After the duel of dwarves that passed for the presidential election, it is time to re-evaluate the American revolution. It was rum that drove me to this conclusion just as it drove the colonial merchants to insurrection in 1776. For some time I have been engaged in researching a book on rum. It involves extensive travel in the Caribbean, and intensive on-site, hands-on research with the product. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it, I console myself as I alternate between the beach and the rummeries (as the French West Indies so charmingly call them).
Surprisingly, the November US elections formed an integral part of my research. Faced with a choice between two charismatically challenged candidates, George W Bush and Al Gore, I prayed for some giant boy scout to come down and rub the two wooden cigar store Indians together. It was the only way I could see to strike a spark from the event.
There ought to be a law against two opposing candidates trying to occupy the same political continuum, but if there is, it’s been numbed into terminal apathy by the swinishly gadarene rush to the middle of the road from the lackluster candidates. But as is sometimes said, a country gets the politicians it deserves.
Winston Churchill offered his compatriots blood, sweat and tears. And even if he was only kidding, John F Kennedy suggested that people should ask what they could do for their country. If any of the candidates asked that question this time, they also provided the answers – take the tax break, but spend more on the military; my health plan for (voting) seniors is better than yours; and let’s both ignore the (non-voting) poor. And above all, let’s wallow in Panglossian optimism, and both ignore the very real danger of recession and financial turmoil.
So what does this have to do with rum, apart from the Kennedys having built their political fortunes by illegally trafficking the stuff? In the course of my research, I discovered that the American Revolution resulted above all from the desire of the colonial merchants of America to import illegal substances without paying duties.
In many ways, the story is quite modern. Naturally, we can blame the French. Cognac makers successfully lobbied the king of France to ban the importation of rum from the French West Indies, which meant that their sugar planters had no use for molasses, the byproduct of sugar refining. So they sold it to the American colonists at dumping prices. British laws forbade the colonists trading with the French colonies and since France and England were at war for most of this period, this meant the merchants were not only evading duties, they were trading with the enemy.
The enemy, from its territories in Canada and the west, was a major threat to the colonies. That is until the Six Years war (which was, perhaps, the real first world war) ended in French defeat and their removal from Canada. It was a very expensive war, and the Brits felt their American proteges should consider ponying up a penny or two towards the cost of their own defense. However by then, the colonial merchants had developed a culture of tax evasion and they no longer needed the British. Stirringly, they declared, ‘No taxation without representation,’ which a cynic may regard as an ex post facto argument for not doing their bit. They also used the rum they made from the smuggled molasses to trade and import slaves, for whom their slogan ‘liberty or death’ did not apply.
So, alongside a battle for freedom and civil liberties there was a self-righteous and often religiose selfishness that should sound familiar to students of this election. As a result, the founding fathers froze a constitution into a Hanoverian time-warp, in which the president has the honors, weaknesses and limited powers of George III. And the founding fathers ended up with a Congress that can always excuse its best friends from paying taxes while ensuring that most of the pork barrels roll their way.
It is not feasible for the US to rejoin the British Empire, not least because the latter no longer exists. Additionally, the historical resentment of the British lingers. Although they form one of the largest groups of immigrants to the US, you would be hard put to name one involved in politics. There is no problem with politicians with Hispanic or heavily mittel-European accents getting elected, but a British accent would blow a politician out of the water immediately. Too many Hollywood imperialists have been cast with British accents to allow it.
However, there is a solution. Canadians play a large part in American public life without causing resentment. Canada has an effective universal health service, and a shrinking military budget. It has a low prison population, a low murder rate and has abolished capital punishment. In short, it is civilized! It is time to give up the failed American experiment set in train by those revolutionary rum-runners of yore. Let’s join Canada!
The Speculator
