The Wall Street Journal carried an interesting article by Thomas Fleming where he drew from his book "What Life Was Really Like in 1776". Mr. Fleming notes that in addition to the soaring idealism of the Declaration of Independence and the grim pledge to defy the world's most powerful nation
Those Americans, it turns out, had the highest per capita income in the civilized world of their time. They also paid the lowest taxes–and they were determined to keep it that way.
Something to keep in mind in November as we are again assaulted by the socialistic taxing impulse. Mr. Fleming goes on to note
By 1776, the Atlantic Ocean had become what one historian has call "an information superhighway" across which poured books, magazines, newspapers and copies of debates in Parliment. The latter were read by John Adamns, George Washington, Robert Morris and other politically minded men. They concluded that the British were planning to tax the Americans into the kind of humiliation that Great Britain had inflicted on Ireland.
Let's keep this independent attitude in mind as we try to avoid doing to ourselves that which Britain wished to inflict on us. Regardless of what some of our current leaders say, the country was not founded on having the government "spread it around" as some sort of pseudo-patriotic duty and the reaction from the citizens was swift against anyone who tried–foreign or domestic. Happy Fourth!
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