Boston Tea Party: 237th anniversary
On December 16, 1773, the taxpayers of Boston had had enough.
The Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum website recounts the story:
On the cold evening of December 16, 1773, a large band of patriots, disguised as Mohawk Indians, burst from the South Meeting House with the spirit of freedom burning in their eyes. The patriots headed towards Griffin’s Wharf and the three ships. Quickly, quietly, and in an orderly manner, the Sons of Liberty boarded each of the tea ships. Once on board, the patriots went to work striking the chests with axes and hatchets. Thousands of spectators watched in silence. Only the sounds of ax blades splitting wood rang out from Boston Harbor. Once the crates were open, the patriots dumped the tea into the sea.
The silence was broken only by the cry of “East Indian” as patriots caught Charles O’Conner filling the lining of his coat with tea. George Hewes removed O’Connor’s coat, threatened him with death if he revealed the identity of any man present, and sent him scurrying out of town. The patriots worked feverishly, fearing an attack by Admiral Montague at any moment. By nine o’clock p.m., the Sons of Liberty had emptied a total of 342 crates of tea into Boston Harbor. Fearing any connection to their treasonous deed, the patriots took off their shoes and shook them overboard. They swept the ships’ decks, and made each ship’s first mate attest that only the tea was damaged.
When all was through, Lendall Pitts led the patriots from the wharf, tomahawks and axes resting on their shoulders. A fife played as they marched past the home where British Admiral Montague had been spying on their work. Montague yelled as they past, “Well boys, you have had a fine, pleasant evening for your Indian caper, haven’t you? But mind, you have got to pay the fiddler yet!”
Montague’s words were to be an omen for the patriots. The party was indeed over for Boston.
Fast-forward 237 years:
Sen. Scott Brown defies Tea Party to support tax-cut deal
Sigh.
And in Chicago:
Last week the Chicago Tax Day Tea Party held a Christmas Party at Dugan’s Irish Pub, and there was a bomb threat. Here’s their Facebook statement.
…Last Friday we held our downtown Christmas Party at Dugan’s Irish Pub.
We had a great crowd and the bar was filled with Christmas cheer until smoke began to fill the entire venue.
At approximately 8 p.m. the Chicago Fire Department were called to the bar to put out what was a very smoked filled bar.
After waiting outside for nearly an hour, we were told that the bar was closed for the night and we were asked to gather our belongings.
There were four small dynamite looking devices found in the men’s bathroom, smoldering in the trash can.
The following evening I received a phone call from Chicago Police Department Bomb and Arson officials.
Written on the lid of one of the toliets were: F*CK THE TEA PARTY
Bomb and arson officials have deemed this incident an arson.
Luckily, nobody was hurt, however, the good people of Dugan’s lost an awful lot of money.
Police are investigating and we are not going away.
Make sure to commemorate the anniversary by picking up the phone and making yourselves heard in Washington as the tax-and-looters carry on.
Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121. If you don’t, no one will.
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I like tea.
Obowmao is the fiddler?
This country was founded by tax protesters. But today, when someone protests the socialist income tax, they are locked up. Too bad our gov’t can’t remember our own history.
Of course, the “history” for the current resident of the White House starts with the publishing of Das Kapital.
Sarah Palin was right?
Let’s dump congress instead of tea.
It seems that brown will vote for the repeal of dadt! That makes 61 so far, on paper, for the repeal. These in dc are so evil, how can they deal with themselves? All this crud they are slamming through in two weeks is mind blowing! Sorry, My America, we are cratering faster than I thought would happen in my lifetime.
L
It seems that brown will vote for the repeal of dadt! That makes 61 so far, on paper, for the repeal. These in dc are so evil, how can they deal with themselves? All this crud they are slamming through in two weeks is mind blowing! Sorry, My America, we are cratering faster than I thought would happen in my lifetime.
L
Can you tell me the names of those people that have been “locked up” on the charge of protesting the income tax?
How did I double post? Sorry.
L
Is there a better example than Scott Brown for the nature of what we are up against? The establishment is NOT afraid of us. They believe they are destined to prevail because they (the entrenched criminal class of corrupt weasels) control every branch of government, the regulators, the banks and the entire bureaucracy.
