Some Things Never Change

This month I have, somewhat by chance, stumbled into a renewed interest in American history. I posted a few weeks ago about how I came across the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Shortly after that Laura started receiving discs through Netflix from the HBO series about John Adams. I watched the first four episodes while flying to and from Sacramento this past weekend and had to come home and finish the last episodes on Sunday evening. If you have not seen this series I would highly recommend it. Aside from the production being remarkably well done, I appreciate how they wend about portraying the story of the American Revolution: as a very real and human tale. 

History books have a way of categorizing our predecessors into neat categories: heroes & villains, patriots & cowards, but the reality is that they were people just like us. At times they were strong, and at times they were weak, sometimes right and sometimes wrong, they were flawed, imperfect people, who were struggling just to hold it all together. I think the greatest misconception about the whole ordeal is the notion that everyone was in agreement about how to handle our separation from England. The issue was bitterly contested by the representatives of the various colonies and was ultimately resolved through political negotiations not completely unlike those we have today. With our current political climate I think it is interesting to take the occasional look back at our history and note that there are somethings that just don't change.