The Genius Mind Remembers American History: Part 3 - 18th Century Souses with Guns

So fast forward to the mid 1700s. The Colonies are pretty busy places. You say it was the success of Jamestown in VA? Naw, we all know that Amerukuh was founded by the religious right, prayyyyuuuse the Jayyyyysuuus.

So a few cities were big in those days, like Boston, and New York, and those other ones. In these wonderful cultural centers, life was simple and happy. People spent their days drinking tea and reading Ben Franklin's newspaper and their nights at the high-society centers, the classic pubs. We go to clubs, they went to pubs.

Similar to the business world of today, a lot of deals went down in pub-clubs. Talk of politics and financial deals were conducted with the finesse that only comes after 5 or 6 pints of ale, made by good old Sam Adams. What a dude.

He made his own beer, was involved in politics, and legend has it he invented the roundhouse kick.

So when nasty old King George a la tres decided to tax paper and tea, for the stupid reason of paying off the debts from the French and Indian war (coincidentally to protect the colonists, no biggie you know), who was the first to stand up and say, "we can'tsh letsh him get away wish dissss!"? None other than, well we don't really know, but my money is on old Sammy "beer-breath" Adams.

So these cultured gentlemen, after drinking their fill of the classiest ale, decided to do what any rational person would do: start a race war. Well, another one at least. They dressed up like "Injuns" and attacked some British boats. And tea. Because, goddammit, tea is for the Brits. Well, it's not like we still do thi... wait, what? People still dress like Native Americans (and other races) in culturally insensitive/offensive and stereotyped costumes, like for frat parties or halloween? Geez people, you'd think that we'd have made some progress by now.

Well, anyway, it didn't work. Yeah, Boston harbor was full of tea-bags (look at me all classy, not a single tea-bagging joke). But dude, the British caught on quickly that a bunch of tall lanky white guys with blonde and red and light brown hair probably weren't natives, no matter what cops and firemen went along.

And thus started a civil/revolutionary war.

Well, the war went well. Only a few (hundred) of our boys starved to death, and the British only burned a few of our cities down, destroying precious art and valuables and lives.

But we won! Kinda. With the help of the French, since they didn't like the Brits either. Which seems a bit strange, because since then, there's this weird stereotype about French being ignoble cowards and British being our favorite allies which just really isn't the case.

So now all that was left was the easy task of setting up the government. Enter Sam Adams. And plenty of beer. And that, kids, is why our government is simple, and not wackily complex in any way. Not at all. Electoral college, what? Pre-1750 law precedent, who? Cohesive national identity, huh?