The Boston Tea Party was a protest of a consumption tax that applied only to 1 item that nobody needed. The men who carried out the “Tea Party” risked prison on order to protest this tax which they viewed as unjust.
Things like this don’t happen anymore. Today, if the Tea Partiers were to muster up enough courage to, say for example burn down an empty liquor store or two in protest of the federal alcohol and income tax, it would be big news. The American spirit that inspired the Boston Tea Party resides in exceedingly few Americans today, most of you are content to sit in your homes and watch television. You see, we have been conditioning you thru that same television to think a certain way, to accept our ideas, and think as we would like you to think. We took over public education in the early 70’s to get a head start, and eliminate the influence of the local communities on public schools. We taught you to be good little Americans while slowly removing civics, the bill of rights, etc. from the curriculum. Military intelligence calls this an IO, or Information Operations campaign. We use it on foreign populations to get them to accept US troops and the conditions we impose on them, and to direct their hostility towards those who oppose us. It works just as well on you people.
We have you convinced that not paying taxes in a country born in a tax revolt is somehow shamefully unpatriotic. This is true even though most of you see that billions are, at best, misused, and, at worst, trillions are wasted. The fact that about one half of your hard earned income goes to us in government thru various forms of taxation would be abhorrent to the original Americans of the early 1800s. You Americans of the early 2000’s like it this way. You are happy when we imprison one of your own for attempting to keep more than his “fair share” of his own hard earned money. You voted for a man who forced you to either sign up for various corporate insurance programs or face heavy fines and possible prison, and you loved him. Of course if the local News Paper company was given the authority to fine, and even imprison people who were not subscribers you would be irate, and fiercely stand up for your rights and freedom against this injustice. When this same action is taken by us, the government, you may go so far as to express your disapproval to your neighbors but would never have the courage to actually stand up for yourselves. You will not even think to question why you allow us to take such liberties when dealing with you.
We have IOed you into a state of perceived helplessness – you feel as if you cannot possibly take care of yourself with out us stepping in and protecting you from your own bad judgment.
"... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
- Thomas Jefferson
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