The Boston Tea Party

Thanks, Con, for introducing this interesting topic. Let's look at the issues Con raised in his original post. - First grade is propagandistic: Stipulated but irrelevant. - Con's preference for "less propagandic frame of reference": Abandoned. (His final post is all propaganda, all ranting opinion with no offer of reason to believe the propaganda. We could call this a turn, but it's not a relevant turn.) - The Boston Tea Party was "a few individuals mindlessly instigating ill will between economically challenged citizens after a night at the tavern": refuted and dropped. - "shamefully dressing up like local natives(cowardly attempt)so as to focus attention on the blameless": outrageously false, refuted, and dropped. - Many admired the British Empire: Stipulated, irrelevant, and now reversed. (We still admire it, but we still don't want to be ruled by it. And Con now adds, "what is admirable to some is a terrible trangression (sic) to many.") - "Illegal and traitorous": Dropped. (I showed that illegality and treason can, in circumstances, be highly admirable. Con had no more to say on the subject.) - People died in the revolution: Stipulated, but Con never offered to show that they died for a bad or unworthy cause. He never linked this up to his claim that the Boston Tea Party was somehow a bad thing. - Con apologized to the British: Stipulated but inexplicable and irrelevant. - Con apologized to the Indians: Stipulated. I'll add my apology too; we've generally treated the Indians very badly. But the Boston Tea Party was not one of those times. At the Boston Tea Party, we honored them, holding up their kingless self-rule as an ideal, as a better way of life, as a radical improvement over stale European institutions. So, nothing is left of Con's opening case. It is emphatically defeated. Let's look, then at the new "case" he has introduced in the last round: - At the time of the BTP (Boston Tea Party) most colonists were against it. No citation. No reason to believe it. But, just for the sake of argument, let's assume it's true. Does that mean the revolution became a good thing once a majority were in favor? Does that mean that all social changes are bad until they achieve majority support? Where was Con is going here? He never linked this alleged factoid to his case. It comes to nothing. - Con thinks the BTP caused a shortage of tea, so colonists had to drink lesser drinks. <Shrug.> He doesn't want to blame the Crown for giving the tea monopoly to the East India Company. He doesn't want to blame Britain for not letting us have representatives in Parliament. He doesn't even argue that cheap and plentiful tea is better than freedom. So, again, his alleged factoid is not linked to his case. - Con makes some not-too-clear point about rich people. He apparently thinks that the BTP was a bunch of drunk millionaires who had nothing else to do after the bars closed. Does he think the Colonial insurgents were richer than the King and Parliament? How is this relevant? Con neither explains his point nor gives us any reason to believe it. - Con says we revolted "in bad form" and exploited ignorant poor people. He says this goes on yet today. Does he think the British rich are more gentle and supporting and educating of their poor? Is this why he wishes we were still paying taxes to Britain? He doesn't say. Once again, we don't know how Con thinks this relevant to his case. What we do know is that, historically, when it comes to educating the poor, independent America has been a light unto the world. - Con claims that we are a republic "disguised as a democracy," without giving any hint of a reason to think that is worse than a monarchy. This is a turn; it is Con defeating himself, unless some voter prefers monarchies to republics. - Con calls modern America an oligarchy. (An oligarchy disguised as a republic disguised as a democracy?) He doesn't say whether that is good, nor why we should believe it, nor whether Britain is an oligarchy, nor whether we would be an oligarchy if the BTP hadn't happened. Once again, this point has no apparent relevance to the resolution being debated. - Con says the founding fathers opposed rule by the people. But so did the British. Con doesn't link his claim to the resolution. - Con criticizes the Constitution, as if the BTP were somehow related to it. But the BTP lead to the Articles of Confederation. Nobody in Boston Harbor that night envisioned the Constitution. - Con spews some aimless bile over the supermajorities required to amend the constitution, and over the Electoral College. As near as I can tell, Con is for mob rule. Perhaps he prefers the French Revolution to the American one. (I'm not trying to put words in his mouth. I'm just trying to guess what his issue is.) Regardless, I don't see how this is relevant to the resolution. We didn't have mob rule (or whatever Con wants) under British rule. After the revolution, we had smaller government, more local, able to react much faster than British could, what with their need to send messages back and forth across the ocean (sometimes several times) before they could make decisions. - Con says the colonists didn't know they were being oppressed, and didn't know they were taxed without representation. This is counterfactual; it is just Con's fantasy. We had printers. We had broadsides and newspapers. We had Tom Paine and other pamphleteers. The causes of the war were famous, much talked about. Our oppression was so famous that Edmund Burke, a loyal Englishman in England, gave us the rationale that resulted in the electrifying call, "No taxation without representation." [1] I don't think any reader of this debate can believe that we were ignorant of the arguments for and against revolution. And, even if Con's outlandish claim were true, how would that have made the BTP a bad thing? - Con calls the founding fathers thugs, says their purpose was to get more money. Con does not support this claim, and does not link it to the Boston Tea Party. But, even so, according to http://www.davidstuff.com..., five of the fifty-six signers of the declaration were captured and tortured before they died. Nine died of combat wounds or military privation. Two lost sons in the war. One had sons captured. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. One lost his ships, his properties, his home, and died in rags. One served without pay, lost his possessions, and ended in poverty. Eight had their properties looted. When Cornwallis set up in Thomas Nelson Jr.'s home, it was Nelson himself who urged Washington to destroy it. One had to flee his wife's deathbed, to live in caves and forest; he died of starvation and exhaustion. These results were foreseeable. What could they have expected when they took on the world's greatest military power? It is impossible to believe that the founding fathers were in it for the money. Not that any of this has to do with the Boston Tea Party, but Con angers me when he claims that the revolution was a scheme to enrich the founding fathers. A quote from the above link: "They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." Conclusion: In his opening salvo, Con made some claims relevant to the resolution. Those relevant claims have been refuted and dropped. Since then, all of Con's claims have been some combination of irrelevant, unsupported, or obviously and spectacularly untrue. Con had the burden of proof, which he didn't come close to lifting. Please vote Pro. [1] Imagining Other Political Philosopy - A Primer: Edmund Buke, Tom Paine, and the French Revolution of 1789. http://www.imagining-other.net...