It’s like a character in the move “V” pointed out, “Parliament is just a building, not the government.” In America, our constitution supports the government only when it is backed by the consent of the governed. Today, it’s not even close. The lack of consent is so plain for anyone to see these days that they are moving to silence us at every turn. We may not be far from the point where they start mowing us down in the streets.
We need our own Tianenman Square moment. We need a ten-million-man march on the District of Corruption. Being annoying to these people has not been enough even to discipline the GOP. We need to do more… and soon.
How about a ten-million-man flash swarm on DC? Suddenly we just show up, sing patriotic songs, and leave.
Hmm, so let me guess, Napolitano is thinking it’s a veteran, or a conservative, or a Methodist…
Bill Ayers has a new girlfriend?
Al Capone?
This morning on Fox, McCain was calling for the tea party to march on Washington and fight this Omnibus bill. We do need to march again.
These stinnkin’ Rinos have got to go too. In a way, they are worse than democrats!! At least we know where the dems stand, thse rats like Brown, Collins, Snowe etc. are just unpredictable, they are too much democrat not enough Republican!
There is something very troubling to me about McCain being the one calling on Tea Party people to march on DC while Paul Ryan is fighting to pass the Obama “compromise” bill using the same old arguments we heard from the RINOs pushing the various amnesty bills. Something just isn’t right. The Tea Party has been co-opted.
And I didn’t hear McCain calling on us to march on DC but to “melt the phones”.
That was my though Phil. Something is amiss when Juan McCain is calling on the Tea Party. It’s like Montague asking the Sons of Liberty to make another raid the next day.
He should mind what he asks for.
Fence-sitter + DREAM = hunka, hunka burnin’ phone lines.
***
I was sent to Boston in 1969 to work on a computer that was coming to White Sands for tests. During that year I visited all the Revolutionary War / historical sites in the area. Paul Revere’s house, the Mayflower replica, the Constitution, Breeds Hill, the Lexington / Concord battlefield, etc.
***
It was impressive to me how brave our patriotic forefathers were to take on–and beat–the world’s superpower. But the Vietnam War was raging during my visit–and it was obvious that many in my generation had lost the will to win or to do the right things in life.
***
The Revolutionary War generation would cry if they could see the state of our country today.
***
John Bibb
***
The “incident” at Dugan’s was not “arson”, it was terrorism. And I haven’t heard anything about this on the news. I wonder why?
Thanks, Michelle. It is important to remember the events that led up to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Many people don’t look enough at the events that preceeded the Declaration.
And it wasn’t just about fiscal conservatism. Social conservatism was equally important as, if not more important than, fiscal conservatism.
Study the history, and what the patriots were thinking and doing in the months leading up to the Declaration …
A little off topic but related. I have been tracking the latest move by fed regulators to crack down on “insider trading” but the more I learn about it, the more it looks like a war on information. That might be what is behind the Wikileaks thing too as so far (all I have seen are “top secret” files that disclose nothing that could even remotely be considered sensitive information threatening our national security).
Tea Party people are “terrorists”, collecting publicly available information as a stockholder is now illegal, learning our diplomats think Berlusconi is a narcissist is a threat to national security. Isn’t the government just waging war on information? The language is very troubling and whether we realize it or not, we are all falling for it on some level. The knee-jerk reaction to Wikileaks is a prime example. We immediately filed it under “typical anti-American liberal”. Is it really?
Now we have the GOP playing musical chairs with who takes what position. McCain is calling the Tea Party to help him kill the Obama “compromise” while Paul Ryan is predicting the destruction of the economy if we don’t pass it.
Very troubling.
Not arson – terrorism. The near bombing of a Tea Party event (which will be blamed on conservatives, no doubt) is an act of political terror.
Phil…The wikileaks guy is kinda slimy. I don’t think he likes this country at all. Having said that, I think some of the stuff he is showing the world is good to know. I’m not sure if I would go so far as to say he is a patriot, but some good might just come of it!!
RedPill…The colonists drafted their letters to Congress much the same way the congress does today…long, wordy and almost unreadable!! I did get the drift of it, though!
On December 16th, 2010 at 11:05 am, cicerokid said:
Sarah Palin was right?
