Patriotic Bore

by DANIEL LAZARE

[from the September 12, 2005 issue]

Although undoubtedly one of the most glorious events in history, the American Revolution was also a bloody mess. It gave rise to a war that raged for fully half a dozen years, claiming the life of one colonist in a hundred. Proportionally speaking, it generated five times as many political exiles per capita as the French Revolution and saw roughly the same amount of revolutionary confiscations of private property. But if anyone questions whether it was worth it, he or she need only take a look at political conditions north of the border. Canada, where most of America's counterrevolutionary émigrés wound up, is today an increasingly authoritarian society in which elections are stolen, political corruption is rampant and religious fundamentalists hurl thunderbolts while liberals scurry for cover. Thanks to its infinitely more progressive foundations, the United States is the opposite--a sunny, relaxed social democracy admired the world over for its humane attitudes and nonviolent ways.

Er, perhaps we ought to take this once more from the top.