Comment by blibble
1 day ago
> This is why the US dropped tea into Boston to have it's own Freedom.
the 3% tariff on Chinese tea was seen as oppressive
don't look at what has been imposed this year (without congressional approval)
1 day ago
> This is why the US dropped tea into Boston to have it's own Freedom.
the 3% tariff on Chinese tea was seen as oppressive
don't look at what has been imposed this year (without congressional approval)
The tariff was oppressive in large part because the colonies didn't have representation in Parliament and were allowed limited (and decreasing) local governance. The Stamp, Townshend and Intolerable Acts were a whole lot more than just "we don't wanna pay taxes".
A similar argument can be made against the tariffs though.
US consumers will be paying the bulk of the tariffs through price increases. We do have representatives in Congress, they just weren't the ones imposing tariffs.
edit: as fun as silent down votes are, it would be interesting to hear where you might disagree
Unfortunately the representatives in Congress gave the tariff power to the Presidency.
Now, did they do that with the approval of the voters? Ostensibly, yes, but in reality, it's not that clear-cut.
This would be more like if the Thirteen Colonies had MPs and those MPs still voted in favor of the Stamp Act, or they voted to delegate the power to tariff to someone with a severe personality disorder.
5 replies →
I mean yes the American people should probably consider giving our current government the same taste. But they’re not going to do that because we’ve been trained to be complacent.
I fully agree tariffs should be the purview of Congress, but that's not a "similar argument". Trump was elected just as Congress was.
1 reply →
Technically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_representation
These tariffs may have representation, but constitutionally not from the right representative. Congress has the authority and only delegated it to the president in limited circumstances that don't apply. Trump says the ones on China are imposed for fentanyl being shipped in by mail and other means, and within days of saying that pardoned the largest opiates by mail operator in US history, Ross Ulbricht.
I don't feel represented on the national or international stage AT ALL. Maybe I'll stop paying mine.
> I don't feel represented on the national or international stage AT ALL. Maybe I'll stop paying mine.
Now gather a huge group of friends who are willing to fight for this cause (and for whose this cause is so important that they can accept ending in jail or even worse).
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What you "feel" is irrelevant though? You have the option of voting.
The target of the Boston Tea Party was the British implementation of the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the East India Company to sell tea from China in the colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party
That's absurd. That doesn't pass the sniff test at all for being remotely true that people would react like that to only a 3 percent tax.
I looked it up, and it was a 3 pence tax per pound. When tea was selling for 2 to 3 pence per pound. So yeah, a 100-150% tax combined with the fact that the East India Company was allowed to sell without paying the tax. That is very unjust and threatens their business a lot more than the tax alone.
The precipitating event behind the Boston Tea Party was actually a reduction in taxation that made it possible for the East India Company to undercut both official colonial tea importers and also American tea smugglers.
And many of those tea importers/smugglers happened to be prominent figures in the future US government.
A coup was just good business.
It was terrible business. They'd have all been way better off working with the dominant global and economic power than starting a new country. And that's before you average in all the ones who lost everything and/or died.
3 replies →
Thank you for your pointless strawman argument.