Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Are We Protesting Ourselves?
How much of the Tea Party protests are directed towards our government for their bloated and dangerous "stimulus" bill, and how much are directed towards our fellow Americans; you know, the ones who decided to live a Lexus lifestyle on a Kia salary?
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The New Face of Protesting
This is just sad.
At the same time, even these pathetic excuses for Americans have their own list of (idiotic) demands, which is more than the Tea Party movement can say.
I don't mean to be too critical of the movement, because it is encouraging. It's also going to be a wasted opportunity if it doesn't start to coalesce around some remedies soon.
At the same time, even these pathetic excuses for Americans have their own list of (idiotic) demands, which is more than the Tea Party movement can say.
I don't mean to be too critical of the movement, because it is encouraging. It's also going to be a wasted opportunity if it doesn't start to coalesce around some remedies soon.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Liberty Defined
In the last post of any substance, Junyo commented:
This is what happens when we lose respect for the power of words. They become gibberish and malleable, able to mean whatever we want. Liberty has a meaning, and a very precise one at that.
The opposite of liberty is slavery. What ultimately defines slavery? It is not the lash of the whip or cruel torture. Slavery has existed in societies where the human chattel were treated very well. It didn't matter; they were still slaves. Slavery is the presence of a Master or Masters. Liberty, therefore, is the absence of a Master.
I know, I know. It's not like the spending bill is the first time that the Federal government has exerted power of us. We know the Federal government is in charge. That argument was decided back in 1787. And it's not like we can be without some form of government holding the position of ultimate authority. The men who created this nation knew that too. Here's Thomas Jefferson (with the authority of the full Continental Congress) on the reason why we have government:
Government exists to secure our rights. If we could secure them as individuals, we wouldn't have a need for government. But since we can't, we give the authority to the Federal government. We have our shackles, but they're pretty loose, or at least they were.
What we're protesting is the fact that that the shackles just got a lot tighter, and if we continue on our present course, they will become tighter still. We want our liberty back.
Of course, the corollary to wanting our liberty back is the fact that in order to get it, we're going to have to become a more virtuous society, but that's probably another post entirely.
"What form does "liberty" take? Are we expecting to come out of some protests with an end to the Drug War, the full attainment of the right to keep and bear arms, decriminalization of whatever acts of commerce two adults consensually agree to (my personal definition)? Or are we defining liberty as how things were 100 days ago? Total replacement of the government? Recouping unspent "stimulus" funds, getting the government out of the real estate business, and providing real stimulus via tax relief for the responsible taxpayers/home owners/businesspeople? "If you're looking for the answer then you've gotta ask the question..." "Liberty" is a lofty goal, but for effective action, some vague agreement about what the deliverables and criteria are is a practical necessity."
This is what happens when we lose respect for the power of words. They become gibberish and malleable, able to mean whatever we want. Liberty has a meaning, and a very precise one at that.
The opposite of liberty is slavery. What ultimately defines slavery? It is not the lash of the whip or cruel torture. Slavery has existed in societies where the human chattel were treated very well. It didn't matter; they were still slaves. Slavery is the presence of a Master or Masters. Liberty, therefore, is the absence of a Master.
I know, I know. It's not like the spending bill is the first time that the Federal government has exerted power of us. We know the Federal government is in charge. That argument was decided back in 1787. And it's not like we can be without some form of government holding the position of ultimate authority. The men who created this nation knew that too. Here's Thomas Jefferson (with the authority of the full Continental Congress) on the reason why we have government:
We hold these truths to be self evident; That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
Government exists to secure our rights. If we could secure them as individuals, we wouldn't have a need for government. But since we can't, we give the authority to the Federal government. We have our shackles, but they're pretty loose, or at least they were.
What we're protesting is the fact that that the shackles just got a lot tighter, and if we continue on our present course, they will become tighter still. We want our liberty back.
Of course, the corollary to wanting our liberty back is the fact that in order to get it, we're going to have to become a more virtuous society, but that's probably another post entirely.
