By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
totalwar23 on 16 April 2009
Edit Thread
akuma587 said:
totalwar23 said:
akuma587 said:
totalwar23 said:
akuma587 said:
I'm sorry, but the point of the tea parties was that there was no taxation WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. Unless you were deprived of your right to vote somehow, there really isn't an appropriate analogy to the Boston Tea Party.

Um no, that wasn't what the Boston Tea Party was really about. In fact, the tea was cheaper with tax than the tea that was smuggled in.

 

Please then, enlighten us, what WAS it about?

 

The Tea Act was passed by Parliament to bail out the East India Company, which was on the verged of bankruptcy. They needed to sell their products, at any price to stay afloat. So, the British government allowed the East India company to bypass American merchants and sell directly to American consumers (a monopoly system). This, of course, angered American merchants because they were unfairly cut out of the deal. Also, buying the tea would set precedent; letting Parliament grant monopolies on colonial imports. Originally, the governor of Massachusetts planned to seize the tea legally because of failure to pay the port taxes but Samuel Adams had a quicker plan of action. The Tea Act had nothing to do with taxes.

 

Yes, I am sure that is what the average American thought at the time.  And there certainly isn't ample historical evidence that it was used to protest British taxation.  You have to understand the importance of propaganda.  What people say somethine means is often more important than what it actually means.

And even if what you say is true, that would mean that Republicans are brain damaged idiots who don't know their own American history.

 

What do you mean if what I say is true. It's a historical fact. The tax on tea was in the Townshend Duties (enacted several years before the Boston Teat Party), which taxed, among tea, paper, paint, lead, glass, and a bunch of other things. It was met not really with protests, but with a boycott, that forced Parliament to repealed the law (except on Tea), which the American colonials responded by smuggling from places like Holland. Not to mention that the average American didn't even drink tea so they didn't even care. There was a bunch of other things that provoke the American Revolution other than taxes (maybe even more important than taxes but that's just my opinion).

Everybody uses propraganda, even the revolutionaries who fought those evil, oppresive British. John Adams himself estimated that only 1/3 of the American were revolutionaries, 1/3 were loyalist, and the other 1/3 didn't care. Of course, there are other facts like when the British left Boston, whose citizens absolutely hated them, at least 1000 Americans went with them. About 20,000 Americans joined the British Army in the War and about 1 in 30 Americans left the colonies after the wars end. For a time, there were more Americans than Canadians living in Ontario. The point is, the British-Colonial dispute was a lot more complicated.

I don't think a lot American knows our history in great detail. I studied it and forgot most of it. I do however chuckle at people who are currently calling up others to rise up against the oppresive government in the spirit of the revolution or something like that when the founder fathers (lead by GW himself) crushed a rebellion that resulted from a increase in tax. Hamilton wanted to round up the leaders and hang them. They believed that a disorder and chaos resulted from a weak government.