Protest is Deeply American

1. Protest is deeply American. I pick up "ink and pen" this June 14, 2025, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States Army. 

To call it an army seems a little exaggerated. The "Continental Congress" wasn't some permanently recognized group. The colonies had somewhat mutinously sent them to meet behind the King's back. The only real authority they had was that the local governments in the colonies sent these guys to represent them in the discussion of what to do. 

The story leading up to the "War of Independence" and the United States is really one of the people here in the colonies trying to get the King of England to recognize that they mattered. Their heads were filled with notions like "all men are created equal." They believed they should be treated with respect. They believed their voices mattered in decisions that had to do with their lives.

The King certainly didn't act that way. After all, he was the King. England was in charge. How dare these nobodies object to the things he or the Parliament decided! The colonies belonged to England. Treasonous! They deserved to be punished.

2. As is often the case with we humans, the situation escalated. The stubborn King wouldn't budge. The locals got more and more agitated.

In 1770, a crowd was yelling at some soldiers. The soldiers start shooting. In a moment, five people are dead. They called it the "Boston Massacre." 

You can hear the King. They were an angry mob. We had to keep order. You can hear the English back home, "They got what they deserved for opposing authority."

In 1773, there was a group of protesters, basically, who snuck onto some British ships in the Boston Harbor and dumped hundreds of chests of tea into the water (the "Boston Tea Party"). They called themselves the "Sons of Liberty." It was perhaps equivalent to several million dollars' worth of goods, and the King was ticked. 

Instead of listening to their complaints, he doubled down. The British Parliament with the full support of the King then passed measures the colonists called the "Intolerable Acts" (1774). They shut down Boston Harbor and with it the local economy. They demanded repayment.

They fired the people on the council running Massachusetts and replaced them with people loyal to the King. They more or less gave a pass to the King's people, making it so that they couldn't be tried for any wrongdoing in the colonies. They were sent back to England for them to decide. They demanded that local people give room and food to British soldiers in their homes.

3. The locals began to skirmish with the British troops. At Lexington in 1775, the British soldiers tried to confiscate the guns and ammunition of the locals. This is when Paul Revere rode to warn that the British were coming.

The British shot and killed several locals. This was the "shot heard round the world" that was considered to have been the real start of the revolution.

So later that day the locals jumped the British soldiers at Concord, causing some 270 British casualties. About ninety of the locals were killed or injured.

Protest is almost a mixture of the reasonable with the unreasonable. Excess is virtually assured on both sides. If the issue is serious enough, some protesters almost inevitably cross the line... and so will some authority. Even in a "just war," There will inevitably be atrocities on both sides. This is our fallen human nature.

Excess doesn't disprove that wrong has been done. Nor does it prove that authority is in the wrong. Amid distraction, the reasonable must try their best to work with each other toward the right.

4. Still, the representatives of the colonies tried to reconcile. In mid-1775, John Dickenson of Pennsylvania wrote "The Olive Branch Petition" and the Second Continental Congress approved it. Just show us some respect, man.

But kings don't like to admit they're wrong. He doubled down again. He declared the colonies to be in open rebellion. How dare they think they have any rights! I'm the king! I'm in charge here! The military presence and force became stronger and stronger. (By the way, this is part of why we don't allow the military to police us on our home territory.)

5. The protest gets stronger and stronger. Thomas Jefferson and Dickenson wrote "A Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms." It makes it clear. The colonies just want the rights that other British citizens have. They're not trying to become independent. They simply want to be treated fairly.

They are loyal to the King, they protest, but Parliament has been behaving badly. The tone was a mixture of resolve and regret. They want to lay down their arms if England will just grant them some basic decency. 

"Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable."

They were pushed into a fight for their independence due to the stubborn refusal of the King to listen. Instead, all protest was met with escalation on his part. So they met him at his escalation. 

On June 14, 1775, they officially formed a Continental Army.