Another Musical Interlude
I'm working on a couple of longer pieces, but in the meantime, here's another Tea Party Theme Song candidate.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
No Quest, But Close
First of all, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Professor Glenn Reynolds for the recent link from Instapundit. I am honored and grateful that he found my contributions to the Great Discussion worthy of noting.
Secondly, thank you for taking your time to read what I'm writing. If you like what you're reading, I hope you'll take the time to actually forward a link on to your family and friends. I'm working on a theory that email forwards, not blogs themselves, are actually the new form of pamphleteering.
Finally, I think we're getting closer to figuring out what these protests are all about. At Instapundit, Professor Reynolds links to a post that says the Chicago Tea Party is a quest for our nation's soul.
I'd say that's close, but lacking a cigar. Does this feel like a quest to you? Like we're going to strap on our armor and go slay a dragon? It doesn't feel like that to me. To me it feels like any minute I could get sucker punched in the stomach, kicked in the head, and brought to my knees. This isn't a quest, this is a fight.
And what are we fighting for? The stimulus is signed. The governors, most of them anyway, are going to take the money. Yet still we gather, and the movement is gathering steam. We know what we're protesting against, but it almost feels like we can't quite agree on what we're advocating. It's on the tip of our tongue, but we're unable to recall it. It's a word we use a lot, but we rarely truly think about.
The word we're looking for is "liberty."
Secondly, thank you for taking your time to read what I'm writing. If you like what you're reading, I hope you'll take the time to actually forward a link on to your family and friends. I'm working on a theory that email forwards, not blogs themselves, are actually the new form of pamphleteering.
Finally, I think we're getting closer to figuring out what these protests are all about. At Instapundit, Professor Reynolds links to a post that says the Chicago Tea Party is a quest for our nation's soul.
I'd say that's close, but lacking a cigar. Does this feel like a quest to you? Like we're going to strap on our armor and go slay a dragon? It doesn't feel like that to me. To me it feels like any minute I could get sucker punched in the stomach, kicked in the head, and brought to my knees. This isn't a quest, this is a fight.
And what are we fighting for? The stimulus is signed. The governors, most of them anyway, are going to take the money. Yet still we gather, and the movement is gathering steam. We know what we're protesting against, but it almost feels like we can't quite agree on what we're advocating. It's on the tip of our tongue, but we're unable to recall it. It's a word we use a lot, but we rarely truly think about.
The word we're looking for is "liberty."
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Act Worthy Of Yourselves
Across the country, the "Tea Party" movement is spreading. Anti-stimulus protests in Arizona, Washington State, Kansas, Georgia, and elsewhere are popping up, and of course CNBC's Rick Santelli has become an instant folk hero after calling for a Chicago Tea Party. But if we're going to compare our actions to those brave Bostonians of 1773, we should really take a look at what their protest meant, and what happened afterwards. To simply compare ourselves to those men and women, without truly understanding what they did, at the least cheapens our shared history and could lead to consusion over the motives of this new "Tea Party" movement.
The decision to dump 45 tons of tea into Boston Harbor wasn't made at the spur of the moment. It had been carefully discussed and planned by the leaders of Boston's patriot community. They knew exactly what they were doing when they boarded those three ships and began breaking open the heavy chests filled with tea from the East India Trading Company. They were committing an act of insurrection, not political theater.
Let's back up for a second. In colonial America, there were a lot of tea drinkers, but many of them bought smuggled tea. The reason was simple: it was cheaper. There was already an import duty on British tea which made it more expensive than the Dutch tea many merchants (including John Hancock) smuggled in to the colonies. In April of 1773 Parliament tried to rectify this by passing the Tea Act. The legislation granted a monopoly of the North American market to the East India Trading Company in order to try and keep the company from economic collapse. At the same time, Parliament imposed a new tax on tea, but one that would be paid in London as a surcharge. The Americans would actually see lower prices on tea, but the tea they purchased would already come pre-taxed. Historian Benson Bobrick says it "remains a noble feature of the whole confrontation that immediate economic interest did not determine [the colonists'] response."
