For your Fourth of July enjoyment, a list of reasons why our cultural beatification of the Founders is not what it’s “cracked” up to be (hehehe).

My favorite from the list:

Say you have a friend, who’s kind of a loud-mouth. He’s a few years younger than you and infinitely more irritating, so much so that he pissed off some tougher, bigger kids. Now they want to kick his ass. Even though it’s your friend’s own fault, and even though you had nothing to do with the dispute, you still feel like you have to step in and fight on his behalf. The French and Indian War was sort of like that, except Great Britain was the older, sensible friend of the idiot colonists, and the French “bullies” knew a shitload of Indians.

But Why?

The land known as the Ohio Country was perfect for fur trading. The French realized this, so they claimed it. The British colony of Virginia claimed it “second,” which is English for first. Great Britain didn’t care too much and France wasn’t terribly interested in putting up a big fight over what clearly must have just been a misunderstanding. The colonists were, objectively, wrong. To apologize for the misunderstanding, the Virginian colonists started sprinting to the territory in order to gobble up land, take advantage of the fur trade, and annoy the living crap out of the Native Americans.

The French, hilariously thinking this conflict was still in the “words” phase, sent a bunch of troops on a peace mission into the forest to see if absolutely anyone in Virginia was in charge (nope!) A nearby colonial militia spotted the French, and being young, dumb, and full of guns, they thought it’d be real neat to sneak up and yell “SURPRISE!” With their guns.

Now, the French are fine if you’re running around saying “Nuh uh, we own the land,” but if you start wrecking their shit? They’re going to have something to say which, in this case, involved recruiting a buttload of Indians and an even bigger buttload of bullets. Regardless of the outcome, the ensuing French and Indian war ended up being ridiculously expensive for the British who, remember, didn’t even really give a crap to begin with.

On top of this, the British colonial smugglers continued to sell stuff to the French illegally throughout the course of the war. This kept the French well-supplied and the British well-supplied with rage at the colonists who, (once again), refused to pay taxes.