Guy Fawkes day isn't celebrating a revolt against corrupt rule, it's celebrating that Catholics didn't blow up the houses of Parliamentrayen020 said:
A quick question to the Americans of this site...
- Thread starter omega 616
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Thanksgiving and Independence Day have nothing to do with each other. Independence Day is the celebration of the day we signed the Declaration of Independence. Thanksgiving is an incredibly mixed up holiday with contested origins. Essentially some religious zealots felt that we needed to thank god for the initial survival of the colonies, and not the actual natives who saved their asses.
I had a wild guess at 30 but it turns out, how do I put this politily? There are more than you think ....Iklwa said:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/582763/posts
Also there are only 46 states, you have a few commonwealths ... such as Pennsylvania. The more you know ...
In an attempt to understand it, I made a thread on it ... I titled it a "A quick question to the Americans of this site..." you might have stumbled across it.dyre said:
I know you don't all celebrate every holiday, it was a rhetorical question, I was expressing surprise at the amount of them you have.
(sorry, that was a bit more pissy than I was aiming for)
The page is broken down into states for some arbitrary reason which is why it is so long. I have lived in this country my whole life and haven't heard of half of these holidays, which means we don't get them off from work. Hell most holidays we don't get off work. My sister has worked the 4th for the past 5 years. Most stores now open halfway through thanksgiving, and most retail stores are open on Christmas for a little while.omega 616 said:
Fourth of July is an independence thing. Thanksgiving is supposed to be a day when everyone things about all the good in their lives and tries to be thankful for them. Now this does not always work in fact most people focus more on Black Friday. I even saw people camped out in front of my Target on the morning of Thanksgiving. Not spending it with their families, camped out waiting to get a cheap crappy TV. Seriously guys there are other properties to a TV then resolution.
Well, I learned it more like thisTrilbyWill said:
Brits fight the Seven Years' War in Europe, plus a little sideshow in the new world against the French and their native allies. It's a pricey war (the 7 years war, that is, not the French and Indian thing), and they decided to start taxing the Americans on stamps and tea and some other crap(since the British helped fight the war against the French to protect the colonies).
The Americans get all "you can't tax us without letting us send representatives to your Parliament," and throw a bunch of riots. The British withdraw most of the taxes, but to keep their "right to tax colonies," they keep the tea tax in effect.
But they send the East India Company into the Boston Harbor to undercut the smugglers you mentioned. Previously they had to sell to middlemen who then sold the tea to America, raising the prices, but some law allowed them to bypass the middlemen. There was still tax on the tea, but even with the tax, it was cheaper than smuggled tea.
The Americans got insulted at the attempted trick (cheaper, but still taxed, tea) and committed the famous act of property destruction known as the Boston Tea Party.
Public schools get a lot of days off, but otherwise most of them don't excuse people from work (depending on employer of course). Retail gets shit for holidays, and generally get "floating holidays", basically come in on some holiday you should get off, then get some other day you want off. That national dog day or whatever you mentioned I've never heard of, probably just some stupid propaganda-style thing. We also have a black history month, course no one gets THAT off. I can't really speak for other countries (in case you can't tell, I'm American), but I don't think they really have any less holidays than we do. Germany gets 6-weeks paid vacation a year to my understanding. We don't get anything like that, and I don't think we have 6-weeks worth of holidays.
Also, you did completely misunderstand Thanksgiving, yes the original reasons were just that the settlers were really hungry and convinced the Indians to bring them food, but that's not what it's really remembered for. The First Thanksgiving was generally the turning point, when he learned how to not die in America, and we were able to hold our own here. So we give thanks for that and anything else in our lives. It's the whole, "appreciate what you got" thing, so that when Christmas comes around later we can switch to "beg for what you don't got".
Also, you did completely misunderstand Thanksgiving, yes the original reasons were just that the settlers were really hungry and convinced the Indians to bring them food, but that's not what it's really remembered for. The First Thanksgiving was generally the turning point, when he learned how to not die in America, and we were able to hold our own here. So we give thanks for that and anything else in our lives. It's the whole, "appreciate what you got" thing, so that when Christmas comes around later we can switch to "beg for what you don't got".
My point was that I'm surprised you couldn't let common sense kick in (if a TV show told me that the British celebrate murdering babies...), but I suppose different cultures can be strange.omega 616 said:
--edit: sorry, I didn't see your edit about being pissy, so subsequently I counterposted in a pissy manner :\
About your thing about the 4 commonwealths in the 50 states, wikipedia says it's just a tradition thing (not to worry, those 4 are still indeed states...the commonwealth bit is just a useless title). And the "presidents" before the Constitutional Republic don't count. Sort of like de Gaulle was the first president of France, I guess.
Could not of put it better myself.This was how the american revoultion happened we had a costly war and did not have the funds to fight the french.So we over taxed the 13 colonies while the colonies were not the most pleased with us in the first place.They refused to offload the taxed British tea then after a few weeks of arguing we said fine we will take it back then.dyre said:
But by the time we got to boston we were greeted to a rightly so pissed off group of americans who decided they did not want us to take the tea.They threw it in the sea it was the first proper stand against British rule in the colonies and angered the British that took it out on other colonies through out the 13 colonies.
This in turn just added to more people who were against British rule then a few acts of property destruction rapidily turns into a full on rebelion.
(Oh i am British if you did not notice)
You misundertand thanksgiving. its about the unity of settlers and natives coming together in peace and helping each other.
Besides, not every settler was out to slaughter the natives. William Penn wanted peace and largely obtained it, and set something of a precedent that PA would be one of the more level headed states and more well run ones.
Besides, not every settler was out to slaughter the natives. William Penn wanted peace and largely obtained it, and set something of a precedent that PA would be one of the more level headed states and more well run ones.
How does being free from British rule and killing Injins clash? That's like saying eating a candy cane and writing a book on Zoey Deschanel overlap.
I celebrate my religious Holidays, mostly. Dragonstime, the great Dragon Harvest, Dragonsbloom, and the last day of Dragonson.
I celebrate my religious Holidays, mostly. Dragonstime, the great Dragon Harvest, Dragonsbloom, and the last day of Dragonson.
Well yeah. Everyone knows about the atrocities committed against the Native Americans. We're not stupid.
As for the cause, well that's actually pretty easy if you thing about it: It's an excuse to get off work, force small talk with estranged relatives, eat turkey and pass out into a food coma lasting the next few days.
As for the cause, well that's actually pretty easy if you thing about it: It's an excuse to get off work, force small talk with estranged relatives, eat turkey and pass out into a food coma lasting the next few days.
I've always framed it a the British having pissed off the wrong aristocrats/plantation owners/shipping magnates/Freemasons. They should have realized the need to play ball with the local business interests, or maybe established a greater military presence as they had with British Raj. Oh well, colonialism is too inefficient to work for very long.
I wonder how long it took for everyone in the colonies to realize that there had been a revolution? Kind of the like those villagers in Rural China, who had no idea that there'd been a communist revolution, until around 1989.
I wonder how long it took for everyone in the colonies to realize that there had been a revolution? Kind of the like those villagers in Rural China, who had no idea that there'd been a communist revolution, until around 1989.
If it makes you feel better, the taxes imposed on the colonies were only 1/20th of the taxes paid by British citizens.TrilbyWill said:
Hell, I'd give up my right to vote for only having to pay a 20th of my taxes. It's not like one person's vote matters anyway.
I never understood this either, and I go over Guy Fawkes' entire list of 'achievements' every time someone mentions him in a positive light. I then get told 'V for Vendetta. Go watch it'. But nobody ever elaborates further and I can't be assed to go see V for Vendetta.Devoneaux said: