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It wasn't even that they wanted to pay higher taxes. The Stamp and Tea Acts actually LOWERED the taxes. But it was incredibly easy to get around paying the taxes previously. So what Parliament did was say, "guys, you have to actually start paying the taxes, but we'll make them lower as a compromise."
That's why the American elites revolted.
it might just be incredibly more complicated than that.
It might have been, but it really wasn't.
it was
America then: No taxation without representation
America now: Puerto rico gets taxed. No representation.
At the time of the revolution, the taxation rate in the 13 colonies was 10% what was being paid by people in England. The whole thing was a lie.
Same with the residents of DC
Same with consumers since 2025.
Pretty sure it was the whole no taxation without representation thing that spurred that revolt
Naw, it was the Iron Act restricting the right to bear shovels.
When the executive is acting outside of their authority and ignoring the legislative and judicial branches, do we really have a representative democracy anymore?
You're being a bit hyperbolic there.
I hope that some people come out of this realizing that the US wasn't founded on deep idealistic principles, but mostly on greed.
What led to the Tea Party:
The whole "no taxation without representation" bit was a less important concern than the government messing with their profits. In fact, I read somewhere (can't find the reference now) that the government tried to negotiate with the smuggler rebels, but the rebels weren't willing to meet because the "no taxation without representation" was more of a pretext than an actual reason.
The other important bit here is the reason the government needed to raise money. It had just been involved in a major war, which it had won. This is the 7-years war, a.k.a. the French and Indian wars. In those wars, they beat France, and as a result, took over most of France's territory in North America.
Look at the pink in this colonial map of the Americas. That's all territory gained by the British in that war.
As a result of that war, the British settlement in the Americas was going to be able to expand from 13 colonies hugging the coast to an entire new area including the entire great lakes region, what's now Florida, the Gulf coast, the Saint Lawrence river, etc. All that was required was that Britain follow the terms of the Treaty of Paris / Royal Proclamation of 1763. In part, that war was fought on behalf of the colonists to remove the threat from the French and expand the territory of the colonies, so it makes sense that the beneficiaries of that war (the colonists) would help pay for it. But, some of the British colonists didn't want to pay for it. So, they rebelled and took the territory for themselves, ignoring the terms of the Treaty of Paris which gave some rights to the French and Indians who were in that newly acquired territory.
TL;DR: British colonists in the Americas who rebelled were greedy, not idealistic.
The colonists were being charged a tax rate that was merely 10% of the rate being charged back in England. Taxation simply doesn’t make sense as a motive for revolution.
I agree and here is why. From the beginning, America told a lie. It wrapped itself in the language of freedom, but the bones of the thing—its economic engine, its social order, its very definition of who counted as human—were built on slavery. The Southern plantation class didn’t just benefit from that lie; they forced it into the structure of the Revolution. And we have been living with the consequences ever since.
By the 1770s, abolitionist winds were blowing through Britain. The Somerset decision in 1772 made it clear that slavery had no legal standing in English law. That terrified Southern elites. They saw the writing on the wall and understood something the rest of us are still catching up to: liberty and slavery cannot coexist. So they made a choice.
When Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, he tried to condemn the slave trade. The Southern states shut that down. Their message was simple and brutal—no independence unless slavery is protected. The Revolution was supposed to be a break from tyranny, but what they built was just a new structure to preserve their own power. The hypocrisy was not an accident. It was the blueprint.
Writers of the period—some knowingly, some unwillingly—captured this fracture. Phillis Wheatley, writing in bondage, praised liberty in verse while living its total denial. Jefferson wrote about the natural rights of man even as he enslaved his own children. Crèvecœur celebrated the American farmer while stepping carefully around the blood in the soil.
This is not ancient history. The same corruption runs through our systems today. You can see it in voter suppression, in prison labor, in economic policies that preserve wealth for the few at the expense of the many. We keep pretending this country was founded on pure ideals, but the rot was there at the root. The Southern elite didn't just defend slavery—they rewired the American idea around it. And we still haven't torn that wiring out.
Until we do, every time we talk about freedom, there's an asterisk.
When Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, he tried to condemn the slave trade
I just love how they made a distinction between slavery and the slave trade. Jefferson might have condemned the slave trade but he had over 600 slaves throughout his life.
Capturing, buying and selling people into slavery? Bad.
Owning slaves, and having the children of those slaves be born into slavery? Fine.
Y’all really should consider reading this.
https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/the-story-of-the-boston-tea-party-in-myth-and-reality/
It’s way more complicated than the reductionist 5th grade level story taught in US schools that everyone settles on being reality. Right up there with George Washington’s cherry tree story (didn’t happen) or the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock (no, they didn’t land there).
The Boston Tea Party was about money, and about people with money being upset that other people with money were undercutting their profits, so they destroyed some really expensive goods in a way that disastrously hurt their own local business owners and not the people they claimed to be trying to hurt.
I’m sure parallels could be made between one of the US’s founding stories being about rich people manipulating the populace into war and today, where rich people are still manipulating people into fighting each other or whomever else.
it actually does hint that perhaps the path to overthrowing Trumpism is to radicalize the merchant class (aka petit bourgeoisie) against his agendas and force direct action. it's not so far fetched. for instance, Patriotic Millionaires. <- links to a short article about their plan to reduce inequality by taxing wealth
the rich are not a monolith. they each have their own special interests. there are many outside Trump's inner circle who depends on certain aspects of the economy being stable and profitable. maybe some of those angry multi-millionaites will switch loyalties now they see how bad Elonazi is for their bottom line?
Yep, I really don't understand how the wealthy in America think that trump will ever stand by his promises. They think that he will bow to them when he has the power to do otherwise? He's learning from putin and using his techniques to take down the wealthy.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was why he's doing the tariff thing in the first place. Take down Bezos, Apple, etc., so they have to bow to him. They're in his game and don't even know it.
