The New Boston Tea Party

While thousands of libertarians sit on the sidelines, griping about any action that might ruffle the feathers of the State, two hundred and fifty rebellious and admirable taxpayers staged a new Boston Tea Party, on September 14, at the small community of Boston, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. These citizens, many of them conservative businessmen and women, were vigorously portesting [sic] the proposal of Governor Raymond P. Shafer to impose that iniquitous instrument, a state income tax.

The protestors, dressed like their illustrious forebears as Indians, paddled a canoe onto the waters of the Youghiogheny River, and dumped into the river cardboard containers labelled “tea”.

The tax rebels also revived another institution with a glorious and long-lived tradition in America—hanging politicians in effigy. Governor Shafer was hung in effigy, and any politicians who arrived at the demonstration in person were given a hostile, though non-violent, reception.

Murray Rothbard

 

The Libertarian Forum, October 1, 1969http://mises.org/journals/lf/1969/1969_10_01.aspx#2

 

More from Murray Rothbard

• Just War
• War, Peace, and the State
• America’s Great Depression
• The Ethics of Liberty
• Man, Economy, and State
• Betrayal of the American Right
• The Anatomy of the State
• Society Without a State
• For a New Liberty, The Libertarian Manifesto
• A Biography of Murray Rothbard
• A Biography of A.R.J. Turgot
  • The Turgot Collection
• A Biography of Adam Smith
• NATIONS BY CONSENT
• War Collectivism
• Conceived in Liberty
• The New Left, RIP
• Do You Hate the State?
• Who Owns Water?
• Outlawing Jobs
• The Fallacy of the ‘Public Sector’
• Repudiating the National Debt
• Vices Are Not Crimes
• The Health Plan’s Devilish Principles
• How to Think Like an Economist
• The Truth About Taxes
• Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure
• The Meaning Of Revolution
• The Nixon Administration: Creeping Cornuellism
• A Fable for Our Times By One of the Unreconstructed