by Freida Marie Crump
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Greetings from Poosey.
DATELINE: Boston, May 11, 1773. A group of demonstrators, some disguised as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea owned by the East India Company. They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The act was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act that had been passed by the British Parliament earlier this year.
Lord Mitch McConnell, leader of the Tory Party, responded immediately on the Colonial Fox Network by saying, “Winners make policy. Losers go home.” He insisted that the losing party in the recent election should have no voice in American policy, adding, “They’re just sore because they lost.” Earlier this month Lord McConnell had local washerwoman, Lizzy Warren, silenced on the floor of Congress. McConnell said, “She was breaking tradition with her language. Besides that, she was a woman.”
The head of the Colonial House Oversight Committee, Sir Jason Chaffetz, said that, “The men dressed as Indians were most likely from out of state. These were probably professional protestors hired by the so-called Revolutionary Party.” When asked about why his committee wasn’t investigating possible interference in the last Colonial election by the Tsar of Russia, he said, “That’s a minor matter. I’m too busy looking into letters sent by a fishmonger named Clinton that were sent via an insecure pony express rider.”
Meanwhile, King George of England responded by saying that, “The so-called Boston Tea Party didn’t really happen. It’s all fake news. I urge all my subjects to totally ignore everything they read in the press. The press is our enemy. From this day forward I decree that my people believe me and me alone.”
History might have come out differently if we had stifled protest from the beginning. There’s little doubt that the powers that be at the birth of our nation were just as irritated at people demanding to be heard as they are today, and when our senators and representatives traveled home to hear what their constituents had to say a couple of weeks ago, many of them wish they’d have stayed in Washington. Those who were met with angry protests began their hometown speeches with the standard lie of, “It’s great to live in a country where we allow this sort of free expression!” Translation: “Somebody get me out of here quick. Is there a back door to this place?”
Free expression is heartily encouraged and cheered when the speakers and protestors are touting our cause and when we disagree we resort to Lord McConnell’s, “Losers go home.” Both sides of the American political spectrum are vulnerable to this sort of hypocrisy. As the saying goes, it depends upon whose ox is being gored. However, it does seem especially ironic that the current political group who took their name from the historic Tea Party would be so quick to condemn acts of protest and civil disobedience today. It makes one wonder how the current Tea Party would have reacted to the original Tea Party.
McConnell has the cleverest method. Instead of holding open Town Hall meetings he charges $60 for a lunch by reservation only. Three questions into his last “public meeting” he announced that he’d have to leave in ten minutes. And of course he gives no credence at all to those who disagree with him, saying, “They’re sorry they lost the election.”
Anyone who lived through the Civil Rights and Viet Nam protests of earlier decades must surely realized that today’s marches and rallies are more reasonable and civil than some of the times we’ve endured in the past, and a peek further back into our past would find ladies being pelted with rocks on the streets of New York City because they had the audacity to ask for the right to vote. And let’s face it, our senators and representatives will listen most closely to those who can afford to take off in the middle of the day and plop down big bucks to be heard. This leaves only one response if we’re to keep our democracy alive… we must continue to listen to each other. Our government is stumbling because the parties refuse to compromise. Let us not commit the same sin with our neighbors. I’d suggest by sitting down and having a good chat… perhaps over a cup of tea.
You ever ’round Poosey, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.