April 17, 2011
By Lee Cary
Future historians will describe the Democratic Party's demonization of the Tea Party movement as a major political blunder that put them squarely on the wrong side of America's 21st Century financial crisis.
When Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on a conference call that he'd been instructed by "the caucus" to use the word "extreme" when referring to the Tea Party, he carelessly revealed the previously obvious but unacknowledged truth. Democrats have a coordinated plan to demonize the Tea Party movement (TPM) via their oft-repeated meme that implicitly characterizes law-abiding citizens as terrorists -- as with fundamentalist Islam or domestic militias, contemporary lone gunman or historical mass murderers (recall Nancy Pelosi's comment about Nazis in conjunction with TPM gatherings).
Using "extreme" is an extreme tactic on the part of Democrats. And a dumb one, guaranteed to galvanize the TPM into a stronger and more determined effort. One might ask: How could Democrats be so brazenly stupid as to think the tactic will be widely successful, particularly with independents? Even with the support of the legacy liberal media?
Maybe they just don't know much about early American history. They should, since many of them have law degrees. And all of them can read...or, at least, most of them.
They should know that the historical precedent for the TPM wasn't the Tea Party event in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773. Significant for American history as that was, and still is, it isn't the precursor of today's TPM. Something else was.
The Continental Association, established on October 20, 1774, was the first Tea Party-like movement in American history. On that date, Peyton Randolph, President of the First Continental Congress, signed a document on behalf of those self-identified therein as "We, his majesty's most loyal subjects." The document came in response to the so-called Intolerable Acts passed by the British parliament.
The Intolerable Acts were a set of four acts: The first was the Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston to all colonists until damages from the Boston Tea Party were paid. The second, the Massachusetts Government Act, gave the British government total control of town meetings, taking all decisions out of the hands of the colonists. The third, the Administration of Justice Act, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America and the fourth, the Quartering Act, required colonists to house and quarter British troops on demand, including in private homes as a last resort.
When Lord North became Prime Minister of the British Parliament in 1770, he embodied the hard line King George III took toward the Colonies. With regard to the Boston Port Act, North said, "Now is the time to proceed with firmness and without fear. They will never reform until we take a measure of this kind." Parliament crammed the Intolerable Acts down the Colonists' throats just as Democrats stuffed ObamaCare down ours. Mistakes on both their parts.
Today's Democrats think that to "take the measure" of the Tea Partiers also means calling them "extremists." Parliament's response had the same impact on the Colonies that the Democrats' extreme language is having on the TPM -- it stiffened resistance.
The document that came from the First Continental Congress, less than a year after the Boston Tea Party, was a collective nose-thumbing (or, perhaps, another crude hand gesture deploying a finger specially chosen for the occasion). It established a network of locally-based committees designed to facilitate the boycott of British-made goods. The goal was:
To obtain redress of these grievances, which threaten destruction to the lives, liberty, and property of his majesty's subjects, in North-America, we are of opinion, that a non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation agreement, faithfully adhered to, will prove the most speedy, effectual and peaceable measure; And, therefore, we do, for ourselves, and the inhabitants of the several colonies, whom we represent, firmly agree and associate, under the sacred ties of virtue, honour and love of our country, as follows:
A list of fourteen actions came next. Number eleven described the Continental Association of committees that would monitor and enforce the boycott.
11. That a committee be chosen in every county, city, and town, by those who are qualified to vote for representatives in the legislature, whose business it shall be attentively to observe the conduct of all persons touching this association; and when it shall be made to appear, to the satisfaction of a majority of any such committee, that any person within the limits of their appointment has violated this association, that such majority do forthwith cause the truth of the case to be published in the gazette; to the end, that all such foes to the rights of British-America may be publicly known, and universally contemned as the enemies of American liberty; and thenceforth we respectively will break off all dealings with him or her.
When the Democrat-controlled Congress crammed ObamaCare down the throats of the American people, it gave legs to a movement bringing together citizens from all political affiliations -- though most are self-described fiscal conservatives. What they hold in common is that, for years, they've watched, with mounting alarm, the uncontrolled growth of the federal government and the national debt.
Unlike the Continental Association of October 1774, the TPM wasn't created by Congress. Nor is its primary objective to influence a foreign monarch. It target is a domestic aristocracy of another kind, a soft tyranny, so far, that grows ever more intrusive on American freedoms.
Similar to the Continental Association of 1774, the intent of the TPM is to affect another boycott, of sorts. In today's case, it's against electing politicians likely to contribute to America's mounting fiscal crisis and bludgeoning government, regardless of their political party affiliation.
By labeling the TPM as "extremists," the New Democrat Socialist Party mirrored the response of King George III and his minion, Prime Minister Lord North. Not smart on the Democrats' part. Proving once again...the most damaging impact upon an opponent's cause can sometimes be one of the opponent's own making.
