A Summary View of the Rights of British America
Thomas Jefferson, 1774
Ahhh, summer in America. Baseball, hot dogs, daiquiris, beer, scantily-clad women, humidity, long weekends, afternoon thunderstorms, foreign tourists, Toby Keith songs on the radio, wildfires destroying most of California - it’s truly the best time of year for getting out to the Fly or to the northshore to sit back, relax, catch some sun, and do a little bit of recreational drugs reading. Both?
And for me, nothing means America more than celebrating my favourite president, John Adams. Dude’s so famous that he has his own HBO miniseries! But did you know that he had a Vice President?! (Or so says Article Two, Section One, Clause One of the Constitution.) A man so powerful that he totally fucked one of his teenaged slaves and was like “suck it, free press!” He was the father of the University of Virginia (or at least an unpaid architect). He was the author of original draft of the Declaration of Independence, also known by its lesser name of the Declaration to Fuck King George. His name was Thomas Jefferson.
In 1774, while a lawyer and representative to the Virginia House of Burgesses (went there on a Grade 8 field trip!), he published his first work, A Summary View of the Rights of British America. At first, he intended to focus solely on his views of the passage of the Coercive/Intolerable Acts (Boston Port Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Administration of Justice Act, Quartering Act, Quebec Act), he thought a little bit outside of the box and threw in shit like the colonists having a natural right to govern themselves and that Parliament had no authority in the colonies.
So basically he was like the Ron Paul of his day, except more effective, and more people liked him, and his base of supporters didn’t insist entirely upon batshit-crazy, inbred, right-wing extremists.
Anyway, as the story goes, as my favourite president John Adams was getting his shit together for Independence, he delegated to Thomas Jefferson a chance to author the original declaration, preferring the Virginian’s pen over his own Harvard, elitist style of writing. And then he spent a few years draft-dodging the war, serving as Minister to France, and, for a man of his popularity, probably never slept with as many French women as I have. So far.
Anyway, it’s a nice primer on the ideals and birth of republicanism (not the shitty political party) in American society and a sound legal justification for self-determination under the eyes of a much more powerful mother nation.
The British should read this with out any sense of irony at all.
Plus, if you’re in a conversation with someone, specifically a grad student, drop some knowledge. It’s literally impossible not to sound smart when saying “A Summary View of the Rights of British America”. Everyone within earshot will know that you totally want to get laid, and that you must be so fucking incredible in bed that you don’t even care about digging this shit up from the far reaches of your brain.
I keep a copy next to my toilet for quick reading.
Brian-Michel is/est:
