Part of my life is teaching rifle marksmanship and Revolutionary War history - mostly centered around the events of April 19th, 1775.......the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the British government's position as well as the positions of those embattled farmers and artisans who decided to openly fight against those sent to enforce British law.
As part of that, I've done a lot of reading on the various causes, real, exaggerated and imagined that led one group of Englishmen to insist upon the sovereignty of Parliament and King while another group of Englishmen resisted such attempts - up to shooting the King's troops and even their neighbors and family members.
Yes, there is a lot of Tavern bravado and demands to stand up to British tyranny from men who didn't engage in any violence with sword, musket, cannon or rifle.
Fiery broadsides and sermons and rousing speeches from men who, once the shooting started, sorta fade from the history books......no epic Battle, no Heroic Act.
But that's how it works. You have agitators and inciters, then you have actors. The first group aren't necessarily dangerous in and of themselves; the actors they radicalize, however should at least be paid attention to....for it is these people who decide and idea or ideology is worth killing and dying for.
As the first ragged volley was fired by British Regulars into the backs of the dispersing Lexington Militia - Sam Adams remarked to John Hancock that it was a glorious day in for the Cause. Not pity for the fathers and sons separated by death in those few minutes (5 families in Lexington suffered that fate), or sorrow for the widow and orphan who held their husband/father on their front steps as he died.
Adams and Hancock had been stirring the pot and clamoring for a fight for a while, and they finally got it. They engaged in no violence themselves, but were among the leading voices that convinced others to that violence.
After Independence, when the more conservative pragmatics took leadership of the Revolution from the radicals who launched it, the radicals invariably lost influence to the point that these United States would, within the same decade as the war was concluded demand a central, consolidated government of its own - effectively betraying the Spirit of '76 with the Spirit of '87.
So do I fear the Left? Or the Right for that matter?
No.......not the ones we see.
The ones we don't see - the ones who will be radicalized into action bear some level of concern. For its never really the importance of the individual act or situation that ignites war and revolution....but the cumulative weight of hundreds of insignificant acts that push a society passed the point of no return.
