Since I read jp's post more recently, it gets addressed first. Firstly, I didn't say it didn't change at all, just not as much as most believe. Secondly, by wealthy people who want more, I was, for the most part, not so much referring to the founding fathers, although some of them, too, they were mostly with the intellectuals wanting to experiment, which they were; they wanted to try something new and rushed into a war to get it. I was referring with the wealthy people to people who wre perhaps not so literally wealthy, but believed they were entitled to Indian land the British prevented them from getting. Note that the British motive for this was not probably protection of the Indians, simply retaining control over it's empire, but that motive is much more ethical than wanting to take Indian's land. There are other economic factors here, but I'm not the person to elaborate on them. Next, with the self determination, saying we did not have members representing us in parliment (taxation without representation) is not the whole truth. Americans were perfectly entitled to become members of the house of commons, the only part of parliment that had any power and, by the way, forced the end of the war despite being forbidden by King George ( so forget the dictatorship trash, anyone). It's just, Americans probably never ran and, if they did, weren't elected. I could thus make that same complaint about how the republicans who overwhelmingly control every part of my state don't represent me because we couldn't get any democrats into anything thanks to the voter population. As for the 7 Years War, the British fought the French world wide, if they hadn't fought the French all over the world and battled them so fiercely, the French would have taken America. The war was fought over the colonies, and if the British had not committed HUGE resources to it, it's colonies would have been taken, and that would have been a VERY bad thing for the colonies. Also, the British war in north America was incredible, and the British won repeatedly in Canada, taking it, and, of course if they hadn't the French there could have simply walked down into America. To compare the contribution of American militia to the British army under Wolfe is nonsense, the British did most of the fighting. By the way, the benefits were paying for the 7 Years War.
Engineer, the founding fathers weren't the ones who won at Cowpens and King's Mountain, easily two of the most important victories of the war. It wasn't political dreamers standing up to the British there, it was people who wanted the rights to take Indian land, and who wanted to retain elements of their culture frowned on by the British. The founding fathers were, like the communists, French revolutionaries, etc. thinkers who wanted to try out something new, but they did not represent even remotely the entire rebelling population of America. As for totalitarianism, you have no grasp on how the British government functioned at that time, clearly. A number of your other points I addressed earlier to someone who phrased them much better than you, so I won't delve again into them again. As for the 7 Years War, yeah, the colonies were a source of wealth, which is why France wanted them. France, in launching it's war, armed and incited numerous Indians, who without the British keeping the French occupied, would have been heavily supported by French troops and heavily armed by French traders. Considering the massacres (from both sides) that occured in that war, yeah, I'd say it could have been MUCH worse. And, no, the colonists weren't tired and poor, at least, not many. As for being a British servant today, thats ridiculous. Yeah, we'd be big servants of Britian, like Canada, and Austrailia. Heck, those countries WANTED to stay with Britian. Look at India, where as soon as they got the right idea of how to fight back it worked. The fact is that if we would have continued our pre-war protests, parliment, already tired of us giving them trouble, would probably have just laid off, giving us more and more freedom until we were independent. Note I said parliment, not King George, he would fight that until he died.
Anyway, I really don't want to hear another illogical tirade from engineer, and although jp was interesting to read an opinion from, I don't really think this is worth another 15 minutes of my time, so it's been nice talking to you all, beware modern propaganda, learn more about what drives wars, how the British government worked at that time, etc. Peace, everyone.
P.S. I'm to bored now to spell check or shorten/grammatically correct sentences, sorry.
[This message has been edited by Sealcow (edited 11-07-2005 @ 04:50 PM).]