And Americans didn't take the bribe of lower tea in exchange for accepting a revenue tax. In Philadelphia, ships bearing tea couldn't find anyone willing to lead the ships into harbor. In Charleston, South Carolina, the tea was off-loaded, but was stored in moldy warehouses where the product quickly rotted and became useless. In New York City, storms prevented the tea-laden ships from docking.
Boston, already filled with thousands of Regular troops sent to suppress the insurrection, would be a different story. Three ships eventually landed at Griffin's Wharf in Boston Harbor, but armed townspeople stood guard over the vessels to prevent the tea from being unloaded. Patriot leaders pleaded with the captains of the ships to sail away, but they refused to do so until their cargo was removed. Only when word was received that the tea was to be off-loaded and imported the very next morning did the patriots act.
The beginning of the Boston Tea Party took place at Fanueil Hall. The large meeting house was packed to the brim on the night of December 16th. When he was informed that the governor had rejected pleas for help from the colonists, Samuel Adams, a staunch supporter of the Patriot cause (and something of a rabble-rouser) cried out, "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country!"
That was the signal that triggered the Boston Tea Party. Two hundred men disguised themselves as best they could (it's interesting to point out that at the time, no one dared publicly admit they had taken part in the Tea Party) and set out to dump the tea, while thousands of residents watched from the streets.
It took them three hours. They did not burn down the ships, or vandalize them. They didn't steal any tea. They only destroyed it, and then marched off the boats and down the street with a fifer leading the way.
I mentioned earlier that His Majesty's troops were already in Boston that night. They did nothing to stop the Tea Party. Warships anchored less than a mile away did not fire upon the crowd, nor did they send a detachment of soldiers to try to break up the silent riot. Instead, the Crown's men exercised a great deal of restraint (no doubt thinking back to that March night just a few years earlier when troops opened fire on a crowd of belligerent Bostonians, killing five of them in what became known as the Boston Massacre). Still, Admiral John Montague couldn't help but open a window as the patriots passed by on the street below. "Boys, you have had a fine, pleasant evening for your Indian caper, haven't you? But mind, you have got to pay the fiddler yet."
They paid, all right. The reaction from Parliament and the Crown was swift and severe. Parliament quickly passed the Coercive Acts, better known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts. The response to the insurrectionist Tea Party was to try to break the will of the colonists. They shut down the port of Boston, revoked the charter of Massachusetts, removed any civilian governing authority and replaced it with Royal rule, and re-established the practice of quartering troops in civilian homes. Additionally, more than 5,000 more troops arrived to crack down on the rebellious Bostonians. Boston at the time was a city between 15,000 and 20,000, which meant that there was nearly one Regular for every adult male in the city. General Gage, the new military governor of Massachusetts, soon set out to confiscate gunpowder and arms stored in towns throughout the colony. Long before Lexington and Concord, Regular troops marched on the towns of Somerville (where they successfully removed the powder) and Salem (where they were forced to turn back by a crowd of civilians). Patriots responded by seizing the armed garrison at Portsmouth, Maine (then a part of Massachusetts) without firing a shot.
In short, the Boston Tea Party was an act of defiance and insurrection that set in motion a chain of events that led to armed rebellion against Parliament and the King. I wonder, do we really mean to compare ourselves to the men and women who, even at that early date, were ready to sacrifice their all for the cause of liberty?
It seems that what we're actually seeing now is a relatively low-key and sedate protest in relation to the audacious and incredible increase in government power. Frankly, the patriots who took part in the Boston Tea Party would probably call us cowards for not responding in a more full-throated manner.
I'm not objecting to the protests. Far from it in fact. I'll be at the protest in Washington, D.C. But I am not expecting anything other than street theater, or the political equivalent of clearing our throat rather than the yelling our politicians deserve to hear. I won't compare it to the Boston Tea Party, because there is no comparison. To claim otherwise is to both cheapen the actual protest by 200 Bostonians and their thousands of supporters, and to inflate the magnitude of our current actions.
