Didn't Think This Through: Difference between revisions

* [[Guy Fawkes]] (or rather, the mask modeled after him) is often regarded as a symbol of those who would fight “the system” and defy [[The Man]], which is odd, because the [[Gunpowder Plot]], the act of terrorism he is associated with, is one of the most incompetent in history. The year was 1605, and Britain had been ruled by Protestants for nearly a century, making life increasingly difficult for the English Catholic holdouts, and because the Catholic-dominated Spain was considered an enemy, and the Vatican excommunicating the British royalty, [[Guilt By Association| English Catholics were considered enemies of the state]]. So Guy Fawkes and his eleven (known) accomplices figured they’d use the newest (at the time) weapon of mass destruction, gunpowder, to get rid of Parliament in one swift, dramatic stroke. Their plan was as follows: They’d rent an apartment next to the Parliament building, stock it with ''lots'' of gunpowder (36 barrels, precisely), and use it to destroy said Parliament building - with Parliament inside it - on their State Opening of November 5th. This would be a prelude to starting a full civilian revolution in the countryside, where they’d capture the King’s Catholic daughter, use her as a puppet queen, and finally, get the Pope to support their new Catholic government. All this, of course, depended on everyone accepting a group of mass-murderers and terrorists as legitimate rulers, something that was, in hindsight, a weak part of their plan. Still, it never got that far. First of all, Fawkes rented the apartment [[Mr. Smith| under the name “John Johnson”]], and even in 1605, using such a pseudonym was one of [[The Oldest Ones in the Book]]. Another problem was that at least a few of the conspirators had friends in Parliament, and despite strict orders from Fawkes not to tell anyone, one of them (it was never revealed who) sent an anonymous letter to warn one of their friends. End result, someone gave the letter to the Chamberlain, who forwarded it to the King, who quickly ordered an emergency search of the whole area. Fawkes was caught red-handed guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder and a pile of firewood in an otherwise-empty apartment, and the constabulary quickly discerned his pseudonym was a fake one. He was tortured into revealing the names of his accomplices (who weren’t having much luck at all convincing people to join their revolt) they were captured and hanged. Worst of all, for the next century, treatment of Catholics in Britain became even worse. They weren’t even allowed to vote until 1829. Seriously, [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain| Nice Job Breaking it, Fawkes!]]

* Many of [[Donald Trump]]'s detractors have stated that simply thinking a few minutes before hitting the "Send" button on Twitter might have solved a lot of his problems.

** The storm of pardons he issued in his final weeks in office. Accepting a pardon by American law is an admission of guilt by the pardoned party, but worse, doing so removes the recipient's protection against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment (because they can't be prosecuted they can't incriminate themselves); consequently they can be compelled to testify -- in this case, against Trump. It took several weeks for this to occur to anyone in Trump's White House (at which point it was too late); Federal investigators, of course, were aware of this and are more than happy to trade the convictions of a few underlings for testimony against Trump himself.

** His border wall - likely the keystone of his original campaign - was an ill-conceived and unrealistic goal right from the start, for many reasons: