Political Memes

Y’all really should consider reading this.

https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/the-story-of-the-boston-tea-party-in-myth-and-reality/

It’s way more complicated than the reductionist 5th grade level story taught in US schools that everyone settles on being reality. Right up there with George Washington’s cherry tree story (didn’t happen) or the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock (no, they didn’t land there).

The Boston Tea Party was about money, and about people with money being upset that other people with money were undercutting their profits, so they destroyed some really expensive goods in a way that disastrously hurt their own local business owners and not the people they claimed to be trying to hurt.

I’m sure parallels could be made between one of the US’s founding stories being about rich people manipulating the populace into war and today, where rich people are still manipulating people into fighting each other or whomever else.

America then: No taxation without representation

America now: Puerto rico gets taxed. No representation.

I hope that some people come out of this realizing that the US wasn't founded on deep idealistic principles, but mostly on greed.

What led to the Tea Party:

1. British colonists in the Americas drank a lot of tea.
2. Britain's government needed money to pay war debts, and decided one way to do that was to impose taxes on items in the Americas including tea.
3. Some British people saw those taxes and decided it would be a good opportunity to make some money smuggling (think Al Capone during prohibition).
4. The British government eliminated all the taxes except on tea, and stopped the East India Company having to pay duties, making EIC tea cheaper than the smuggled tea.
5. The smugglers, upset at being undercut, dumped East India Company tea into Boston's Harbour.

The whole "no taxation without representation" bit was a less important concern than the government messing with their profits. In fact, I read somewhere (can't find the reference now) that the government tried to negotiate with the smuggler rebels, but the rebels weren't willing to meet because the "no taxation without representation" was more of a pretext than an actual reason.

The other important bit here is the reason the government needed to raise money. It had just been involved in a major war, which it had won. This is the 7-years war, a.k.a. the French and Indian wars. In those wars, they beat France, and as a result, took over most of France's territory in North America.

Look at the pink in this colonial map of the Americas. That's all territory gained by the British in that war.

As a result of that war, the British settlement in the Americas was going to be able to expand from 13 colonies hugging the coast to an entire new area including the entire great lakes region, what's now Florida, the Gulf coast, the Saint Lawrence river, etc. All that was required was that Britain follow the terms of the Treaty of Paris / Royal Proclamation of 1763. In part, that war was fought on behalf of the colonists to remove the threat from the French and expand the territory of the colonies, so it makes sense that the beneficiaries of that war (the colonists) would help pay for it. But, some of the British colonists didn't want to pay for it. So, they rebelled and took the territory for themselves, ignoring the terms of the Treaty of Paris which gave some rights to the French and Indians who were in that newly acquired territory.

TL;DR: British colonists in the Americas who rebelled were greedy, not idealistic.

It wasn't even that they wanted to pay higher taxes. The Stamp and Tea Acts actually LOWERED the taxes. But it was incredibly easy to get around paying the taxes previously. So what Parliament did was say, "guys, you have to actually start paying the taxes, but we'll make them lower as a compromise."

That's why the American elites revolted.

Didn’t want to not pay tariffs. The Tea they destroyed was tariff-free, which hurt the organisers who were smuggling tea and charging a huge mark-up to customers. The revolutionary leadership were furious when they heard their cause was being hijacked by a gang of crooks, and they put the ringleaders on trial for it.

Americans didn't, the American elites did. Americans just died in yet another war started by the aristocracy.

Taxes, "freedom", "liberty", "independence".... all these rallying calls were just dogwhistles the American oligarchs used to get the colonists to revolt against the British oligarchs, because they wanted to get rid of the competition. The long con is still going on, the US is and always has been owned and operated by the rich for the benefit of the rich. The mask is just slipping a bit now.

It wasn't just about taxes / tariffs. The East India Company (EIC) had a monopoly on the tea trade. There was no negotiating the price or refusing to buy it. The colonists were expected to pay whatever the EIC asked. Imagine being told you have to buy a cup of coffee for $50, oh, and by the way, there is a tax on it too. The EIC blockaded the port and wouldn't let anything in or out of Boston by sea until the tea was unloaded. So, the colonists unloaded the tea, directly into the harbor.

Their oppressors didn't have tanks.

Our oppressors do.

There's no way out.

Unless...

Anyone down to steal a tank?

(For Legal Purposes, I'm talking about GTA6 😉)

The US has never had free trade, look at the patent system they force other countries to abide by, whose length and terms are dictated by the US.

This is just a continuation of the same. Apple even had a patent on rounded corners on rectangles.

Pretty sure it was the whole no taxation without representation thing that spurred that revolt

Americans today... "Tea is for fags."

Unmute this meme immediately!

American Revolution 2.0? Wink wink, nudge nudge.

I like how the whole story about a few rich ppl taking the opportunity to profit even more is that much different to what's happening now.

But tea costs not much more now. Let’s get back when it’s more considerable expensive.