Comments by "Voryn Rosethorn" (@vorynrosethorn903) on "Benedict Arnold's Raid on Richmond" video.

The idea that you could raise loyalists in rebel territory was a regular mistake of the British, as the British did not control the territory their property would be burned and their families attacked, unsurprising the British inability to protect them meant that unless fanatical or already deprived of their property most loyalists would merely pray for them to take the territory over and only commit once they had. The British strategy was largely naive, and their belief that a large portion of the population were their own meant that they did not use devastation as they could very easily have. Unsurprisingly no rebellion lasts long that has no food, but instead they fought a gentlemen's war against traitors. As said, they were naive.
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Always strange how Americans consider renouncing your treason against the crown to be treason, had the Americans been fighting against parliament they could rightfully have claimed loyalty to the higher authority of the King (who despite stereotypes had effectively been deposed back during the glorious revolution), and indeed the King is a higher authority, having religious authority, where as the whole power deriving from the people idea was directly made up by parliament in order to justify their supremacy over the King. This was part of a long standing struggle between nobles and kings, and also conformists and non-conformists. In short the American revolutionaries were fighting for the ideology of their oppressors, and could absolutely not claim a righteous cause. Those Americans who fought for the King were largely motivated by traditional religious understandings of hierarchy, even reformed groups like the Scottish Calvinists had hardened considerable on the point after the deep shock and horror at the regicide of Charles the First, this is why they would form a major component of those will to suffer immensely for the cause of Jacobitism, such suffering was very literally a type of martyrdom against people who were desecrating God's order. In the time since we have lost much of the meaning associated with oaths, but historically to violate them was to forsake your soul, in such a worldview the actions and reasoning of the American revolutionaries was no less radical and demonic than that of later French revolutionaries or of those of Lenin, Mao or Stalin (especially as it is the same family of ideology, liberalism influenced by Rousseau was the cause of the French revolutionaries and those later ones were merely further developments on in the same world view and moral system, thus when some Americans claim they are merely updating the constitution to the modern interpretation of liberal philosophy they aren't wrong even if their detractors are right that that is some form of radical socialism, to a certain extent the logic runs away with itself, but certainly when it came about liberalism was much more radical, most western states hold to the morality and have strong socialistic tendencies in government and economics, where as you can imagine the shock of a 17th century Christian at the idea of basing humanity off of proposed natural states when to men that state is sin, or that the inequality of God's order is evil, or that society is bad and people should have the morality of savages. By the 19th century people were quite used to such nonsense and believed rather a lot of it, but back at the beginning it was the birth of a religion beyond heresy and in straight up heathen territory, and then they started the atrocities, and never stopped. One good thing with the American revolutionaries was that they were rather less barbaric parliament had been in asserting their power, and would be less insane that future liberal states (for the most part) though only because of regular intervention by people with a conscience (the people who wanted a French style revolution during it did not get as they wished, nor did the plan to wipe out millions of Germans in the allied occupation zone after WW2 go through). Same counts for the civil war, it's rich to hear Americans talking of treason when they were born from it.
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@TheHistoryGuyChannel I've read a good deal on civil wars, notably this one always makes me think of the Indian Mutiny, the core difference really is the Cowpor massacre, before that and some time afterwards an overly retained policy was taken by the establishment and in both cases did not help the situation (in the latter the considerable distrust and resentment it would foster in the British colonial population would contribute to independence). It is unfortunate but people tend to back the winning horse and the most effectively brutal side tends to dominate, this was very much the case in the Russian civil war, the soviets had a brilliance to their utter evil, they organised the organs of violence exactly and heartlessly to their intentions. The British use of cavalry in this conflict is odd, they should have seen from the seven years war that a 'small war' of raids and plunder could even make up for a lack of formal military advantage (and so long as you can store it will lessen the strain on supplies), the Austrians had displayed this throughout (hussars even captured berlin). There is a possibility that they didn't have the expertise, and of course British doctrine towards civilian noncompliance was a long way off, I guess it's easy to look at in hindsight and with broader knowledge, especially as the type of populations useful for such tasks had largely been deliberately displaced long before (namely the Scottish borderers) and they never would have thought to have used them like Cossacks or Granzs nor to have engaged in resettlement programs in the middle of war. If John Nicholson had been there (only 50 years or so before birth) the whole thing wouldn't have lasted, but like many of these conflicts there was complacency and duel loyalties throughout the political leadership, some things never change, or in our case have only got worse.
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@observationsfromthebunker9639 Fascinating, I guess I'm too stuck in the Russian steppe context, having read a lot about Cossacks. Thinking about it I didn't account for the fact that western military horses tended to need a lot of care and feed, where as many steppe breeds can live off grass, and are incredibly hardy. Probably not feasible to set up a horse breeding program in the middle of a war. It's of personal interest as I'm related to Banastre Tarleton. Still need to read his book though.
