The American Revolution Under King George

I guess this will have to serve as our Independence Day post: Liberals are often accused of being unpatriotic but I guess my definition of patriotism includes remembering and upholding the principles this country was founded upon.

Take this op-ed piece from the NY Times on how American Colonial prisoners of war were treated by the British. At first, I thought it was just a self involved call to patriotism as it was recounting the significance of New York City in the Revolutionary war.

The piece ended surprisingly as it pointed out that modern international law regarding the humane treatment of prisoners of war (and the attribution of this status) was largely due to the outcry against British abuses of Colonial prisoners. The irony of this was that King George III of the British Empire, the most powerful superpower in the world at the time, refused to confer POW status to his captives and allowed the abuses to happen as there was nothing to stop him. How sad that over 200 years later, a different King George is asking that similar atrocities be allowed.