Tea Parties Now and Then

Now: My untrained eye estimated approximately 300 people at the intersection of Yucaipa and Bryant yesterday, with heavy crowds on all four corners, and colossal good cheer on the part of the protestors to hear so many motorists blaring their horns in loud support of the notion that we are over-taxed as a people. One mother, commenting on the economic slavery to come, hand-crafted a huge sign that read "My Child is Not Your A.T.M."



The idea behind modern political street theater (the Rileys weren't the only ones wearing three cornered hats and sporting the Gadsen Rattlesnake flag) is that a memory will be stirred up in the hearts of the public. That memory, of an ancestry that fought and bled to protect "unalienable rights," may find its way into the voting booth and we can peacefully turn out the current generation of pensioned blood-suckers occupying public office. There are plenty of them in both parties, and their essential characteristic is this: they see the tax-base not as a means to build bridges and protect the homeland, but as a means to hand out jobs, contracts, and goodies to their cronies and constituents. In an era of declining personal morality, there isn't a voter anywhere who isn't susceptible to the message "it's all those _______ (fill in your favorite enemy's) fault." The public trough, to these politicians, is the vast ocean of revenue made possible by people who work for a living. As one old man put it to me yesterday, in the form of a riddle:

"What's the difference between a congressman and a thief?"

"I'm having trouble deciding," I said.

"You can arrest a thief."

The simple truth is that there can be no political liberty without political leadership willing to protect private property. Once you begin taxing one class of people to pay for another, the hard-working either leave, or stop working, and you run out of goodies to spread around. As Margaret Thatcher put it, "the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples' money."

I'm hoping the current generation of protestors understands that this is not a partisan issue. It's not a matter of Bush or Obama, Clinton or Palin. Both parties have proven they think they know how to spend your money better than you do. I'm also hoping the pastors of America realize that tax-gluttony on the part of our leaders is a deeply spiritual issue, that they begin to remind their flocks they are not very good Christians or Jews if they elect "statesmen" who are willing to steal from them in the name of good stewardship. I can at least hope the pastors of Americas discover their manhood, even if I saw precious few of them out there yesterday.

Then: even though the Boston tea party of December 1773 had a measure of street theater about it, there were, of course, vast differences to contemplate. In the first place, representation was a critical issue in the 18th century controversy. The idea of having absolutely no say in the taxes a foreign legislature places upon you was, and is, a critical threat to individual liberty. Even with representation, the prospect of 51% of the people deciding they can expropriate the wealth of 1% of the population has to be called what it is: democratic theft. If you live in a democracy of cannibals, it is no comfort to know that you were at least democratically voted into the stew pot. The next generation bearing the mantle of sons of liberty need to do more to protect the liberties of economic minorities. Income taxes and death taxes need to be eliminated entirely, in favor of consumption taxes, or tariffs. The raising of tax levels should have a 3/4 barrier in our legislatures and not a paltry 2/3. Pastors, again, this is a spiritual issue. If you vote for a thief, you are a thief.

The Boston Tea Party was also a secret affair. To this day, we're not sure who participated and who didn't. The participants didn't blog about it, and most didn't even mention it on their death beds. It was also, very clearly, a crime against property--specifically intended to protest an even greater crime against property. The participants were willing to risk mass prosecution because they had faith in each others' silence, which really amounted to a kind of blood oath. A year earlier, when 400 Rhode Island men burnt a revenue schooner to the water line, the British authorities couldn't find anyone to testify against them. Call it what you like--but that is solidarity of a sort we can't even imagine today. Today, if you even mention the Constitution as a standard we should re-invigorate, the Department of Homeland Security puts you on a list.

Finally, the original sons of liberty had spiritual ballast. The pastors of the day were willing to talk about a Christ who cared about justice in this human sphere. Certainly there were Tory apologist pastors and firebrand Whigs, but neither party spent as much of their time filtering the message through their own "church-growth" parameters. Christ was King everywhere--not just in the sanctuary.

Let him who has ears to hear, hear.