Does anyone seriously think that Sarah Palin knew the year of the Boston Tea Party before she read her speech writer’s prepared remarks?
If we forced Congress to hand write bills all in cursive, no bill would be thousands of pages long.
Yes, I actually think so. And please name her “speechwriter”.
Well, he was thrown in jail for not PAYING the income tax. Not because he was protesting it.
But if that’s the type TooMuchTime considers his hero, so be it.
This wouldn’t be at all surprising. And isn’t it waaaay past time to audit the Fed?
I know Assange is slimy. That is what makes him the perfect tool. Allow 250,000 harmless but embarrassing files to fall into his hands and you know he will publish them in a way that will bring about a clamp down on web freedom. Perfect.
So it’s not about Assange or Wikileaks. At best, it’s about the incompetence of our government to protect secrets. At worse, it is a campaign of disinformation aimed at clamping down on internet freedom.
When someone robs a bank and somebody finds a bag of cash lying on the sidewalk, who is the real problem? The guy who robbed the bank and carelessly dropped a bag of cash or the dishonest guy who found and kept that cash?
Obviously he was a man of principle…
On December 16th, 2010 at 12:30 pm, chapoutier said:
Al Capone?
Well, he was thrown in jail for not PAYING the income tax. Not because he was protesting it.
Being in Arizona we have neither a Bay nor river to dump that tea. Drats, foiled again!
But we could dump Juan McCain in a vat of sun tea could we not?
===
Let your sidearm be like American Express:
Don’t Leave home without it.
Resistance is mandatory
dud bomb in Tea Party celebration = arson
dud bomb in abortion mill = terrorism
threats against Tea Party members = free speech
threats against SEIU = hate crime
Whether Sarah or her speechwriter(?), it was painfully obvious that they knew the date and the MSM and RSS did not! Shall we put down some extra NY Times for the Poop and Scoot?
Chappy, Chappy, Chappy
Picking on a poor Italian kid trying to get ahead and live the American dream. Shameful. If he wasn’t Italian he might have been Secretary of the Treasury. There was that Saint Valentines Day Incident but we all have bad days.
Overruled. Go to jail.
happyscrapper,
That wasn’t a colonist’s letter to Congress,
that was an Order of Congress, with John Hancock as its President.
Tyrant!
Judge Rayford: Mr. Kirkland you are out of order!
Arthur Kirkland: You’re out of order! You’re out of order! The whole trial is out of order!
It’s just a show! It’s a show! It’s “Let’s Make A Deal”! “Let’s Make A Deal”!Hold it! Hold it! I just completed my opening statement!
Wesley Snipes, you’re going to jail for being a moron. They tried to get you just to pay up and shut up, but NOOOOOO!
BTW RSS, who was her speechwriter on her twitter account? Perhaps having an Ivy League degree doesn’t necessarily mean you are brilliant, and having a state college degree doesn’t mean you are stupid.
Considering the quality of the writing, I think I’ve narrowed it down to either Sloth from the Goonies or Erick Erickson.
I know…I worded that wrong. What I meant was that Congress back then and Congress now are just as hard to read and understand. I was thinking of the colonists as members of Congress as I wrote that, but it came out wrong. Duh. My brain is a bit slow these days as I am currently plagued with my FIFTH case of pneumonia this year!!
If it is any consolation, come 2014, you will only get two per year. One way or the other, you will only get two.
Since tea in the harbor was done already, how about throwing legislators into the Potomac? They might find the water refreshing this time of year and I would like to see if they can swim.
I just received an email from my husband with this message for Scott Brown and other RINO’s: No future contributions to any candidate. Period. His vote put DADT over the top today. My husband rarely gets mad, so this and tax-cut deal must have done it.
Thanks, Chap! That is such a comfort. By 2014, I will show up in the Guiness Book of Records, and someone in Big Government can tell me to go home and take a pill.
I can’t speak for the lamestream media, but I’ll admit that like most Americans and Sarah Palin, I didn’t know either. My knowledge of dates is limited to sports.
Fer crying out loud, it’s a twitter account, what did you expect “The Brothers Karamazov?!
In what year did Ty Cobb come out of the closet?
It sounds like a hate crime to me.
and the d party and the r party are different -how!??????
C-CS