Tea Party Protests - History

History

See also: Taxation history of the United States

The theme of the Boston Tea Party, an iconic event of American history, has long been used by anti-tax protesters with libertarian and conservative viewpoints. It was part of Tax Day protests held throughout the 1990s and earlier. The libertarian theme of the "tea party" protest has also been used by Republican Congressman Ron Paul and his supporters during fundraising events in the primaries of the 2008 presidential campaign to emphasize fiscal conservatism, which they later claimed laid the groundwork for the modern-day Tea Party movement. Young Americans for Liberty, with the endorsement of Rep. Paul, organized a protest in late-2008 for January 24 the following year with participants dressing in Native American costumes and dumping soft drinks into New York's Susquehanna River in protest of former NY Governor David Paterson's proposed 18% tax increase on soda. As home mortgage foreclosures increased, and details of the 2009 stimulus legislation became known, more organized protests began to emerge.

Read more about this topic:  Tea Party Protests

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
    —Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)

    “The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
    —Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)