[geeks] Percentages & mail list

[Nadine Miller]

Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> On May 27, 2008, at 16:09 , Lionel Peterson wrote:
> 
>>> From: Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>
>>> Date: 2008/05/27 Tue PM 03:30:33 EDT
>>> To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>>> Subject: Re: [geeks] Socialized medicine [was Re: nVidia 8800GT for 
>>> Apple Mac
>> Pro]
>>
>>> On May 27, 2008, at 04:02 , Mike Meredith wrote:
>> <snip>
>>
>>> I doubt percentages are relevant in any way.
>>>
>>> In 1775, less than 10% of the colonials started a rebellion that ended
>>> English rule in America.
>>>
>>> Less than 30% voted agreement even after it was over.
>>
> 
>> [0] I don't question your assertion, I am accepting it as stated - I 
>> wouldn't
>> know how to research it and have no reason to question it.
> 
> There is no official estimate, since it is nearly impossible to track 
> every possible contribution to the rebellion.  I've had a hard time even 
> finding sources that would talk about anything except guesses at 
> military service and some of the more well recorded auxillaries.
> 
> I've yet to see many say more than 10% though, and it seems reasonable, 
> at least at the beginning of hostilities.
> 
> Each soldier needed multiple non-combatants for support, and those are 
> very hard to count, but you can still make rough guesses based on other 
> events that were similar.
> 
> Really figuring out how many suppliers, logistical personnel, hired 
> drivers (like for limbered artillery), blockade runners, spies, clerks, 
> friendly merchants, political leaders, etc.... that's pretty difficult, 
> but I don't believe it was very high even if you pad it heavily.
> 
> You aren't a rebel just for standing around bitching about England, or 
> what you would do to King George if you saw him in a dark alley, so I 
> don't really like statistics based on voting records, counts of 
> Loyalists or dissenters, etc.  It's just not accurate enough to bother 
> with.
> 
> 90% of the people might have hated King George, but that didn't make 
> them rebels.  Remember that even some very vocal England bashers of the 
> time were against rebellion.
> 
> Also, remember that the revolutionaries had a hard time getting 
> ratification, which only required something like a 1/3 vote, so it seems 
> that the number or active rebels could not possibly have been very high.
> 
> One reason England lost was their inability to gather intelligence on 
> their opposition.  90% of the colonial population was rural and not on 
> record anywhere, and even children were employed by the rebellion as 
> spies, couriers, and workers.
> 
> It's always hard to account for rebel or partisan forces, both soldiers 
> and non-combatants.
> 
> I think to this day we really don't know how many guerilla fighters 
> there were, especially in the south where they frequently made up the 
> bulk of attacks against English forces.

And even those that turned out to be "rebels" in some cases really 
didn't want to be.  The Declaration wasn't intended to be a document of 
rebellion, even though it was interpreted that way.  If you read it in 
the context of the letters of the period, it's a statement of their 
position, and their expectations of what the Crown's responsibilities 
towards the *contracts* that the Colonial companies had agreed to.  If 
the Crown (well, strictly speaking Parliament) had upheld the original 
contracts, we'd not be talking about a Revolutionary War.

Hmm, sounds familiar--governments and corporations reneging on their 
agreements?

=Nadine=