The Ron Paul REvolution – The Road to Freedom
At the beginning of the 1770s waves of distrust and tension had already caused America's colonials to view the Royal Governors and England's Monarchy with caution and hostility. Colonial Americans had removed to the New World for a variety of reasons but a love of government was not among those.
For many, including the Puritans and Quakers, two of the major groups who made up the population prior to the Revolution, the intention was to try new forms of organization based on very different ideas about their relationship with God. Through town governments that depended on a small group of people using persuasion the ideas of individual freedom had been in use for generations by then. General Gage, the commander of the British forces based in Boston in the period before the Concord Alarm and the Shot Heard Round the World was advised to force the replacement of town governments with oligarchic British borough governments. Gage correctly saw that would not work.
Those ideas explored the idea that God endowed each individual with an immediate and personal relationship with Him. Remote from England the ideas that were born from the most ancient ideas of Christianity found resonance with new ideas then finding light in the works of John Locke and other writers on the ideas of Natural Rights.
The ideas of individual freedom had moved into the realm of politics through a process that had been going on for six generations. Getting things straight can take time.
General Gage wrote copious letters to his own commanders in England explaining that he could not seize the leaders of the Rebellion because in their place others would simply take action. Organizing action in New England had become decentralized, with individuals using their ample initiative. In this way the Sons of Liberty came together as a secret society and the Committees of Correspondence began meeting to build consensus.
America would be characterized by the initiative of its people until the present monarchy arose, asserting through changed practice that sovereignty was again held by government instead of by individuals who hired government to handle some things for them. Again, the initiative of a free people has responded to refute that assertion.
The players in this Revolution are very decentralized.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
