Thank you all for your work on your group presentations to wrap-up the first semester. Most of you demonstrated an understanding of the history that we’ve been covering, and of the various options given for this assignment.
By looking at alternative outcomes (the options that did not actually happen) we are practicing what is called counterfactual history. In the case of our activity, it helps us understand what the founders may have been considering before they settled on independence. We do have to be careful when working with counterfactuals that our understanding of what actually happened is not confused. You all are intelligent enough to avoid this problem.
So let’s work a little more with our alternative outcomes. We all know that it was Option 4 that was chosen by our founding fathers, but what if they had made a different choice. What do you believe would have been their best choice out of the three alternatives (Options 1-3)? Why would have it have been the best alternative? Do you think the outcome would have lasted, or would have independence eventually come?
Give serious thought to your answers, and think carefully about the “Why” question. I’m looking for serious and thoughtful responses. As always, I encourage you to respond not only to my post, but to the comments of your classmates.
When you finish this blogging assignment I hope you focus on having a great Christmas holiday and an unbelievable New Year!!
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I think that the second best option would be number 3. It would be best because that is the one that we fight for our rights but still stay loyal to the king. The first option wouldnt be good because they wanted to stay loyal and not do anything about their rights being taken away. option 2 wants to have their rights back but they didnt want to fight for them. They would rather write petions than do something physically active. I do think that independence would finally have come just at a later time. This is because once they got their rights back Britian would do something to make them mad again in the future. Or they would get curious to find out what would happen if they were independant.
I think that option two would be the second best option because they could go either way. They are neutral and have a fair chance of going either way with their choice. I agree with kira that the other option include having rights but not neccisarily fighting for them or fighting for the wrong reasons.
i think that option number 3 would have been the second best option. I agree with kira that we still want to stay loyal but do something about our rights. We should have a say in something the king is going to decide. Option 2 wants to have their rights back but they don't seem to want to do anything about getting them back. Option 1 all they seemed to want was to remain loyal and do nothing about their rights. Even if option 3 didn't want to fight unless it was the most extreme case they were willing to help do something in order to get their rights back . I also agree with Kira that the fight for independence would happen sometime or later. Their not going to get their rights back if they don't do anything about it. They can't get their rights back by just sitting back and letting the king punish them. They
have to talk to the king and make their points obvious so they can get somewhere in their fight for their rights.
thanks for agreeing with me. now i feel smart!
Why would you want to stay loyal to the king? The king is starting trouble in the first place. I think its better to be neutral and preferably on the patriots side
well option 3 is the best for getting your rights back. option 2 soesnt really do anything about it. i think the colonists would rather stay with the king and have their rights back then only trying peacefully (and not very succesfully) to get their rights back
Yeah but overall option 4 is the best ( obvcoarse!!!) but were talking about the 2nd BEST option and now you have convinced me of choosing option 3 because if I was in that position of the neutral colonists I would choose it to.
yes exactly 4 is the best and 3 is the second best for obvious reasons
or at least thats my opinion
hey you guys it looks like everybody else forgot
both of you guys are right. Option four is the best and option 3 is the second best. I also agree that it is better to be loyalist and try to get your rights instead of being neural and later trying to get those rights back even though the king thinks you might be on his side. you can either be neutral and maybe never get your rights back or be loyalist but work against the king. maybe over through him or maybe threaten to became patriots and leave his power. Those both might work even without fighting over it and going all bloody and filled with violence. That might end up in full out war and lots of dead bodies.
Good job blogging Kira and Taylor keep up the good work so i will have more to comment on
hey you guys it looks like everybody else forgot
both of you guys are right. Option four is the best and option 3 is the second best. I also agree that it is better to be loyalist and try to get your rights instead of being neural and later trying to get those rights back even though the king thinks you might be on his side. you can either be neutral and maybe never get your rights back or be loyalist but work against the king. maybe over through him or maybe threaten to became patriots and leave his power. Those both might work even without fighting over it and going all bloody and filled with violence. That might end up in full out war and lots of dead bodies.
Good job blogging Kira and Taylor keep up the good work so i will have more to comment on
I think that option 2 is the second best, but it is not far ahead of 3. I think 2 is best because we are leaning towards loyalty, but not to the point of a full-scale war. But, Number three is also good because it wants basically the same thing, but there is fighting there. I would definately prefer the non-fighting version to the fighting version.
So I basically agree with all of you. We would work well as a government, don't you think?
I think option 3 was the second best option because you still want independence but they didn't want to fight. I disagree with Natalie because option 2 wouldn't have helped the colonists, just Britain. Option 1 wouldn't have done anything to help to us only Britain by making know that the colonists didn't want to seperate from them. Option 3 warned Britain that the colonists might break away in the future
Option two would definately have helped the colonists! We would have gone back to normal (hopefully) and we wouldn't have to suffer the chances that we may run out of supplies without Britain. After all, Britain exported more to us than we did to them.If you were Ben Franklin, or someone at that time, that would sound better than risking everything. But, in the end, they didn't pick that option, so we can't really tell what would happen if they did.
But remember, I sid that #3 was right on #2's tail, I think both options are good.
