Read the literature. It wasn't identity they were fighting for. And "accuse" sounds an awful lot like attack, which it was not. Just stating that you have no evidence that identity was a prominent feature of the Revolution. And the context is at the macro level. The founding of the US from the revolution through the passing of the Constitution. I don't disagree that at an individual level people have identities, with their families, friends, comrades, religion, and their nation. People get close-nit when things are on the line and they tend to forget identities and work towards the common goal. I'm not disputing the role of identity at the individual soldier level. But that's not what we're rally talking about.
I'm disputing that it was all about identity, which is what you seem to be saying. You've not given any evidence that it was. Yet what all the literature talks about is principle. That was the basis of the constitution and how our government is structured.
I'm open to being wrong. But connect some dots. Make a rational case. Show some literature which makes the nation's founding all about identity and not principle. Something.
Dude, I went back and skimmed through this (you owe me 30 minutes). You mentioned Hobbes and Locke (in the same 'breath') and proceeded to stipulate that principle is greater than identity. I've simply said 'no, it isn't'
If I've missed it, please point me to where you have outlined the facts in support of your position i.e.: the principles that motivated men to join the continental army and take on the British. I'm not likely to read Locke, but I have read von Clausewitz if that helps
Maybe if you tried supplying both parts up front, as in "Here is what I believe and here's the evidence that leads me to believe it" we wouldn't arrive at these impasses. Sometimes I get the feeling that you think "No taxation without representation" or "Remember the Maine" or "54-40 or fight" is an appeal to the intellect rather than an appeal to a common identity. I'm not saying people lack principles, I'm not saying identity ūber alles; I'm saying war is based less on principle than you think and more on emotion
I'll wager that the events at Lexington and Concord had more to do with rousing the colonists to fight than any writing by any philosophers, that the shelling of Belgrade had more to do with the outbreak of WWI than the death of Franz Ferdinand, that the invasion of Poland had more to do with the outbreak of WWII than Kristallnacht and the plight of the Jews. People go to war when they are backed into a corner and run out of alternatives. When the winners write the history, they whitewash the bloody truth with high minded principles. The people who espouse those principles are seldom the ones doing the dying, the ones at the pointed end are motivated to protect kith and kin and comrades in arms