All across the nation, there were Tea Parties held on April 15th, the tax deadline. These gatherings were meant to be a symbolic re-enactment of the famous 1773 Boston Tea Party. The spontaneous, grassroots, Fox News-orchestrated events were supposed to be a way for Americans to vent their frustrations at government spending. Too bad none of the participants bothered to open up a history book, or else they would realize how dumb they were being.
You see, the original Boston Tea Party was all about that phrase “no taxation without representation.” Those limey, royalist punks over in England were levying a tax on the American colonies, but weren’t giving the colonists representation in the government. The colonists weren’t protesting taxes (they paid taxes to their local legislative bodies), but rather taxes that provided no tangible return. The irony is that the right wingers who created these protests have a long and storied history of taking the people’s money and spending it willy-nilly while the people languished.
"If I paid attention in history class, maybe I'd realize that this whole thing doesn't make sense." - Kid who can't fight back that I am picking on
One of the biggest protests was at Lafayette Park, across from the White House. Let’s clarify here: the protesters assembled in a park (paid for and maintained by tax dollars) in order to protest the use of tax dollars. That’s the logical equivalent of standing on your oven and protesting that you have no way to cook your Totino’s Pizza Rolls.
Totino's Pizza Rolls: Now with no grasp of the implications of symbolic protests!
Way back in the 1770s, there weren’t many beverage choices, so people were kind of forced to drink tea if they wanted something that didn’t have that pond water-taste. That’s one of the things that made the Tea Tax so bad, there wansn’t a choice. But who drinks tea anymore, besides old ladies and foppish grad students? Nobody. Now that there’s choice, people drink other stuff. Okay, let’s apply that to politics: now that there’s choice (our own elected officials), there is no valid reason to protest. You don’t like what the government is doing? Vote next time. Hey there Republicans, don’t like the way Democrats spend money? Well, try fielding a viable presidential candidate who doesn’t pick a semi-retarded moose hunter as a running mate and you’ll have a better shot at being in charge.
She seemed like such a good candidate...until she talked
Just one final little tidbit from a New York Times article about the Tea Parties: “Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. of Utah, a Republican, was booed in Salt Lake City for accepting about $1.5 billion in federal stimulus money.” Really? So the guy took taxpayer money and was then going to use it to help out-of-work taxpayers get jobs and aid? The nerve of that duly-elected representative of the people of Utah.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey I think that moose hunter is pretty hot.
@Liz
There’s nothing wrong with being a hot politician, but if that’s your only qualification, well, that’s a bit of a problem. Also, am I the only person who realizes that when you look at her you can say, without almost any doubt, that she has gotten moose entrails on her face at some point in her life? Why didn’t that come up when she debated Joe Biden?