A Final Word on Tea Parties

Interestingly, the Tea Act didn't actually increase the tax on tea; it kept the same duty as previously implemented by the Townsend Acts. And it decreased the price of legally imported tea.

But there were still issues of the right of the King to tax the colonies in the first place, the monopoly granted to the East India Company, and the financial destruction cheap, legal tea wreaked on hardworking American smugglers.

In any case, we'd throw the Sons of Liberty in a hole somewhere these days. Seditious, terrorist bastards.

Man, I could have sworn this story was a School House Rock cartoon at one time.

Um, the ORIGINAL tea party. Not the recent bullshit. Although I'd fucking love to see an SHR cartoon on that too.

Did any of them protest the totally real North American Union that's totally going to happen cuz it's totally real?

THEY SIGNED PAPERS PEOPLE, I LOOKED IT UP ON THE INTERNETS!

The problem is that the number of places with qualified, unbiased people to even estimate these things is really pretty small. The various DC police forces have a pretty good handle on it, but even in a lot of major cities estimates get politicized in battles over overtime, allocation of resources and so on within municipal departments and administrations.

Given that we're fighting a two front unpopular war of unlimited duration while in a massive economic downturn, I think that that few malcontents is pretty remarkable. Lyndon LaRouche polls better than that, proportionally.

What often gets left out of discussions of the American Revolution is that 10 years earlier, England had revoked the right of the colonies to print their own money, thus putting them in debt to the Bank of England. The taxes were just the last straw in a string of abuses that had already impoverished the colonists.

Also, what these tax protesters forget is that the taxes passed by the British were regressive taxes on consumption rather than progressive taxes on those making over $250,000 a year(which hasn't taken effect yet).

Interesting fact: kettles bearing the words "down with the tea act" were popular in the American colonies in the years just prior to the American revolution. The kettles were made in England.

I won't downplay the numbers, even if i don't agree with what they have to say, they do have every right to say it.

I just don't understand what they were trying to say. Finally got a hold of a local newspaper, and there were pictures of people with signs like "Down with socialism" and things about Obama's birth certificate or how the election was rigged by the evil liberal mind-controlling media.

If lived in a hole, and walked past the gathering, i probably wouldn't be too sure what they were protesting.

That and listening to the leader of the protest on local AM Radio, he compared it to some of the anti-Vietnam War protests and civil rights protests of the 60's. I really don't think so.

Another interesting historical tidbit:

While the colonial subjects of the crown were protesting their unfair taxation, the taxes they paid were actually a smaller fraction of what other subjects were paying in the British Isles, the caveat, of course, was that they had taxation with representation, albeit only among the wealthiest landowners. Interestingly, it was also not uncommon for some of the wealthier colonials among the sugar and rum producing islands of the Caribbean to purchase seats in parliament (by buying property in the mainland and sending their sons to represent them) where they could influence trade and tax laws to their benefit while their northern neighbors in the Americas suffered (however, smuggling was fairly common between the colonies and the islands to circumvent the crown's tariffs and taxes). Furthermore, one of the main reasons why Parliament levied increasing taxes upon the American colonies was to help pay for the cost of defending them (the French and Indian war was the catalyst for such taxes), but with the war settled, the Colonists felt they should no longer be saddled with the debts the crown had incurred on their behalf.

So to recap, the war put the crown in debt for defending America but the Americans didn't want to have to pay for it.

I can't find it.

Can anyone point me in the direction of the Tea-Party's solution to our current economic problem?

I must have spent the last half-hour looking at various Tea-Party sites, and all i can find is them complaining about unfair taxation, bailouts and how the government is big & bad.

What i can't find is any solution to compare to the current Economic plan. Anyone know of this?

Which is something that's going today. <_<

Edit: I'll keep looking.

And nothing.

All I see is a loose "affiliation" between all of them. Each "party" is shooting from the hip about different subjects than the others, hoping to hit something. <_<

It's weird because they seem to be really huge on not spending in a deficit, but if you aren't going to spend under these circumstances, the only logical thing to do is to skip ahead and raise taxes to start paying off the deficit. Only they don't want to do that either.

Bingo, only this would be more like the Revolutionary colonists (Democrats) threw off the yoke of King George (Bush) to levy taxes on the Royalists (return to pre-Bush taxes for wealthy, generally neo-conservative Republicans) who started the French and Indian War (attacked Iraq and Afghanistan) and plundered all the wealth of the colonies (spent the surplus) so they could expand their territory for land speculation (to secure government, gas and oil contracts) for their benefit. So essentially, this is more like the red coats who are dumping their own tea into Boston harbor because they're protesting that their King lost the war...

