Tracy Warner contemplates the Occupy movement and the conflict between First Amendment rights and setting a precedent of not enforcing the rules: "Still, at least in Fort Wayne, the Occupiers don't seem to be causing trouble or costing much money, so it seems their First Amendment rights should prevail." He then dips into the magic bag of historical analogy and comes up with the Boston Tea Party, wondering what would have happened if that event from almost 238 years ago had been denounced as the Occupiers are today:
“How long can we tolerate these dissidents, these ne'er-do-wells who have nothing better to do than to dress like Indians and resort to thuggery and violence when they don't get their way?
And on and on, concluding with:
“Let's make these people move on before they make more demands, like free speech and freedom to protest.”
Making such comparisons is risky. For one thing, parallels are imagined that aren't really there. There isn't a lof of commonality between the passions of patriots seething on the edge of revolution and the fits and starts of dissidents in a mature republic.
And for another, a lot of people did disparage the revolution, in even stronger terms than Tracy imagines. A healthy percentage of the Colonists were Loyalists who supported the king, and when you throw in those who were neutral or just wanted to see what would happen, that's a lot of people to win over. One reason the Patriots took such a hard line against the tax on tea, in fact, wass that it was accompanied by permission for the British East India Co. to charge much lower prices than previously set, and it was feared Americans would be so seduced by cheap tea that they would let themselves be victimized by the Parliament-supported monopoly.
That brings up an interesting point Tracy didn't mention -- the collusion of Big Government and Big Business that fueled our revolutionary fervor is one complaint held in common today by the Occupy and Tea Party movements. They tend to focus on different aspects of the phenomenon and likely wouldn't suggest the same remedies, but it would be an interesting place to start the discussion.
