The capitol riot and the spirit of 1776

The riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 was emblematic of the spirit of 1776 and that's a bad thing.

As I've tried to argue elsewhere, the American Revolution, so called, was essentially an expression of mob violence. You don't like the Stamp Act? Tar and feather the stamp collectors. You don't like people who stand by their oath to support the King (the same oath you took just a few short years ago)? Burn their property and chase them out to Canada. You don't like Catholics? Rail against the Quebec Act as the abolition of "the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies." You don't want to respect the boundaries of American Indian nations, or "merciless Indian savages" as the Declaration called them? Defy the compromise of 1763 and settle on their lands anyway.

The supporters of the Revolution voiced some very good ideals, and sometimes acted on them. The changeover to popular democracy it helped usher in was probably, on balance, a good thing. Most important, I believe and have believed for a long time that the Revolution initiated the process which eventually led to the abolition of slavery in North America. 

That said, let us not forget the essence of the Revolution. Its proponents used violence to overthrow a government that they called tyrannical but that was only a dim and incomplete instance of "tyranny." The Revolutionists' idols were some cant about taxation and representation or freedom or some such. The idols of the capitol rioters were basically the same, perhaps with a touch of hero worship of the former president. Ideals were the currency of the violence, and the real goal of struggle was power, or perhaps some visceral embrace of violence for the sake of violence.