The Tea Party -- personified anti-government and anti-multiculturalism

[steven johnson]

The anti-big government forces won in 1776 and combined with xenophobia is a platform to build a viable political movement on.

The philosophy did not work when it came to governing the 13 colonies so it became necessary to have a Constitution and strong central government to put down the crazies after Shay's Rebellion.

So I suspect the Tea Party will have it's run like the Know Nothings.

The original Tea Party in Boston did not want to pay taxes to pay back the debt of the British Crown for the French and Indian War. Now this new Tea Party does not want to pay the debt incurred by the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

Good luck with that.

http://teaparty2009.wordpress.com/

The anti-Government, anti-Establishment movement, which has splintered in the past week with many boycotting this gathering, has billed itself as a revolution born of the widespread disgust at Washington and the way that the nation’s politicians are bankrupting America’s future.



Tea Party turns nasty: ‘It’s our country – let’s take it back’

[msongs]

1. a wholly owned republican party organization whose primary value is fear of a black president nt

[whyverne]

2. I know that it's not very patriotic to point out that the Boston Tea Party

was rather inane. The colonies did owe England for opening up the West for development. And what was the dressing up like Indians all about?

I'm sure that "No taxation without representation" was actually expressed by the politicos of the time as "No taxation, (whispers) without representation"

[steven johnson]

3. I think your point that the Tea Party people don't want to be taxed if they aren't in power is...

probably valid.

[provis99]

4. you don't know why they dressed up like Indians?

They did it because Indians, to the colonists, symbolized freedom and democracy, whereas European governments did not. The Founding Fathers got a lot of their ideas, later put into the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation and Constitution, from the democratic examples set by the Indians.

[leahcim]

5. I'm sorry but....

...do you have any contemporary documentation for this. I had just assumed that they dressed up like Indians so they could say later, "wow, it looks like some Indians raided your boat, and it looks like they made a mess of your tea -- what a shame", and the "Indians represent freedom" is some patriotic reframing that came about later. There doesn't seem to be much else in the events around that time or for the next century and a half or so to indicate that the colonists had a lot of respect for the Indians' culture.

[Real Patriot]

6. You people must be happy now....

That you have a President that embraces the tenants of Marx and Engels.

[SupersonicSynth]

7. You have to remember that these Tea Party people use vague facts

and misrepresent the traditional Tea Party and what they stood for. Totally different time periods too, you can't take something from back then and use it to get a political statement across.