If you happen to have Netflix, there is an interesting documentary series called "How To Become a Tyrant," which I give a pretty good rating to overall. The only drawback is that it relies entirely on a modern era understanding of who is a tyrant and how they obtained that position. There are some really applicable lessons in this show, and they're not wrong about these men who became tyrants, but it lacks the historical long view.

The American of the late 1780's had a specific understanding of what tyrannies are, and what kind of person manages to become a tyrant. Our own Declaration of Independence has a rather strange thing to say about a tyrant which seems counter-intuitive at first. Of course a tyrant is not fit to rule over a free people. And outside of the thirteen American Colonies, George III is not only not called or seen as a tyrant, but is beloved and held in high esteem for being a man who held his peoples best interest at heart.

What made us see him differently? Were we correct about him? And what about today?