Ask George III if Demonizing the Tea Party Works

Ask George III if Demonizing the Tea Party Works
American Thinker ^ | April 17, 2011 | Lee Cary

Posted on Sunday, April 17, 2011 5:08:39 PM by neverdem

Future historians will describe the Democratic Party's demonization of the Tea Party movement as a major political blunder that put them squarely on the wrong side of America's 21^st Century financial crisis.

When Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on a conference call that he'd been instructed by "the caucus" to use the word "extreme" when referring to the Tea Party, he carelessly revealed the previously obvious but unacknowledged truth.  Democrats have a coordinated plan to demonize the Tea Party movement (TPM) via their oft-repeated meme that implicitly characterizes law-abiding citizens as terrorists -- as with fundamentalist Islam or domestic militias, contemporary lone gunman or historical mass murderers (recall Nancy Pelosi's comment about Nazis in conjunction with TPM gatherings).

Using "extreme" is an extreme tactic on the part of Democrats.  And a dumb one, guaranteed to galvanize the TPM into a stronger and more determined effort.  One might ask: How could Democrats be so brazenly stupid as to think the tactic will be widely successful, particularly with independents?  Even with the support of the legacy liberal media?   

Maybe they just don't know much about early American history.  They should, since many of them have law degrees.  And all of them can read...or, at least, most of them.

They should know that the historical precedent for the TPM wasn't the Tea Party event in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773.  Significant for American history as that was, and still is, it isn't the precursor of today's TPM.  Something else was.

The Continental Association, established on October 20, 1774, was the first Tea Party-like movement in American history.  On that date, Peyton Randolph, President of the First Continental Congress, signed a document on behalf of those self-identified therein as "We, his majesty's most loyal subjects."  The document came in response to the so-called Intolerable Acts passed by the British parliament.

The Intolerable Acts were a set of four acts: The first was the Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston to all colonists until damages from the Boston Tea Party were paid. The second, the Massachusetts Government Act, gave the British government total control of town meetings, taking all decisions out of the hands of the colonists. The third, the Administration of Justice Act, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America and the fourth, the Quartering Act, required colonists to house and quarter British troops on demand, including in private homes as a last resort.

When Lord North became Prime Minister of the British Parliament in 1770, he embodied the hard line King George III took toward the Colonies.  With regard to the Boston Port Act, North said, "Now is the time to proceed with firmness and without fear. They will never reform until we take a measure of this kind."  Parliament crammed the Intolerable Acts down the Colonists' throats just as Democrats stuffed ObamaCare down ours.  Mistakes on both their parts.

Today's Democrats think that to "take the measure" of the Tea Partiers also means calling them "extremists."  Parliament's response had the same impact on the Colonies that the Democrats' extreme language is having on the TPM -- it stiffened resistance.  

The document that came from the First Continental Congress, less than a year after the Boston Tea Party, was a collective nose-thumbing (or, perhaps, another crude hand gesture deploying a finger specially chosen for the occasion).  It established a network of locally-based committees designed to facilitate the boycott of British-made goods.  The goal was:.......................