Author: Jerry Ma
Even looking past the incomprehensible practice of taxation without representation, the British have further committed heinous crime after heinous crime. The history of the founding of our colonies is an important detail needed to contextualize our emotions. Having come from decades of salutary neglect, being forced to fend for ourselves without the least bit of British help; the fact that the British have come to pounce upon our success the moment it flourishes is truly both disheartening and disgusting.
We had been forced to create colonial courts, to create our own form of government, because the British simply did not have enough in them to care about their fellow British citizens living across an ocean. But to have these courts be disregarded, simply in the name of the power of the monarch, is, to be frank, pure tyranny. Our local governments and assemblies had been taken away by the British. Without the right to assemble and gather, and no representation in Parliament as British citizens, how can we even be considered citizens? We are but dirt in their eyes.
Furthermore, the creation of the quartering acts is, to put it simply, a breach on our natural rights to property. As the enlightened philosopher, John Locke, had said, we, as human beings, have natural rights to property, which should not be trespassed on. The Quartering Act is an act that promotes soldiers barging into our homes, using our hard-earned resources, and providing nothing in return. It is sadly evident that the British soldiers do not wish to protect us in the slightest. In recent events: the Boston massacre, and the killing of colonists at Lexington and Concord, we have been attacked time and time again by those sworn to protect us. How are we to entrust these officers to carry out the task they have been given of protecting us, if they are our murderers? How are we to willingly house these murderers, let them into our homes, allowing them to wait for the right moment to pounce? The creation of these unreasonable laws and our inability to stop them because we have no representation has placed us colonists in an impossible predicament.
The Megaphone 