I agree with Natalie, Option two would be my second choice. I believe this would be the second best option, because they are not risking getting everyone killed, and having rambunctious break-outs all the time. It's a peaceful way to solve the problem. Also, they wouldn't have to spend all that money on the soldiers training them ,and having them travel. I think it would be the best for all of America.
Except for #4, right Emily?
i agree with emily and natalie, option two would be the second best because its the safest way to settle things. It would also be safer for familys and the colonists because we wouldnt break out n war. And yes cara we do want our rights back and i have to agree with you that we arnt doing anything about it, but as emily said we will fight if its our last option.
but option 3 was very good also i might have to agree with that one to because we want our independance and were actualy doing somthing about it, unlike all the peace stuff thats going on in nuber 2. Actualy now that i think about it id have to go with option 3
I would choose number 3, because we would still be fighting for our rights. Plus, we wouldnt have the king as our enemy because we would still be loyal to him. Would still be under British rule though. We would just have a little more freedom. We would also not have to go out into an all out war, which would save a ton lives.
Exactly Leah! I think exactly that. But, I still think option 2 is a bit better because there wouldn't be as many deaths. Also, at the time, it probably seemed like the smartest thing to do. But, the people were brave and still picked option 4, which probably seemed crazy. It worked out though.
Natalie we would work well as a government! :-)
I agree with Natalie I would much rather go through with a nonviolent road to independence than a violent one. there was only one violent chocie and that was choice number 4 to fight for what we believed was right and that wasn't so bad. Leah was right option 2 may be the safest way to settle things, but it might not always get the point across. Luke is right with option 3 we are still under Great Britain but we have a say and we want to take down Parliment
hey guys i still think that number 3 was second best. And natalie i do think that we would work well in government. number 2 doesn't really do anything but it is better than number 1 and close to number 3
Cara is right number 1 is close to the number 3 and number 2 is just out there. Also we aren't going to get our rights back by doing nothing and if we fight and lose then that isn't going to help because we would just be hung or killed in some other way. Kira was right we still wanted to want to remain loyal to Britain and that we want a say in the decisions that get made for us. If we fight in the most extrem case that probably means Britain started it and the colonists were just trying to protect themselves, not the other way around. To answer Taylors question on why you would want to remain loyal to Britain is to keep your tree, being afraid that you would be hung or something in that sort. Taylor was right option 3 is for the neutral colonists.
Well, I would choose option 3 because I would rather do anything to get my rights back because if you don't do anything, you would suffer trying to go through unfair rights from the king. Option 2 would be acceptable to do except, what if things go too far? As in the british starts killing the colonists? Would you still want to have peace with them while they're killing your people? So it's better to do fight 'till you get your rights back, but obviously option 4 would be the best option like everyone else had said.I agree with anyone who chose option 3!
I agree with Luke, Kira, and anyone else that said fighting for rights, in option 3, is the best. option 3 (in my opinion) is the 2nd best; we fight, get our rights back, and stay with Britain the most powerful nation at the time. option 1 was not good because if they hadn't fought, or done anything to gain indipendence for that mater, parlement would just gain morte and more control. It would be like not training a dog; eventual the dog will get whatever it wants whenever it wants forceing the owner to lose money and loseing the will to fight back and train it. option 2 wouldn't work in the slightest (in my opinion) because if the king got a letter in the mail that said "PETETION TO KING #142" the affect would have worn off and he would probably use it as kindling for a fire whereas a fight would wake up the British and send a real message. #3 is the most obvious choice to me because it keeps good bonds and cuts bad ones.
But I also think that this good thing would be to good to last a eventualy there would be an all out war and we would become an indipendent nation.
sorry im a little late i just read the E-mail that said we had a blogging assignment.
Kira should think better of herself and not get all happy and say "I eel smart when she gets an "A"!!!!!
Merry Christmas!!!
Happy Hanukkah!!!
Happy Kwanzza!!!
And a Very Happy New Year!!!
Oh and Happy Birthday too ME!!!
I'm not so shure that Kira and Natalie would win an election together :)
Hey!!!! We aren't having any serious arguments, we are just calmly working it out. Thats why I said it. By the way, I think option 3 is just behind option 2 because we'd want to try something calm first, and if that fails we could do option 3. I just think we shouldn't just jump right into fighting without doing something that might work beforehand without violence.
Happy Christmahanakwanzkaka!
I think that the second best option would be option 4 because if you were being taxed too much what would you have to loose? Since I had option 3 that is what I think that would be the second best option to do because the dont have anything to loose. If they (do) win the war they would be free from Britain.
Have a happy holiday you guys, see you later at school in January.
Everyone’s done a great job. This may sound strange, but I feel option 1 would have been the second best option. Yes it was the loyalists’ side, but they had good reasons to remain loyal. Britain was their home, and to turn your back on your homeland seemed rude and ungrateful. Britain had made their new home possible. They should have been thanking Britain for their new opportunity. Another reason why this would have been the best second option, was because Britain was so much more powerful than the colonies. Britain contained the strongest navy in the world and the colonies were weak and unprepared. Britain connected them to the rest of the world and without them; the colonies would have been cut off from the world. If the colonies were to suddenly lose their government, there would be chaos, squabble, and a struggling society. Lastly, if you’re going to fight the crown, you either do it or you don’t. By this I mean if you’re not going to fight, your only other option is to remain loyal.
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