After listening to some of the dismissive comments from the left toward the (nonpartisan) tea party participants and organizers, I ran across this description in Ira Stoll’s Samuel Adams: A Life:
… Parliament had been debating a bailout of the East India Company, which, despite its charter as a legal monopoly, had seen its business so eroded by smugglers that it was sitting on 18 million pounds of surplus tea and debts of ?1.3 million. On May 10, Parliament approved the Tea Act of 1773, allowing the East India company to sell its surplus tea to America, provided that the Townshend Act duty be collected.
So the original Tea Party was not just about unfair taxation, but also in opposition to government meddling in favor of a failing business. Maybe there’s more historical precedent than I thought.
