William Tryon (1729-1788) was the Governor of North Carolina from 1765 to 1771 and the Province of New York from 1771 to 1780.  He is best known in North Carolina for his suppression of the Regulator Movement, which some see as a precursor of the American Revolution.  The Regulators were rebelling against increased taxes by Tryon as well as corrupt activities by tax collectors in the Piedmont and western part of the colony.

The War of Regulation sprung from a dramatic population increase in North and South Carolina during the 1760s, caused by a migration from the larger eastern cities to the rural west pressured by an economic decline. The rural section of the colonies were predominantly an agricultural economy. As merchants and lawyers began to move west, this began to alter the agricultural economy. This internal migration within the colonies was augmented by a new Scots-Irish migration to America who also sought to move into the rural region.

I have warned that allowing migration during a period of economic decline as has been taking place in Europe, is a highly dangerous mix. Here during the 1760s, the rural agricultural community was suffering from a deep economic depression caused by severe droughts throughout the previous decade. The farmers lost not merely their livelihood, but also their own direct food source. As income was cut off due to the crop failures, the farmers fell into debt. The merchants turned to the lawyers using the court to settle disputes. The debt defaults and the influx of lawyers increased the legal prosecutions more than 15 times. Where there had been just seven debt cases annually, this jumped to 111 in Orange County, North Carolina, alone.

Many court cases were being used to seize property. Farmers lost their homes and property to the lawyers and merchants and this fueled the animosity toward the migrants. The lawyers used the law to create an unjust advantage. The politicians were involved and this created the image of what people saw as a ‘courthouse ring’, with corrupt officials benefiting from the foreclosures.

The resentment built continuously and finally the framers rebelled and took up arms. This armed conflict erupted at the Battle of Alamance in 1771, where Tryon’s soldiers slaughtered the farmers.  Tryon even executed the leader and some were pardoned. Then, Governor Tryon raised taxes once again to pay for the conflict.

This resentment remained in the minds of the people. This is often considered to be a precursor to the American Revolution. Such lessons are important to understand. It is not history, it is a road map as to how human nature responds. Just change the names and the dates and what has taken place before unfolds once again.

COMMENT: Good day Martin I thoroughly enjoyed your video on the solution and took you up on creating a debate. Thank you for your work. I live in Canada. I have a small investment group; only five of us ….however, I invited collectively through the members another 10 people for a Friday night get together which I provided all the goodies. I’ll be frank and short we have a long way to go for any solution. Three of the people invited were lawyers and another 2 were CAs, an oil financier, architect, welder, health care worker and so forth. It did not matter. “Brain-dead ” is a pandemic that filters through every occupation and perhaps every person in society. Ignorance is a virus and worse. Yet it prevents the opening of any part of the brain to new ideas and possibilities. Yes of course until S@$& hits the fan.

It was shocking to hear how many people believe that government is necessary and that government only works for the benefit of the people. That your explanation on payroll taxes was unrealistic. Absolutely shocking.

I wasted my time and my money and even original members of my small group were persuaded to the left. In fact, several [all the lawyers] incited that the riots from the youth should continue if any real change were to occur in this world. I’m done trying.

Ignorance is the disease here Martin and a larger platform to educate is what is really needed.

JB

RESPONSE: Canada is especially hard because the general population have really been indoctrinated with socialism. Your government even calls it a new “sharing economy” and overall Canadians have tolerated higher taxation than Americans without complaint. The confidence in government use to be even higher in Japan going into the 1990s.

Critical thinking that leads a person to question his immediate surroundings takes place in less than 10% of the population. It has long been recognized that education today seems more about indoctrination. Schools do not teach people how to create mega companies. This is why the popular saying is why “A” Students work for “C” students and “B” students work for government. To be an A student you need to just memorize what the correct answer will be – not understand it. “C” students are the dreamers like Albert Einstein, whose elementary school teachers thought that he was a foolish dreamer, and one teacher had even asked him to drop out of his class. “C” students put up with the teachers but reject indoctrination retaining their own objectivity, which teachers reject.

Contrary to this indoctrination belief that you must have a degree, you will discover that those who have created some of the biggest companies are all dropouts with no degrees so they did not even make “C” students which include;  Amadeo Peter Giannini, who was the multimillionaire founder of Bank of America who did not even graduate high school, Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, phonograph who was homeschooled until the age of 12, Andrew Carnegie who dropped out of elementary school and became an industrialist, philanthropist, and one of the first mega-billionaires in the US history, and Henry Ford, billionaire founder of Ford Motors, to Bill Gates founder of Microsoft, Michael Dell of Dell Computer, Barry Diller the billionaire, Hollywood mogul, Internet maven, and founder of Fox Broadcasting Company to yes, even John D. Rockefeller, Sr. the real billionaire founder of Standard Oil. Politicians include Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Jackson who also did not graduate school.

We are a species who will never change because human nature remains the same since the dawn of time. There are Stone Age graves with people buried with dignity. The most amazing find so far of a Stone Age grave was a grave with a female and two children hugging each other. They were carefully arranged in this position. This strongly indicated they had spiritual beliefs and cared for their dead.

Human Nature endures. We travel through time and technology progresses with our knowledge. However, emotionally we remain very much the same. Society MUST move through these crash and burn periods. It is how we progress through history. The majority will NOT believe until they reach the precipice. Only then will change ever come.

Therefore, the one person out of 10 who sees, is all you need. They are the few who are truly the movers and shakers throughout history. They may be the ones others laughed at or ignored and may have even been the unpopular kid in school who just did not fit into the crowd. They are the dreamers who see the future when the time comes and make dreams come true.