Saturday, July 4, 2015

NOT INSPIRATIONAL BUT CAUSATIVE

We are taught that the American Revolution inspired the French Revolution but in actuality the French Revolution was probably caused, in part, by the American Revolution.  The costs, incurred by France, in sending an entire fleet to the Americas, to assist in the defeat of the British, was formidable.  Since neither the nobility nor the Church, the wealthiest Estates, paid taxes, the burden of paying fell on the peasantry and the rising middle class.   This, in turn, sparked a  overturn of the previous social system in France. Any similarity between our present situation, in the U.S., where wealthy segments of the country, who pay an ever decreasing share of taxes, neverthless, push for more military involvement abroad, is not coincidental.

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