American History 101

      (You will recall I was looking for a topic for my column in the Gazette. For better or worse, this is it.)

      During this month when we celebrate our country's independence from something that was trying to keep our country from being independent even though our country had its own job and could afford a place of its own, it would behoove us to look back at our nation's history. (Behoove, by the way, has nothing to do with having hooves. Look it up.)
      The proper way to do this is to read scholarly tomes and then develop a thesis and so on. That, however, takes work. Instead we shall use the method preferred by politicians everywhere; to wit, we will simply make things up.
      The History of Our Country
      First, the earth came into being.
      Second, lots of other stuff happened.
      Third, a bunch of miserable people in Europe thought it might be a good idea to venture to the New World where they could not only be miserable but could starve to death, too.
      Fourth, some of these people were sent here by England, a small island of dour tea-drinkers. These tea-drinkers were ruled by King George. Due to the marvelous benefits of allowing first cousins to marry first cousins, King George was almost completely untouched by anything resembling intelligence. After a fine career in wrestling, he settled down to rule badly and did it very well.
      KG soon got into a spat with France's King Louie the 215th about a Monopoly game. (Louie the 215th was not named for his father Louie the 214th despite what most people think. In fact, he was named for a kindly baker who poisoned Louie 214th before the king could have his seventh wife Marie Allyallyoxenfree beheaded for sneezing in his presence. When Louie the 214th's son was born 11 months later, the queen named him for the brave baker. The baker, by the way, was beheaded as you can't have your kitchen staff doing that.) KG needed cash to pay his troops, particularly since they bought a lot of $100 hammers and $10,000 one-holers. Naturally he raised taxes, but his own people began to mutter, complain and attempt to assassinate him.
      So his eyes turned to the New World colonies, and soon the rest of him followed suit, particularly his hands, which immediately started signing new tax laws.
      The New World colonists didn't like this. They muttered and complained themselves, but since they were separated by a huge body of water (see Atlantic Ocean; really you should, it's lovely) from the king, they couldn't threaten him in a meaningful yet respectful way.
      "No taxation without representation!" the colonists yelled, not realizing that having taxation with representation is no walk in the park, either. Their slogan really should have been "No taxation."
      Some folks in Boston who called themselves the Boston Patriots but didn't play any organized sports, decided to send the king a message he couldn't ignore. So they dressed up as Native Americans and sneaked on to some ships and threw tea into the Boston Harbor! Boy, that showed him. (Later on, some Native Americans dressed up as Boston Patriots threw some lemons and sugar into the harbor, too, but they were mostly ignored, except by the EPA who issued them a citation for polluting the environment.)
      The message was loud and clear to the king: "Those guys are nuts!" he said, showing that he had received the message loud and clear. Immediately he dispatched troops to the colonies. And three months later the troops landed on the shores of the New World and threw up repeatedly.
      But during those three months, the colonists were busy. They formed a Continental Congress, which immediately voted themselves a pay raise and then started recruiting congressional pages.
      The CC gave the command of the troops to George Washington who was a great man despite never having cut down a cherry tree. (That whole cherry tree thing was made up by a minister who used it to illustrate a sermon on not lying. I trust the irony of this is not lost on you.) George Washington would lead the troops to victory, so this column is all his fault; otherwise, there wouldn't be a history.

Copyright 2005. All rights served.