The Boston Tea Party / Whiskey Rebellion analogy does read well, when facts are not presented.Webmost has presented the facts pretty well, afaik
The Boston Tea Party / Whiskey Rebellion analogy does read well, when facts are not presented.
At the time of the Boston Tea Party, legally imported British tea (including its new tax) cost colonists less than the alternative of smuggled, Dutch tea. "Sons of Liberty," sponsors of the Boston Tea Party protest, were protesting "taxation without representation," rather than the quite reasonable tax itself.
At the time of the Whiskey Rebellion, the western Pennsylvanian producers were griping about the tax itself, rather than the lack of a representative government. When the protesters tarred and feathered the authorized representative of the Federal Government, Alexander Hamilton (definitely not President Washington, despite the assertion of the National Geographic website) led the army against them. Of the two individuals convicted of treason, the President pardoned both. Washington did not send troops to collect tax, but as the nation's first demonstration that the Federal Government (i.e. Federal law, as enacted by Congress) trumped local opinion.
Bob
"Well, not unless you buy a senator"
They appear to be easy to buy nowdays.
The Founding Entrepreneurs complained about taxation without representation. That implies that they ascribed at least some validity to taxation with representation.
When we look to the past for inspiration or for clarification of today's challenges, each of us sees a different past--even from the same time frame, same location and same events. Accurate history seldom offers us a clear morality play. The more accurate the history, the fuzzier the issues become.
http://www.amazon.com/Uses-Past-Profiles-Former-Societies/dp/0195000323/
Bob
Turns out to be a great book. Deeply apothegmatic, scholarly without excessive footnotes, and the kind where you frequently set it down to research an allusion or dive back two pages to re-read a sentence. Goes well with a good sipping rum and a cigar. Thanks, Bob.
... government is so excruciating jealous of its exclusive prerogative to plunder that it refuses to reckon the cost of enforcing each and every petty extortion it enacts. It has to spend ten times what it might collect in order to preserve its right to collect. Has to. Not for money; but for the principle of the thing. It's not about the money. It's about the "you can't get away from us!"
... unless you buy a senator...