Thread by @msbellows

Thread:

Today's testimony by Capitol Police officers about the Jan. 6 insurrection is making me rethink the Boston Massacre, which in hindsight sounds more like 1/6 than a righteous revolutionary act.
1/

Eight soldiers guarding a government building were surrounded by 300-400 angry "patriots" hitting them with clubs, rocks, chunks of ice, oyster shells, lumps of coal; many in the crowd taunting the soldiers to fire, others warning them that if they do, the crowd will kill them;
2

; the crowd close enough to hit the soldiers with clubs; one witness testifies Crispus Attucks actually grabbed a soldier's bayonet (which, true or not, means they were CLOSE).

A stick thrown from the back makes a soldier fall down + drop his gun; he retrieves it;...
3/

... and then someone (maybe a soldier, maybe a colonist, def. not the soldiers' officer) yells "fire, damn you!"; the soldier fires into the crowd, killing Attucks, then the whole squad joins.

Only the arrival of a regiment of reinforcements saves the soldiers from the crowd.
4/

Massive parallels to 1/6. John Adams, who defended the soldiers, decried the "Boston Massacre" title Paul Revere gave his fanciful etching of the event, arguing it was self defense against a "mob" -- the same defense that the unknown officer who shot Ashley Babbitt would have.
5/

(Interestingly, the trial was "bipartisan": the prosecutor against the soldiers was a Tory who sympathized w/ the British; lead defense counsel Adams was, of course, a patriot and eventual revolutionist. Not unlike GOPers Cheney and Kinzinger on the 1/6 panel?)
6/

Adams' defense was principled and brilliant, but (it being America) also racist a.f.: he focused on the Black/Native American Attucks, basically asking the jury, "can you blame the soldiers? Wouldn't YOU be terrified of him, too?"

But he wasn't wrong about it being a mob.
7/

All but two of the soldiers were acquitted; the two convicted of manslaughter (not murder) received brands on their hands: a huge and improbable defense victory...
8/

https://twitter.com/msbellows/status/1420085785127112706/photo/1

... and arguably one that, by calling a mob a mob even when it was composed of self-styled "patriots," helped keep the American Revolution relatively principled instead of devolving into mob rule as the later French Revolution and many others did.
9/

So when the 1/6 terrorists claim they were "patriots" mimicking 1776, they're not entirely wrong – but that doesn't mean they're not a mob of terrorists. As always, history is propaganda, and messy, and our Revolution wasn't as pristine and righteous as we like to pretend.
10/

You can start your own exploration of this fascinating history here: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Ma…
and
crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights…

11/11

(...and yes, I just deleted and reposted the second half of that thread because I idiotically wrote Sam instead of John, despite absolutely knowing which one is which. #ILikeBeer)
12/11

Here's the key part of the thread: true democracy can only exist so long as principled leaders (like @Liz_Cheney and @RepKinzinger, and unlike @GOPLeader or @Jim_Jordan) have the courage to call a mob a mob, whether it's on "our" side or not.
13/11

https://twitter.com/msbellows/status/1420098565905403904