And absolutely none of that matters one iota. At no point in time did I, nor Simon, state that always following the law was the right thing to do. That is were your argument is breaking down, your assuming that being inclined to breaking the law of the land is a bad thing. It's not and as history as proved, an often necessary measure.TDPerk wrote:There's far more to it than to say, the Founders were scofflaws. So much more, to say it is to betray a deep ignorance and shallow understanding of the Revolution that Worked (TM).
The Founders made the case to a very large political minority in England, that the King and Parliament were violating the sadly still unwritten English Constitution in passing their intolerable laws, that the American Congress' acts were thought by many in England to be legitimate, even the Declaration of Independence. In fact, the best consensus among historians is that many of the bizarre acts of ineptitude and sins of omission occurring on the British side in the war, were owing to the impossibility of finding British General Officers who were able and willing to prosecute the war effectively.
And you certainly can find a bright line to say, someone is criminal, or someone is not--there for example are those found guilty of a crime and everyone else.
The foolish pretension that because other people might disagree as to what the truth is, that this absolves the individual of deciding for themselves what they will act on--this pretension is abandoned by the left as are the idiots who treat with them levelly, once they are in a position to impose. Then the left finds whatever bright lines those temporarily at the top of that heap like."And where does the term "lightly" fit into the description law breakers. Again you can't arbitrarily draw a line in the sand and say "everyone on my side is fine, everyone on the other side is a law breaker"."
Rousseau crafted the myth of the General Will, and I thank God and chance alike that that concept had no effect on the Founding..though it has had it's terrible work done here in the last century, and the worse so in the last fours years than usually.
We should be so fortunate as to have such criminals as the Founders helm the ship of state in the future. We haven't had better yet, and are currently enjoying far worse.
The laws being tyrannical or the incumbent leadership / government being a$$holes has no bearing on the definition of breaking the law nor the resultant label of being rebels / lawbreakers. Thus our founding fathers were definitely rebels and lawbreakers and being extremely mistrustful of government the resulting foundation was one based on the idea that government should never be fully trusted. The national identity of the USA is one of being lawbreakers. Hell we could argue that most democracies are rooted in the ideals that there are some things that are above the law and thus breaking the law can be justified in the pursuit of that ideals.