Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Oligarchy

by Nancy Coppock| June 15, 2010

You may believe that Thomas Jefferson’s pen wrote something different, but you obviously haven’t taken a refresher course in American History. We know so much more about the intent of our Founders today than say, 227 years ago. However, with all the current Tea Party talk d’jour, it is necessary to reanimate the original event that took place in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773 and update it with new thinking.

The English crown and parliament not only had to deliberate how to pay for the costly French and Indian War, they had to adapt to dealing with certain colonial governments who used the period of the administration’s attention being diverted to grow their power and influence. Pretty soon some colonies were acting like today’s Arizona. Imagine the effrontery of colonials, speaking as equals to those either endowed or elected to Parliament. Something had to be done to make sure these hayseeds knew who was King and who wasn’t.

The solution to both problems was the Townsend Act – make the colonies pay for the Peace Dividend they now enjoyed due to the success of the war effort. However, the colonials acted just like fly-over hicks did when they got wind of George Bush’s amnesty bill, smoking the phone lines to Parliament in rebellion. So, Parliament backed down on the Townsend Act.

However, as with all bureaucratic behemoths, once an idea is proposed it never dies. Just like the present TARP I, II, and Grandson of TARP bailouts, a punitive tax was passed by stealth. As surely as today’s Democrat Congressmen are bought by UAW, SEIU, the AFL-CIO and public employee unions, the Parliament and Royal House of the 1770’s were invested up to their short pants in the East India Company – the first industry that was simply too large to fail. So, an oligarchic scheme was hatched to keep the fleet of the East India Company afloat.

The new law stated that only East India tea could be sold in the colonies. The product would be cheap, as it was leftover warehoused tea that needed to be moved off the corporate books so the corporation could return to solvency. Therefore, the added tax really didn’t make the final cost of tea to the colonists anymore than it was before. It was all a win/win for the oligarchy.

The only problem was those pesky colonial clipper ships that had their own tea and trade routes. They were viewed as under-funded enterprises that would simply have to go under in the wake of the Crown’s more important special interests. Suddenly, small business owners were now classified as outlaws by fiat of the new tea tax, resulting in guys like John Hancock being warranted, arrested and jailed.

The oligarchy needed their special interest bulwarks maintained otherwise the future of the nation was at stake. However, unlike today’s GE, the East India Co. did not own the major media outlets in the colonies. Colonial news coverage could be hijacked by colonist extremists who were hostile not only to the Crown, Parliament, The East India Company, and the stealth nature of the tax, but even the entire oligarchy machine.

The turning point came before Parliament could pass a “fairness doctrine” for colonial news outlets, and before The East India Co. could diversify into a multi-media behemoth with the money coming in from their new tax-payer funded slushy.

Much like today’s racist, bigoted, homophobic Tea Partiers and 9/12’ers who gathered in Washington D.C. to scream epithets like “Kill the Bill” in a racially motivated crusade to stop ObamaCare, the radical colonials of Boston swarmed the decks of the tea ships in an orderly manner. Harming no one nor damaging any other physical property, the original obvious racists Tea Partiers – dressed as Native Americans – tossed the old and mildewed tea in the harbor.

The Crown’s response to this attack of enviro-terrorism was to cordon off the entire harbor in order to contain the hazardous material, though a decidedly free-spirited colonial press reported The Crown’s main target was free trade, the life-blood of Boston Harbor’s economy.

The ecological damage surely stained ducks and other water fowl a brownish-tea color. However, due to a lack of Tory media outlets owned by corporations with special interests in reporting such damage, there is no historical record. The environmental toll can only be estimated by modern government-sponsored test studies.

That our previous understanding of this historical event comes from the prospective of the virulent colonials is an indication of what happens when the oligarchy is not supported and protected. That the East India Company was negligent in recognizing the need to properly diversify their interest was certainly the fault of its CEO. Consequently, he was summarily fired and the King assumed control of the company.

Therefore, in this current episode of heated rhetoric and vitriol, it becomes imperative that history stand as a record of the resolve of the new Novus Order Seclorum.

It is time that we take a deep breath and remember those brave words penned by Jefferson: “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 Oligarchy…”

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Nancy Coppock is organizer for the Bryan/College Station Tea Party, a blogger, and writer who is repeatedly featured in American Thinker.