Interesting parallels between Samuel Adams and today.
The british portrayed him as a potentially violent rabble rouser. After the Boston tea party the British papers wrote of his vicious attack on merchant ships despite the fact that no one was injured and the ships were undamaged.
Today we have the democrats warning that Limbaugh, Beck and others are inciting violence and the democrats are warning of the violence seething under the surface of the tea parties.
Great analogy. The devils doesn’t get new tactics, we just forget the old ones.
Sam was a `rabble-rouser’ to the British and he wasn’t just “potentially violent”. His cousin John got an acquittal for the small group of British troops charged with murder who were attacked by a large crowd throwing stones, ice and rope-bats, `egged-on’ by Sam and others.
And he was involved in the tarring and feathering of the captain of a merchant ship, as well as the destruction of valuable cargo.
We know how the Bostonians felt, but as John Adams pointed out, we either walk the “We’re a nation of laws ... “ talk, then and now, or we don’t.
We’re either what we accuse the enemy of being, or we are not.