
The Revolution Against the Revolution: Looking Back on Shays’ Rebellion - blegh
https://www.city-journal.org/html/shays-rebellion-16041.html
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dsfyu404ed
Funny how not much changes in 200yr. Basically every part of MA that isn't a
part of the Boston area still resents that the state is run economically and
socially (order of importance varies by who you talk to) according to what
Boston wants/needs/wishes. I'm sure if you went and asked people in
Springfield, Hoyoke, North Adams, Fitchburg, New Bedford, (not to mention all
the rural communities) what they thought about the quality decision making on
Beacon hill you'd get about the same responses you would have gotten in 1787.

Edit: By Boston area I do NOT mean [1] which includes a lot of the Fall
River/New Bedford area, the Lowell area and places more under the effect of
Worcester. I mean the area in MA where Boston is the major city that has the
most effect on day to day life (not to be confused with "daily effect on
life") of most people. The area covered by Boston Craigslist is a pretty good
proxy for this.

[1] [https://statisticalatlas.com/metro-
area/Massachusetts/Boston...](https://statisticalatlas.com/metro-
area/Massachusetts/Boston/Overview)

~~~
eadmund
I really strongly believe that each state legislature should have a structure
similar to the federal legislature in order to address this: state
representatives should be apportioned by population and state senators should
be apportioned by counties. This way the geographic regions of states would
have a say, and you wouldn't have places like Boston, New York City or Denver
running roughshod over the rest of their respective states.

~~~
TulliusCicero
The senate's structure made sense at the time of the country's founding, when
people thought of themselves as citizens of their state first, and citizens of
their (very recent) country second. But that hasn't been true for at least
decades now, and thus the Senate is rather anti-democratic. People shouldn't
have more or less voting power just because of where they live in the US.

~~~
sp332
And it's been getting worse as the population concentrates into fewer states,
giving those people relatively less and less representation in the Senate.

~~~
mrguyorama
That's a feature by some people's opinion

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bluejekyll
> “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of
> patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

That quote from Jefferson, and many others of his, I always find very strange.
Jefferson was a slave owner. It would appear that he desired an end to slavery
but was incapable of doing it himself, which of course is disappointing.

This wiki entry appears to make the case that Jefferson’s own debt prevented
him from freeing his slaves, because he still saw them as property on a
balance sheet.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery)

In the end all of his slaves (minus the few known children of his and Sally
Hemmings and others of her family) were sold to pay off his estate’s debts,
most likely breaking up families in the process.

In some ways Jefferson possibly hoped for a rebellion to overthrow the status
quo in the South, and free all the slaves. Ironically though it wasn’t the
slaves that rebelled and brought about that change, it was the Southern white
confederates who felt they needed to protect their right to own slaves, and
throw off the oppressive North (like western mass vs. Boston). They rebelled,
and then Slavery was made illegal...

Although we all know that the rights of those former slaves have never truly
be equalized across the entire US.

The point is, I always find Jefferson to be an interesting character, because
he clearly understood the plight of those who were oppressed, but he lacked
the conviction to overthrow his own life comforts to correct the greatest
injustice of the founding of the US.

~~~
Fnoord
You don't have to be morally perfect to be against something. Example: you can
be both a Facebook user as well as against Facebook. Another example: you can
be against doping in the Tour de France whilst being a doping user. Hypocrisy
is found everywhere. The fact he was a slave owner also doesn't give me an
indication about "severity". In these examples, it is hard to go against the
status quo.

~~~
lainga
I wonder how many people saying that Jefferson's actions were inexcusable also
hold that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

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ataturk
So many great lessons in that story, from "too many lawyers in Boston" to
"debased currency" to "moral arguments that both sides felt strongly about."
It's all there, same as right now. It is also striking how the opportunists
came out after the war ended to fill the power void and steal as much as they
could from everyone else. Nothing ever changes with human nature. I will say,
however, that everyone who participated in the Revolution knew what they were
signing up for--big boys, some of whom later whined about their plight. It's
hard to make sense of it all.

Another matter I find most striking about the article is how pretty much
everyone was pardoned for serious crimes except for a few token examples. That
is much like the soft-glove approach localities are taking with the Antifa
communists today, although I'm not sure we should be handling violent
communists in quite the same manner even though they are the same sort of
lower class people as back then.

I very much appreciate how people back then would take to the streets at
seemingly a moment's notice and at least try to shove it back up the asses of
the people who sought to destroy them, unlike today where regular people are
just kicked around by bullies who are completely untouchable. Today, people
who are poor believe it's their own fault when in fact it is a combination of
factors, not just their own lousy behavior.

The article hints at how Shays' rebels were paid, much like the rent a mobs in
action around the US today.

People do need to stand up for themselves because elections are rigged and
leaders will never have anything but the interests of corporate and power
centers in their minds. It is what it is in some ways, but the spirit of
revolution is the spirit of pushing back against those overwhelmingly corrupt
forces.

~~~
macintux
> I will say, however, that everyone who participated in the Revolution knew
> what they were signing up for--big boys, some of whom later whined about
> their plight

They knew their government would tax them out of the right to vote to pay off
war debts? I think you're vastly overestimating the prescience of those who
fought in the Revolution.

> Antifa communists

Welp.

~~~
wutbrodo
>> Antifa communists

> Welp.

This is sort of a non-central question, but is there something controversial
about this? I probably have more familiarity with Antifa than most people, but
I'm by no means an expert; I thought that many of them do directly identify as
Communists (along with anarchists, socialists, and anti-liberal social
democrats).

~~~
macintux
I'm sure many of them do. I'm skeptical most do, and "Antifa communists" seems
like a glib way to dismiss/denigrate the collective, much like "Infowars white
supremacists" would be an inaccurate collective term for fans of Alex Jones.

------
viburnum
The bond holders must be repaid.