It's meaningless unless you like to drink tea!

Which makes me wonder if it's nothing but an elaborate, scripted show. There's no way that there are THAT many people who're THAT bat-shit crazy, is there?

No mystery behind that one, you're correct on both accounts. It was a scripted show and there really are that many people who're that bat-shit crazy.

To be honest though, it has something to do with the way conservatives process information in the frontal lobe of the cortex. Their brains tend to narrowly focus on prejudiced anxieties whenever they are challenged by concepts and ideas that are outside of their comfortable norms. In other words, it's not so much crazy as it is a matter of their physiology effecting their psychology.

Interestingly, there is also some evidence that certain activities like binge drinking or other types of drug use, like stimulants and opiates, may so alter and damage an otherwise healthy brain such that it responds in a similar fashion to that of a conservative thinker (take Bush and Limbaugh... Please), however there may also be genetic factors involved as well.

Two sides of the same coin.

Dude....you're an hour & a half away from Montgomery, AL. I'd say that was a protest that not only got the attention of politicians, but also accomplished a great deal in the long run...and left a pretty big impact.

Defeatist attitudes and apathy are bigger threats to personal liberties than politicians could ever hope to be.

I think what cabaretic is circling around is the idea of media-based protesting (on-line signatures, FOX-driven rallies, mail forwards) as being less effective than true grassroots concerns. Your counterexample of the famous lunch counter and bus protests are great, and represent actual grassroots movement based on legitimate outrage, as opposed to a media circus with people that may have sincere concerns, but little cohesion.

If that's the case...he should have made that point clearer. It's pretty obvious that email forwards and on-line signatures are little more than an easy way to make lazy people fell like they did something.

What REALLY pissed me off was...I was listening to interviews given by people who were attending these tea-parties. They were foaming at the mouth....railing against the absurdity of the political system....and almost all of them started of with "This is the first time I've been to a demonstration...but I'm sick & tired"

Well if you didn't split all of your time between Wal-Mart & the fucking television...you mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger...you might read the goddam newspaper....search out REAL information...and know how your elected officials vote on the issues. You might think of going to a city council meeting...or writing your local congressman or senator.

Nah...that's too much work....just go to a half-assed "rally" with your "Politishins R BAD" sign. You've done your part.

My intent was to address the ever-present..and growing sense of apathy. The sense of "protests don't work...nobody cares." "Why should I vote...it doesn't make a difference"

It pisses me off to an immeasurable degree. The people who founded, preserved and protected this nation fought & died for the freedoms we take for granted. John Adams, Patrick Henry, Joshua Huddy, Sam Adams, Thomas Paine.....I think they'd be sick to their collective stomach at the state of things. I realize this is slightly bigger an issue than the immediate one at hand...but it's closely related.

People bitch and moan about how corrupt the government is...and how politicians don't listen...and how one person can't make a difference......all the while they're saying this from their couch.

Where would we be if the Founding Fathers said "Pfft....this is hopeless....nobody's gonna listen anyway."?

That's all I was getting at.

Cash: There may have been a slight misunderstanding here. I wasn't disagreeing with you at all, and I think your post just above this one is well-put.

I meant it when I said "I think." I made a conjecture on cabaretic's position, because it wasn't entirely clear. Saying "protests don't work, politicians ignore them" is a gross oversimplification, and I guess I was just trying to help him out.

I also noticed the tendency that you did with regards to "long-time simmerer, first-time demonstrator." I say this in almost no seriousness, but I think what we saw on Wednesday, to a certain extent, was confused people who don't understand why they're mad about a President Barack Obama, but boy are they mad about it.

I don't think this is at all emblematic of those that "protested" on Tea Bag Day, but many racists are completely unaware that they are, in fact, racists.

Oh...I know you weren't...and I'm sorry if I came off as hostile towards you. I wasn't trying to be in any way.

It's just...I've had this rant in my head at a rolling boil for a few days now and it finally spilled out. The "You" in that rant was not you, personally. It was one of those narrative "you's" like "You people" Again, I'm sorry if I made it sound like any of it was aimed at you, personally.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were some physiological or neurological sources of specific political agendas, but just the mere mention of it gives me shivers. Eugenics, selective breeding; that's the kind of stuff bad scifi novels are written about.

(I'm not claiming you to be a eugenicist, nor am I trying to insult you in any way. It's just something that pops up when I see an argument in this bent.)