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@observationsfromthebunker9639 By horse breeding program I meant one breeding steppe horses, not feasible. The Americans of course already had horses, but most would be tied up in farming and transportation, if they were a few decades later they would have experience of the french practice of seizing massive numbers of farm and transport horses to mount cavalry with, but I don't know the extent of that in the revolution, as it has serious consequences for the farmers. As part of a total war it's normal, but the revolution wasn't a total war.
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@TheHistoryGuyChannel I didn't get into that rabbithole because it is indeed a rabbithole, but yes the fundamental cause of later political instability was the reformation an the attempt of King Henry to usurp the religious position of the Roman Emperor. But within conformist religious understandings the King was still a divinely appointed position even if the Catholics argued as strongly the non-conformists against Robert Filmers conception of Monarchy which influenced absolutism. It does however remain a fact that Liberalism was concocted in order to justify parliamentary power after the fact and that it drew heavily from non-conformist theology which was about as radical in it's implications as the book of Mormon. The older Christian view was retained on the continent for some time and there were fears in the early United Sates that Irish and Germans were a threat to the republic as a result. I don't particularly care about negative characterisations of my people, it is more a case of the motivations behind them, and in the case of Americans they pretty much are just a mix of English and Celts so it's all a bit childish (where as for some the intentions are very much to justify evil against us). Though it would be a mistake to think we are close, my nation is a vassal state rather than an ally and Americans live under a system in some ways more distant from the federal government than foreigners are. I would generally not trust the oath nor honour of oath breakers, but the Americans did at least display that they kept their honour if nothing else. I will retain pride as a relative of Banastre Tarleton (as a direct descendant of his brother).
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@Luannnelson547 Obviously, the divine right of Kings is of course a reframing by Whig historians of what had been Church theology since at least Constantine and in all probability long before that. The main debate throughout much of the medieval period was the relationship between secular and ecclesiastical power, namely the role of Emperor and Pope. This is necessary knowledge both for understanding pre-modern political thought and the conflicts between enlightenment and anti-enlightenment forces. They hold to fundamentally different theological interpretations of reality, and as liberalism develops increasingly morality, society, state and history. There has been a move against many of these innovations in recent decades, with historians debunking a good deal of Whig histography based in the print culture of early modern Europe (and notably it's religious conflicts), traditional Christians rejecting liberal moral influences and political thinkers becoming increasingly hostile to the role of enlightenment philosophical assumptions in shaping modern institutions and societies towards social atomisation, a lack of accountability and serious structural problems in regards to economics, fertility and happiness, as well as the long term viability of the project. Indeed all these have been raised by the soon to be Vice President of America, who is seemingly influenced by these associated intellectual movements.
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@StevenDietrich-k2w I recommend The Total State, by Auron Macintyre.
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@cynicallydepressed1 Ideologies are belief systems based in dogmatic presuppositions, the idea of the separation of church and state did not change the theological basis of government, they did a magic hat trick so replace the assorted Christian groups who held sway in individual sates over into a liberal ideology and morality. It's a similar hattrick with saying religion isn't rational, the type of reason westerners assume to be innate developed out of a mix of Greco-Roman philosophy and Christian theological assumptions, indeed the belief in a rationally ordered world is not inherent to liberalism and their more radical groups are becoming increasingly skeptical of it, influenced by post-modernism. Just as laws are written in specific languages the governing of a society is going to be guided by a moral vision and foundational if not necessarily common assumptions, this means that there is a definite theological influence, whatever the organisational structure of the belief system itself. There will be a strong secular element to any human organisation, but this is largely reactive, in response to conditions as they exist, motivations and objectives will however be shaped to a considerable extent by theological views, usually within a societal context. This then gets into the territory of debates around hierarchy, once you acknowledge that is is innate then they question becomes the structures through which it is displayed, namely that a ruling class should be moral and responsible. Likewise religion will have a place in government and governance, what matters is that it's influence is positive and that the very considerable flaws inherent to humans and their resultant institutions are confronted honestly and with due seriousness.
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Should the American republican experiment end there is no doubt that he shall be pardoned, but as things stand the logic of the republic is not one that can consider the likely motivations involved. An oath made in contravention of God's will and of obligations to higher powers (e.g. Kings) is not valid, nor is there much ground for traitors to talk of treason. However such logic while Christian is not acceptable to a Liberal state, in which loyalties are held towards one's individual as well as the popular will, even if America stops being a barely veiled oligarchy such ideas are likely to remain as liberalism is much more than just a political system, but should it transition over to Empire it is almost certain that interest will be taken in traditional conceptions of legitimacy and the history books will change to reflect this. Indeed some have already been written, the true history of the American revolution has been recommended to me quite a lot as supposedly it goes into the cultural and religious delusions which motivated early American leaders to totally misunderstand the political regime in England and the intentions contained therein.
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