All posts tagged "Boston Tea Party"

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) might be watching a little too much cable TV.

[rebelmouse-image 24749702 original_size="432x300" expand=1]Ann was gracious enough to quote me in her marvelous piece on why the culture war isn't going away any time soon, so I'm kicking a link right back at her. Ann argues that the Obama backlash, in all its ugliness, is proof that the culture war was always about a lot more than gay rights or abortion, but was always fundamentally about who gets to lay claim to defining who "real Americans" are and what the larger values of the country are going to be. I don't think that the recent conservative affectation for dressing up in colonial garb* has as much to do with taxes as they're pretending. For one thing, the Boston Tea Partiers weren't actually protesting high taxes, and even a quick glance over Wikipedia demonstrates this. Tea taxes were just a catalyst for a lot of other issues of much greater importance that fundamentally go back to the basic desire of Americans to cease being colonized by the British.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/v/8i-OWDjOQfI&hl=en&fs=1 expand=1]I'm sure everyone under the sun has seen this amusing commentary by David Schuster about the ridiculousness of the teabaggers. And while I enjoyed every double and single entendre, I think I might have laughed the hardest when he pointed out that the fundamental difference between the teabaggers and the original Boston Tea Party is that the latter group was protesting taxation without representation, which is admittedly a long phrase with many syllables, so it's no wonder the teabaggers zone out after they hear "tax".

These ignorant wingers are out and about protesting government spending at the Tea Parties being held today, calling the president a fascist. Wait, I thought he was a socialist.