even attend a Tea Party rally, because it's, you know, inconvenient, and unpopular.
ReplyDeleteAre you saying we don't have many people willing to go and fight our country in a revolutionary war?
ReplyDeleteWell, until the time comes when National Guardsmen are sleeping in my house without permission, I'm not sure your argument applies, " I don't think too many people would be willing to have their family taken away from them to have them imprisioned or killed and loose all of their wealth to fight for freedom."
It was a totally different type of tyranny back then. The tyranny back then was in your face obvious. Today, the tyranny is soft. The tyranny is hard to notice because the government knows that Americans would resist. I don't think your analogy can be applied. Plus, our country has venues for voicing your opinion. The colonies of Britain could not question the King. Public figures today slam Obama all the time. Mainstream media takes your views all the time. This could not be done back then. I think that if you saw the same things that happened back then happen today, you'd get at least 1/3 of people taking up arms.
The revolutionary war is occurring at this moment, but its an intellectual war and its not being televised...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hgsg7a-Ok8Q
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ReplyDeleteI don't think the American people of today would have fought the Revolutionary War or at least not any significant amount of people.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good point about the in-your-face tyranny. But if things were that bad in early America, then why did only 1/3 of the people fight the war. And what about life under the Soviet Union or in modern day China where people still get a knock on the door in the middle of the night for saying the wrong things about the government and have access to information on the internet restricted. The tyranny there was very much in your face and there weren't mass uprisings. The guy that plays batman in the most recent Batman movie got beat up by the Chinese police for trying to visit a lawyer under house arrest that was guilty of representing women that were victims of forced steralizatoins. There aren't mass uprisings of Chinese. And like those people interviewed in that documentary shows most people could care less as long as they can just get by. I think most people will accept all but the most direct and blunt tyranny if it means they can just get by.
The tyranny today is far more cruel and enslaving than the more direct tyranny.
Well, if officials came to peoples doors in the middle of the night for saying the wrong thing, Americans would be super pissed. Chinese and Russians don't get super pissed because this is what they've known their whole lives. Even the colonists never really had much freedom until they won it. It was just the same shit different day mentality for a lot of them. Americans today, while our freedoms are diminishing, still enjoy plenty of liberties that the majority of the world and the majority of history has never experienced. I agree that we may reach a point when our first amendment has disappeared, but not now.
ReplyDeleteCool video KP. Keep up the good fight. Now Paul has Romney cornered. There is no where to run.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, the tyranny was very soft back then. Most people thought of themselves as British, not Americans. Most probably didn't have anything against the concept of a monarch, though they probably had trouble with the current monarch. Taxation was tough, but that was about it. George Washington, and many others, put everything on the line for an IDEA. Freedom & Democracy. Not because he was worried that his family and his possessions were going to be stolen from him in the middle of the night.
ReplyDeleteSure, anyone would fight that, but to put it all on the line for a new concept, when you have already done VERY well under an old concept, that takes balls.