Today is a day that lives in history, in America anyway. The pronouncement of the American Declaration of Independence, something every child learns about in school and certainly a feat to be remembered. Never before in history had a small colonial upstart defied the world imperial power and won its independence, never before in history had a nations framework been predicated upon the individual sovereignty of men rather than the crown or the church.
It was a new experiment. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, when he was asked “what did you give us Mr. Franklin.”
“A republic. If you can keep it.”
But today’s story isn’t about the signing of the declaration of independence or the ratification of the constitution. Although speaking of which, it is well worth your time to read some of the original writings and letters of these liberty minded men, (Jefferson, Madison, et al) if you wish to know what they actually believed and not the modern progressive spin on the pillars of liberty.
Today’s story actually took place 3 and a half years earlier in the town of Boston Massachusetts. The Boston Tea Party, an act of rebellion that was as powerful as it was symbolic. Americans strongly opposed the taxes of the Townshend Acts and the subsequent Tea Act because of the ability it gave to The East India Trading Company to undercut local merchants and a significant tax levy to boot. This was, they felt, unjust political leverage over American free enterprise, an echo of the earlier colonial grievances that they were not fairly represented by their governing authorities.
On a cold December night 1773, the Sons of Liberty, boarded the East India Trading Company ship and proceeded to dump the entire shipment of tea into the Boston harbor. “342 chests of tea, reported by the British East India Company to be worth £9,659” (Millions of dollars today) were dumped over the side of the ship.
Interestingly, the Sons of Liberty took extreme precautions to keep their revolution as peaceful as possible. No damage was done to the ships or any of the equipment on board. A single broken padlock was promptly replaced by the Sons of Liberty the following day. And further, not a single ounce of tea or item of personal property was stolen or looted from the ship. Not one man was even injured during the rebellion. These were men of principle and their solitary goal was sending a message.
In case you are unaware, this event was the catalyst for the American Revolution against the Crown, and lives on in infamy as the birth of a profound new nation. My own political leanings are strongly libertarian. I can identify with the Sons of Liberty and their principled stance against unfair extortion.
I’m proud to call myself American, but only because of the principles of liberty upon which my nation was founded. A vigor which has all but been utterly lost to blind nationalism, special interests, and socialist machinations in just two short centuries.
The more you study our modern system of socialized monetary hegemony, a system which almost certainly expropriates far more wealth from the working man than a tea tax from the 18th century, the more you wonder how a nation that once had men of such principle ended up here.
Make no mistake, the hidden tax of inflation and the political and intellectual punditry which tout its benevolence, are “taxation without representation” in the highest possible form. And this time, every man and woman on the planet is subject to its tyranny.
Book of the Month:
The Ethics of Money Production by Jorg Guido Huulsman
-“The argument for natural money production and against inflation goes back many centuries, to the fourteenth century French bishop, Nicholas Oresme”
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