Gohmert: IRS 'would have shot the Boston Tea Party'

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Friday declared that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would have murdered the participants of the original 1773 Boston Tea Party and and would have "killed off" half of the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence.

In a 30-minute floor speech to express his outrage over a report in The Daily Caller that said the Department of Homeland Security was "protecting the free speech rights of pro-Shariah Muslim supremacists," Gohmert noted that President Barack Obama's administration had a number of other problems like the recent news that the IRS had scrutinized the tax-exempt status of tea party and other conservative groups.

"Homeland Security has had reports warning their employees about the dangers of people that may be involved in such heinous activity as being classified as evangelical Christians or as being concerned about the Constitution and that people should be following the Constitution, and concerned about people who may have tea party in their name," he explained.

"You know, thank goodness that the IRS was not around to have helped the Founders when they founded the country or otherwise they would have probably shot the Boston Tea Party participants, they would have killed off over half of the signers of the Declaration of the Independence," Gohmert added.

"And this country would have never had gotten started if this Department of Homeland Security had been around to be helpful -- so called -- to our founders."

In referencing the Declaration of Independence and the Boston Tea Party, Gohmert seems to be suggesting that the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security do not have legitimate authority -- similar to the claims the American colonists made against the British empire prior to the Revolutionary War.

Watch this video from C-SPAN, broadcast May 17, 2013.

(h/t: Twitter/Scott Keyes)