>
> On Tue, 23 Feb 2010, Shane Mage wrote:
>
> Okay Shane, I'll bite. How was the protest agains the Tea Act a protest
>>> against a tax cut?
>>>
>>
>> The East India Company had a legal monopoly over the importation of tea
>> into British Colonies. The profits were large. The King wanted more of
>> them, so he put a tax on the importation of tea into New England. This
>> raised the price of tea so much that the colonists got angry. But not for
>> long, because enterprising New Englander patriots began to smuggle tea in at
>> a price much lower than the taxed price. Soon, all the tea drunk in New
>> England was smuggled tea. The patriots were very happy. But the East India
>> Company wasn't, and told the King as much. The king was crazy, but not so
>> crazy as not to know who he couldn't say no to. So the King repealed the tea
>> tax. That made the patriots very unhappy. So they organized a boycott of
>> English tea, and informed their less patriotic neighbors that the drinking
>> of unsmuggled tea would be dangerous to their health--by dressing up as the
>> feared savages and vandalizing a commercial ship carrying tea.
>>
>
> I'll be damned. After checking a bit with google, I have to agree this is
> basically true. (And the parts that are simplified are mercifully so; why
> are tax details always so painfully boring?) I'm glad I asked. I learned
> something. Thanks.
>
> Michael
>
> Yeah, this was cool to learn... however, I'm not sure it says that the long
term ruckus over taxation w/o representation had no bearing on the event...
though Shane might only have implied such a stance by not mentioning it
rather than by taking it.