I wonder, what are we expecting to achieve from these protests? Are we content to merely register our disapproval, or are we seeking to change what Congress and our president have done? If it is the former, I'm sure the politicians will note our objection, and wait for us to quiet down. If it is the latter, I fear our current protests are too scatter-shot to do any real good.
What is the target of our protest? Are we protesting the President and Congress for an act already passed, or are we petitioning our state and local governments to refuse to accept the stimulus money?
What do we do if these protests do not result in the change in policies we are asking for? What happens next?
Make no mistake, once a movement like this has begun, it will, sooner or later, have to answer these difficult questions or risk failure. Now is the seed-time of liberty, and the steps we take and the words we use will either be recalled triumphantly by our grandchildren, or seen as a sad charade conducted by children who could not muster the strength and conviction of their ancestors.
In 1775, just a few weeks before blood was spilled at Lexington Green, Dr. Joseph Warren addressed a crowd of Bostonians who had gathered to commemorate the anniversary of the Boston Massacre.
Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. The faltering tongue of hoary age calls on you to support your country. The lisping infant raises its suppliant hands, imploring defence against the monster slavery. Your fathers look from their celestial seats with smiling approbation on their sons, who boldly stand forth in the cause of virtue; but sternly frown upon the inhuman miscreant, who, to secure the loaves and fishes to himself, would breed a serpent to destroy his children.
With all due respect to Dr. Warren, this is not your father's protest movement. This is your forefathers' protest. Act worthy of yourself.
The decision to dump 45 tons of tea into Boston Harbor wasn't made at the spur of the moment. It had been carefully discussed and planned by the leaders of Boston's patriot community. They knew exactly what they were doing when they boarded those three ships and began breaking open the heavy chests filled with tea from the East India Trading Company. They were committing an act of insurrection, not political theater.
Let's back up for a second. In colonial America, there were a lot of tea drinkers, but many of them bought smuggled tea. The reason was simple: it was cheaper. There was already an import duty on British tea which made it more expensive than the Dutch tea many merchants (including John Hancock) smuggled in to the colonies. In April of 1773 Parliament tried to rectify this by passing the Tea Act. The legislation granted a monopoly of the North American market to the East India Trading Company in order to try and keep the company from economic collapse. At the same time, Parliament imposed a new tax on tea, but one that would be paid in London as a surcharge. The Americans would actually see lower prices on tea, but the tea they purchased would already come pre-taxed. Historian Benson Bobrick says it "remains a noble feature of the whole confrontation that immediate economic interest did not determine [the colonists'] response."
And Americans didn't take the bribe of lower tea in exchange for accepting a revenue tax. In Philadelphia, ships bearing tea couldn't find anyone willing to lead the ships into harbor. In Charleston, South Carolina, the tea was off-loaded, but was stored in moldy warehouses where the product quickly rotted and became useless. In New York City, storms prevented the tea-laden ships from docking.
Boston, already filled with thousands of Regular troops sent to suppress the insurrection, would be a different story. Three ships eventually landed at Griffin's Wharf in Boston Harbor, but armed townspeople stood guard over the vessels to prevent the tea from being unloaded. Patriot leaders pleaded with the captains of the ships to sail away, but they refused to do so until their cargo was removed. Only when word was received that the tea was to be off-loaded and imported the very next morning did the patriots act.
The beginning of the Boston Tea Party took place at Fanueil Hall. The large meeting house was packed to the brim on the night of December 16th. When he was informed that the governor had rejected pleas for help from the colonists, Samuel Adams, a staunch supporter of the Patriot cause (and something of a rabble-rouser) cried out, "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country!"
That was the signal that triggered the Boston Tea Party. Two hundred men disguised themselves as best they could (it's interesting to point out that at the time, no one dared publicly admit they had taken part in the Tea Party) and set out to dump the tea, while thousands of residents watched from the streets.
It took them three hours. They did not burn down the ships, or vandalize them. They didn't steal any tea. They only destroyed it, and then marched off the boats and down the street with a fifer leading the way.
