The Mayflower Principle: How a Rocky Pilgrim Voyage Became a Superpower

My family arrived (Mayflower crashed into Cape Cod in 1620 - mother’s side) and settled on my father’s side - Maryland 1645. Subjects of the king; property of the Crown – but here to help develop and colonize for mother England. My ancestors were among the first families, signatories of the Mayflower Compact, and later framers of the constitution. But many myths have been taught to all of us about the curious witch’s brew that later became the land of e pluribus unum.

By 1775, George III raised the price of tea, and suddenly Boston thought itself Athens. "No taxation without representation!" they cried, while keeping representation chained up in the back garden.

King George—now there’s a man who thought real estate was forever. He’d paid for the colonies fair and square, with good old-fashioned European conquest. His majesty considered America part of the family—albeit the loud, ungrateful cousin with delusions of grandeur. So imagine his surprise when that cousin burned the family portraits, pawned the silverware, and took up with a French aristocrat named Lafayette.

Ah yes, France. We just couldn’t help ourselves.

England was bleeding, and we caught the scent like a Versailles lapdog with a taste for British ankles. We sent ships, gold, a teenage marquis with a sword longer than his résumé. All in the name of liberty—by which we meant: sticking it to the English, regardless of cost.

And what a cost it was. You see, we bankrolled the American rebellion so thoroughly we forgot to feed our own people. The royal court was awash in powdered wigs and unpaid invoices. And while America celebrated its “freedom,” France stood there, pockets empty, whispering “Mon Dieu… what have we done?”

Enter the French Revolution.

Because if there's one thing the poor can’t stand, it’s watching someone else get a revolution before they do.

So we lit the match under our own monarchy. Not a symbolic match. An actual guillotine.

Louis XVI—our benevolent donor to American independence—couldn’t even flee in a straight line. They caught him dressed like a footman. Robespierre rose up, shrieked about virtue, and began slicing through nobility like a baker through stale baguettes.

And that’s how France got liberty: Not from pamphlets or powdered debates, but from a rain of heads and the efficient grace of falling steel.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the Americans were writing a Constitution. Grand stuff—unless you weren’t white, male, or land-rich. They built a government of the people, by the people, for the people—as long as the people looked like Jefferson and owned something taxable.

King George? He lost his colonies and eventually his marbles. Spoke to trees. Appointed them to office, which, in hindsight, might’ve been a step up.

And France?

We got liberté, égalité, and forty years of blood-splattered chaos.

All thanks to helping a fledgling republic that thought "freedom" meant "free shipping."

So when you celebrate the “Spirit of '76,” do raise a glass—to the kings bankrupted, the peasants beheaded, and the nations that mistook someone else’s revolution for their own moral redemption.

Liberty is lovely, yes. But someone always pays the tab. And in this case, it was France… with interest.

Vive la révolution, mes amis. But next time—send cash upfront.

The Pilgrims! Those paragons of piety, those stalwarts of sobriety... or so the history books would have you believe. The truth is, those guys were a bunch of slobbering, stumbling, drunken louts. These were my Ancestors, on my mother's side of the family.

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The recent fires and now $45 billion for “detention facilities” across the country. With the Admin clawback of public media funds, I n