Friday, April 15, 2011

Chapter 03: The Revolution, pt. 1

After the French Indians were defeated, the King decided to raise taxes on the colonists to help pay for the huge war they had just had. The colonists felt the king & parliament were engaged in what they termed a "protection racket" and didn't think it was fair that they should have to pay taxes for their own protection.

To show their displeasure, the colonists had a giant tea party at Boston harbor and then refused to pay for anything. Of course, they were also a little scared of the British Army, so they disguised themselves as French Indians and yelled slogans such as: "No taxification without repremandation", "Join us or, die trying!" or "Don't tread on my blue suede shoes!" on their way out. This event became known as The Great Boston Dine-And-Dash Party.

A number of other people came together to form a group called The Sons of Ribaldry whose purpose was to make dirty jokes about the king and advocate for national independence. Thomas Breade published several pamphlets titled Stuff and Nonsense in which he declared he wanted the colonists to quit Britain and start their own band.

In response to all this, King George sent a bunch of lobsters to Boston where they slaughtered half the city's population in an event that would later be known as The Boston Manslaughter. John Adams defended the lobsters in court because they claimed they had acted in self-defence as some of the colonists had tried to boil & butter them first.

When King George became Ill, the colonists took the opportunity to have a Consequential Congress. (Thus ignoring George Clinton's call for a Funkadelic Parliament.) They chose Philadelphia because it was a central location and George Washington loved him a good Philly Cheesesteak. At the Congress, Benjamin Franklin and Patrick Henry declared "Give us libraries, or give us death!" Franklin had invented the library and went on to actually found several new ones after the revolution. The Congress decided to declare independence from Britain before George Ill became George Well, and sent more lobsters. They wrote all their reasons down on a big sheet of paper, and sent it to Thomas Jefferson to finish the design & layout work on it. This became known as The Decoration of Independence.

When George the Ill received the decorations, he declared Jefferson's font choices and fundamental sense of composition to be the work of a hack designer, especially since he had used John Hancock's signature to fill so much white space at the bottom. He decided to send a whole army of lobsters to the colonies.

In response, John Paul Jones declared, "I have not yet begun to rock!" He then played a kick-ass bass solo, and thus was war declared between Great Britain and The United States of America.

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