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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Rich Galen :: Townhall.com Columnist
A Short History of Tea Parties
by Rich Galen
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In on of those really sad cases of unintentional, but awful, timing the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum in, well, Boston, is closed for remodeling and isn't scheduled to reopen until the summer of 2010.

If you were the a member of board of directors of the one and only Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum in, well, Boston, it seems to me that knowing that hundreds, of not thousands of "Tea Parties" were going to be held today to protest … whatever is being protested … you might have used that as a huge fundraising opportunity.

Instead, the website says …

Closed for renovation.
Will reopen
Summer 2010

Happily, Samuel Adams (the revolutionary, not the beer manufacturing company) and his band of followers, the Sons of Liberty, were better at marketing than the museum directors and so on December 16, 1773 they dressed up like Mohawk Indians and did the deed.

The "deed" was to board three ships owned by the East India Company, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the Beaver, hacked into 342 crates of tea and emptied them into Boston Harbor causing enormous economic loss to the East India Company and a near-riot by PETA because the fish in the harbor had insomnia for three weeks from the caffeine in the tea.

Thus was the Boston Tea Party concluded. Three ships, one named for a small Ivy League college, one for a future First Lady of the United States and one for a small town in Pennsylvania (Population 4,401) were boarded by a bunch of guys dressed up in outfits which should have gotten them arrested on a hate crimes rap (anywhere but in the stadium housing the NFL team known as "the Redskins") and the next thing you know you've started a whole war.

Samuel Adams (1722 - 1803) was cranky just about his whole life. The British Parliament went out of its way to foster this crankiness by passing laws with lyrical names which, as the name of the brew would lead us to believe, drove Adams to drink. Continued...
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About The Author

Rich Galen has been a press secretary to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich. Rich Galen currently works as a journalist and writes at Mullings.com

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(24 comments so Far)
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Reply # 1
Date: May 3, 2009 - 11:32 PM EST
The Bru-Ha Ha over "Tea Parties"
Samuel Adams was a true blue libertarian living in what was then the British Colonies, and what he did was to give a charge in the population of the 13 Colonies that would eventually become The United States of America!
Half of the so "well-learned" media seem to have forgotten, selectively, one of the greatest protests against being taxed for more and more of what regular folks partook of on a regular basis. Sugar was in everything(just like today), so the British Parliament knew damn well what they were doing! They, not unlike today's congress, did not give any thought to the fact that the people having this tax forced upon them were not just dumb peasants! The insult to their intelligence is very similar to the current legislative and executive branches of our government's perception toward the U.S. taxpayer!
The comments made toward those supporting the premise of the "Tea Parties" were some ignorant, some fascist, and some who had not a clue!
Higher taxes due to the most careless, and extravagant spending effect all taxpayers, not just the people with whom common sense has a place in their intellect! If President Obama's, Speaker Pelosi's, and the most arrogant, yet delusional, congress since Buchanan was President, think that all this spending will help, then they are not giving any thought to their grandchildren, the countries looking to see America fail, nor are they aware that the American spirit is stronger, and smarter than they think! History will not be kind to what is taking place in D.C. at this time!
Pray that enough people will be like Mr. Adams and stand up for what this country was built on: INTEGRITY! Rick in Macon Ga.
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Reply # 2
Date: Apr 17, 2009 - 6:43 AM EST
Deathlemon
Townhall must be a forum of rich people
Since everybody else's taxes are actually going down.

My taxes have not gone down in fact my taxes have increased by 5% over the same period from last year. Guest what? I make less than 50K a year, so why are my taxes being raise? To pay some dead beat who is too lazy to get of their dead beat a** and work. I'm over 50 years old worked since I was 12, and I'm also 70% disabled. So I do not want to here any lameass excues why someone can't work. If this sounds like I'm a little more that ticked, that is because I am!!!

I wanted to attend a local tea party (which had a great turn out about 7% of the pop was there.)but I had to work the night before and need my beauty sleep.
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