Just gonna point out this is literally what the English Civil War was about.
Ended with us chopping the king's head off.
Ended with us chopping the king's head off.
Reposted from
Andy Craig
The idea the president alone can levy taxes on a whim and spend it as he pleases without any congressional approval is the kind of thing so beyond the pale it's not unconstitutional, it's anti-constitutional. It is overturning in starkest terms the central rallying cry of the American Revolution.
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I shifted the names and side around for effect 😁
Turns out if you do that, those leaders and soldiers are gonna have opinions on the peace settlement and the return to the old social order.
Turns out 'Black Tom' is one of the finest generals the country ever produced, and a firm believer that his soldiers have a right to a say in the peace.
That leaves Cromwell, his (equally talented) second in command and the other captains as the men who shape the politics of the New Model post-war.
The English civil war should be taught much better in the US, given the US is downstream of it.
(I do not advocate for ACTUALLY hurling Teslas into the harbor, use them for scrap as nature intended)
(There's some point where those things will be worth more for their batteries & computers than as cars.)
Charles' idiocy was not accepting the terms put to him by the army, of a constitutional monarchy with wider voting and limited religious tolerance.
But during both rounds of negotiations it's very much a three way affair with the NMA a political force in its own right.
(That's the point where the NMA seize the King as collateral)
They were happy to go with a monarchy with guaranteed parliaments, religious tolerance and expanded suffrage.
And Charles fucked it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heads_of_Proposals
Scotland was busy lying low, having backed Charles the second time round (because Parliament reneged on its religious promises) and been beaten.
Ireland was in full blown revolt still.
So neither really had a say in what was happening to Charles.
And, ironically, Charles persuading the Scots to back him in round 2 did the same to him.
Which is what kicks off round 2.
And so suddenly everyone is just trying to build competing new versions of normalcy.
It's not until William & Mary that the new balance really settles down.
But bluntly what was to come in Scotland or Ireland played little part in the shaping of the English republic, the turmoil and the restoration terms.
So wasn't really pertinent to what was being discussed here.
The whole liberty thing was just useful PR.
In the end, they called their authoritarian rulers lots of things: autocrat, dictator, emperor (imperator), prince, Caesar... but they never called them kings.
William and Mary were left in no doubt where power lay now.
He understood that it was a reciprocal relationship. Be a good king, and you get to stay king.
James II wanted to be Catholic, which caused all sorts of trouble.
Charles II realised that everything had changed. That he ruled (mostly) by consent.
James was too like his father. And that was never going to be allowed to stand.
A fine military commander, also put out the Great Fire once given command, he appeared to have everything you need to be a good king.
Oh well.
This guy believed that the Apocalypse was just around the corner.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Harrison_(soldier)
It even cuts against the motto of Edward I’s so-called Model Parliament- what touches all should be approved by all
He just knew that he had no way of really collecting, to any great degree, without the logistical support of Parliament and its members.
After Charles' second attempt, there's some. Mostly because it was felt the Royalists had broken oaths not to be silly and try again.
Frankly, the even bigger killer was famine. The whole period was awful for harvests, and having rival armies raised and stomping through everyone's fields made things even worse.
Although ironically one problem they have is that they still haven't rewritten that bit of the constitution about treason to drop the "against the king" bit.