To be clear, he's dumb, but he knows how to hire and listen to really smart, evil people.
Yep, I really don't understand how the wealthy in America think that trump will ever stand by his promises. They think that he will bow to them when he has the power to do otherwise? He's learning from putin and using his techniques to take down the wealthy.
they didn't trust him. they (wrongly) believed that they were powerful enough on their own to control him because they thought they were smarter than him.
they're all learning what we all learned his first term. it doesn't matter how smart, how powerful, how rich you are. Donald Trump is a hurricane of chaos, hate, ignorance, depravity, and egoism. they aided him in growing terminal velocity and now he's unstoppable by standard methods.
we need to wake up and realize that because he gained control through abnormal methods that it will take abnormal methods to restore balance and control.
they didn’t trust him. they (wrongly) believed that they were powerful enough on their own to control him because they thought they were smarter than him.
I agree, but I also think they need to fix the things they helped break. Let them sit in the stew they made and use those super brain cells to get them out of it.
we need to wake up and realize that because he gained control through abnormal methods that it will take abnormal methods to restore balance and control.
Dude, normal people can protest and that's about it. Don't get me wrong, protesting works but who knows if that's enough. But the wealthy control all of our data, the police and our utilities. The wealthy are the only ones that can fix this.
I think it is deeper. They didn't trust him per se. But they trusted he would screw things up royaly. They have deep pockets. They can weather the storm. The benefit for them is the regression of money to the people. And people who are less comfortable demanding more from companies. A lot of the wealthy are driven by a desire to do things without impediment. Elon is a classic example. He doesn't want regulations ot uppity employees slowing him down. Other wealthy are similar. So be resetting the regulations and the employee employer balance, they remove obstacles that slow them down from doing what they want to do. Overall, it was getting to hard for them to exploit the people and the planet. And they trusted trump to reset gains in those areas.
Americans didn't, the American elites did. Americans just died in yet another war started by the aristocracy.
To get out from under The British Empire, which is pretty understandable during the time period.
Not very understandable. Britain had become a new and particularly liberal democracy by this point. The colonists were paying much less tax than their cousins back home, and “The Empire” didn’t really get started until after the Americans had revolted anyway.
All of this is bullshit.
What made them "particularly liberal"? They were exporting their "prisoners" to the American colonies. They were still colonizing other territories, extending their reach. They were still selling African slaves via slave trade through The East India Trading Company. The Empire was in full swing by the 1600s, through the 1700s, well into the 1800s where they started to lose steam through the century.
Except that's not 100% correct.
Sure the American Elite joined in, well, some of them did. Mostly it was revolution driven by the middle class. Maybe the upper middle class, but the stamp and tea taxes were incredibly unpopular.
I'd imagine the sentiment among the poorer people was something along the lines of "better to be lorded over by a local asshole, than one half the world away".
Also, the quartering bullshit. That was just as unpopular, so much so that we have an entire amendment banning it specifically.
The US has never had free trade, look at the patent system they force other countries to abide by, whose length and terms are dictated by the US.
This is just a continuation of the same. Apple even had a patent on rounded corners on rectangles.
Bruh how you gone patent a shape
I reworded my response to this four times, but settled on this.
I guess this insane turn to fascism and cutting off all economic ties to the world might seem like a “normal progression” but I wouldn’t call swerving into oncoming traffic a normal progression. (He’s here we are I guess)
China produces the bulk of rare earths the US uses for things like military production, which puts the US as dependent on China as Canada is dependent on the US. The reality is absurd no matter which way things go.
Europe is doing carbon border adjustments to attempt to do something similar if I'm not mistaken, though its still early stages.
But tea costs not much more now. Let’s get back when it’s more considerable expensive.
Didn’t want to not pay tariffs. The Tea they destroyed was tariff-free, which hurt the organisers who were smuggling tea and charging a huge mark-up to customers. The revolutionary leadership were furious when they heard their cause was being hijacked by a gang of crooks, and they put the ringleaders on trial for it.
The Tea they destroyed was tariff-free, which hurt the organisers who were smuggling tea and charging a huge mark-up to customers
This is a critical bit that gets overlooked in the US framing of events. The taxed tea was actually cheaper than what local businessmen were charging! We didn't have a grass-roots revolution for the benefit of "we the people". It was organized and funded by the local elites, who were throwing a fit that larger overseas elites were telling them what to do.
Eh it’s a bit more complicated than that. The ordinary people had their own reasons for rebellion but yeah ultimately it was captured by an elite faction as with basically every revolution in history.
Americans today... "Tea is for fags."
Unmute this meme immediately!
Taxes, "freedom", "liberty", "independence".... all these rallying calls were just dogwhistles the American oligarchs used to get the colonists to revolt against the British oligarchs, because they wanted to get rid of the competition. The long con is still going on, the US is and always has been owned and operated by the rich for the benefit of the rich. The mask is just slipping a bit now.
It wasn't just about taxes / tariffs. The East India Company (EIC) had a monopoly on the tea trade. There was no negotiating the price or refusing to buy it. The colonists were expected to pay whatever the EIC asked. Imagine being told you have to buy a cup of coffee for $50, oh, and by the way, there is a tax on it too. The EIC blockaded the port and wouldn't let anything in or out of Boston by sea until the tea was unloaded. So, the colonists unloaded the tea, directly into the harbor.
American Revolution 2.0? Wink wink, nudge nudge.
Their oppressors didn't have tanks.
Our oppressors do.
There's no way out.
Unless...
Anyone down to steal a tank?
(For Legal Purposes, I'm talking about GTA6 😉)