The Tea Party Movement – what’s it all about?

There seems to be a growing resentment in the United States about tax payers money being used for stimulus packages and bank bailouts. And so, many disgruntled American’s, have taken to joining the “Tea Party Movement,” as a way of voicing their concerns.

The term Tea Party, has been taken from the period in American history in 1773, when angry Americans rebelled against the British and their attempt to place a tax on tea, resulting in patriots taking to ships in Boston Harbour, and dumping the cargo of tea into the harbour waters. This of course was part of the lead up to the American War of Independence.

So what are today’s tea party activists, (or patriots as they like to be known,) actually protesting about. Well one of the key issues is tax payers money being spent on health care reform. But it is not just about the spending of government money, raised by taxation, on reforming health care and bailing out banks in the United States; it is more about the fear of erosion of freedom and choice, which Americans hold so dear in their democratic system.

Just over two hundred years ago Americans were incensed by the British imposing taxes on what was then considered a basic commodity. It wasn’t just about the tax, but about the way the distant imperial government was imposing taxes upon people who had very little say in the running of their country. Looking at this from a present day perspective, it is easy to see parallels between the Boston Tea Party Patriots and today’s modern Tea party movement. But one has to wonder, with all the anger and resentment coming to the boil, who exactly is going to end up in the “drink?”