As the Native-American costumed, Sons of Liberty, dumped the tea into Boston Harbor on a chilly December night in 1773, the American colonists were paying 1-1.5% in taxes and enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world.
By contrast, the loyal subjects in Mother Britain were shelling out between five and seven percent.
Lt. Gen. Thomas Gage was installed as the governor of Massachusetts in the late spring of 1774, with the mission to bring the whining colonists to heel and enforcing a series of English laws known to the colonists as the Intolerable Acts, starting with demands that the tea be repaid for lest the harbor in Boston remain shut down.
Whig Parliament members like Sir Edmund Burke urged the crown to engage in diplomacy and to take a soft position.
This was discarded and Gen Gage’s mission was very clear; make an example of the rebellious in Boston and send a message to the rest of the colonies.
Dumb.
The overly confident crown saw its deployment of red coat regiments pouring into New England as decisive.
A fuse was lit amongst a third of the Americans who didn’t see red coats at all; they saw "lobsters." There was no respect for the monarchy and its insecure grip on this recalcitrant part of the empire.
The Intolerable Acts eclipsed the favorable economic conditions in America.
Freedom from tyranny became far more important. "Taxation without representation" was but one of the reasons our nation would demand independence.
250 years have passed since the Intolerable Acts set the course for America’s trajectory.
Today’s Americans tolerate way too much.
In 2024, Americans kid themselves that their top tax rate is north of 37%.
The number which would have had 100% of the colonists wielding a musket is woefully underreported. Somehow, we thought the 16th Amendment to the Constitution in 1913, which allows the Congress to tax us into oblivion, was a good idea.
There are many arguments to this day that it was never legally ratified.
—Our federal tax rate which is discreetly eliminated from paychecks automatically so most don’t notice is but the tip of the iceberg.
—Property tax means you truly do not own anything (happy Klaus Schwab?).
—Sales tax, permitting fees, business tax, estate tax and maybe someday carbon tax are only headliners in a world where the local, state and federal levels appropriate your money.
Reminder: those rabble rouser Sons of Liberty were ready to dump tea at between 1 and 1.5%. OK, maybe today, we are an enlighted, collectivist society and we understand that our benevolent government spends half of our labor on noble things.
Maybe. Maybe not.
We now run a two-trillion-dollar deficit annually, print money into inflation creating debt that your next five generations couldn’t pay.
We send money overseas without oversight for wars and aid.
Little is left over for our schools, roads, veterans or any other legitimate use of our money.
Taxation without representation remains a grievance today, unless you are Exxon, Pfizer, or some lobbyist represented entity who will pay for campaigns and junkets on private jets.
"Tax Armageddon" is the new term politicians like Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., use to describe their zeal to repeal the Trump Tax cuts by 2025 as recession storms can be seen on the horizon.
Of the special interests, by the special interests, for the special interests.
The size of the entire British Government in 1774 would hardly qualify to be an agency in the leviathan bureaucracy nestled in the swamps of Washington D.C.
As Sam the Publican’s brave Sons of Liberty, and many early Americans felt 250 years ago, today’s Americans also see the tyranny going well beyond tax theft.
The liberties enshrined in our Constitution and endowed by our Creator are under assault by a Deep State that uses our money against us.
The Swamp has collectively pushed us to the brink of world war, a potential war on our own soil from the millions of men who came here illegally, financial collapse, food insecurity and tyranny from discarding American values.
One Nation Under God? Really?
"The government you elect, is the government you deserve," said Thomas Jefferson.
Securing election integrity might be a good idea too, Mr. Jefferson.
Our Founders could see that the Intolerable Acts would put us on a path to a violent, bloody war. Their sacrifice, born out of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 would lead to a Constitutional Republic.
Tyrannical times in our land have returned.
The difference is that our founders gave us the Constitution to vanquish the Tories of our day, without firing a shot.
Benjamin Franklin told us that we have a "republic if we can keep it."
We may not need to declare our independence this July 4, but we had better reaffirm it and honor what the first generation of Americans fought for.
We must not tolerate the intolerable.
Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt (retired) is a co-founder of Restore Liberty, a former deputy representative to NATO, a lifetime member on the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Newsmax contributor. The views presented are those of the author and do not represent the views of the U.S. government, U.S. Department of Defense, or its components. Read Gen. Holt's reports — More Here.
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