I mentioned earlier that His Majesty's troops were already in Boston that night. They did nothing to stop the Tea Party. Warships anchored less than a mile away did not fire upon the crowd, nor did they send a detachment of soldiers to try to break up the silent riot. Instead, the Crown's men exercised a great deal of restraint (no doubt thinking back to that March night just a few years earlier when troops opened fire on a crowd of belligerent Bostonians, killing five of them in what became known as the Boston Massacre). Still, Admiral John Montague couldn't help but open a window as the patriots passed by on the street below. "Boys, you have had a fine, pleasant evening for your Indian caper, haven't you? But mind, you have got to pay the fiddler yet."
They paid, all right. The reaction from Parliament and the Crown was swift and severe. Parliament quickly passed the Coercive Acts, better known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts. The response to the insurrectionist Tea Party was to try to break the will of the colonists. They shut down the port of Boston, revoked the charter of Massachusetts, removed any civilian governing authority and replaced it with Royal rule, and re-established the practice of quartering troops in civilian homes. Additionally, more than 5,000 more troops arrived to crack down on the rebellious Bostonians. Boston at the time was a city between 15,000 and 20,000, which meant that there was nearly one Regular for every adult male in the city. General Gage, the new military governor of Massachusetts, soon set out to confiscate gunpowder and arms stored in towns throughout the colony. Long before Lexington and Concord, Regular troops marched on the towns of Somerville (where they successfully removed the powder) and Salem (where they were forced to turn back by a crowd of civilians). Patriots responded by seizing the armed garrison at Portsmouth, Maine (then a part of Massachusetts) without firing a shot.
In short, the Boston Tea Party was an act of defiance and insurrection that set in motion a chain of events that led to armed rebellion against Parliament and the King. I wonder, do we really mean to compare ourselves to the men and women who, even at that early date, were ready to sacrifice their all for the cause of liberty?
It seems that what we're actually seeing now is a relatively low-key and sedate protest in relation to the audacious and incredible increase in government power. Frankly, the patriots who took part in the Boston Tea Party would probably call us cowards for not responding in a more full-throated manner.
I'm not objecting to the protests. Far from it in fact. I'll be at the protest in Washington, D.C. But I am not expecting anything other than street theater, or the political equivalent of clearing our throat rather than the yelling our politicians deserve to hear. I won't compare it to the Boston Tea Party, because there is no comparison. To claim otherwise is to both cheapen the actual protest by 200 Bostonians and their thousands of supporters, and to inflate the magnitude of our current actions.
I wonder, what are we expecting to achieve from these protests? Are we content to merely register our disapproval, or are we seeking to change what Congress and our president have done? If it is the former, I'm sure the politicians will note our objection, and wait for us to quiet down. If it is the latter, I fear our current protests are too scatter-shot to do any real good.
What is the target of our protest? Are we protesting the President and Congress for an act already passed, or are we petitioning our state and local governments to refuse to accept the stimulus money?
What do we do if these protests do not result in the change in policies we are asking for? What happens next?
Make no mistake, once a movement like this has begun, it will, sooner or later, have to answer these difficult questions or risk failure. Now is the seed-time of liberty, and the steps we take and the words we use will either be recalled triumphantly by our grandchildren, or seen as a sad charade conducted by children who could not muster the strength and conviction of their ancestors.
In 1775, just a few weeks before blood was spilled at Lexington Green, Dr. Joseph Warren addressed a crowd of Bostonians who had gathered to commemorate the anniversary of the Boston Massacre.
Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. The faltering tongue of hoary age calls on you to support your country. The lisping infant raises its suppliant hands, imploring defence against the monster slavery. Your fathers look from their celestial seats with smiling approbation on their sons, who boldly stand forth in the cause of virtue; but sternly frown upon the inhuman miscreant, who, to secure the loaves and fishes to himself, would breed a serpent to destroy his children.
With all due respect to Dr. Warren, this is not your father's protest movement. This is your forefathers' protest. Act worthy of yourself.
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