Anti-Government Ancient And Modern

The version of 'The Boston Tea party'
that most people are taught
is that the tea was thrown
into the water of the port
because the citizens wanted
to be represented,
they wanted to have an MP
because they all paid taxes.
This is the Tom Paine argument,
though one reason for Tom Paine
to be abroad was Parliamentary reform.
Many areas of the UK,
England Scotland and Wales,
that he knew had no more MP's
than citizens of the new colony had,
which is to say they had none.

Some tea may have been cast into the sea
to get the citizens their MP, but not a lot.
The truth was that the customs and excise on tea
were very high. This had made smuggling
a profitable and self protective enterprise.
And smugglers never pay tax on anything
and don't care about laws or representation.

So when the tea was cast into the sea
it was because the law had fallen 
into such a deep state of disrepair
such that nobody could lawfully say
why the tea had to go in so wasteful a way.

Modern tax evasion is endemic,
such that only the poor and fools
pay direct taxation voluntarily.
The biggest tax avoiders
are now the accountants
who run the square mile
of the financial sector in London.

The new pirates live by the pen
much more than they live by the cutlass