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kingsaint
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 80

Posted 11/16/2009 8:57 PM (GMT -6)

I came across an interesting passage in John Toland's biography of Adolf Hitler:

"Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Beor prisoners in South Africa and for Indians in the wild West; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination--by starvation and uneven combat--of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity."

I think one of the U.S.'s highest marks in history is its role in the defeat of Hitler, but even that is tempered by its possible role (as a bad example) in nazi crimes. This is a good example of why we should place the Kingdom of God over nation.

P.S. was the Boston Tea Party an act of terrorism?

Be without fear in the face of your enemies

Be brave and upright

Speak the truth

Safeguard the helpless

That is your oath

---Godfrey of Ibelin

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 11/17/2009 1:11 AM (GMT -6)

The Tea Party was motivated by economics. It was an anti-corporation revolt basically. Local merchants ganging up against Walmart. And as far as I know, nobody died in the Tea Party. Cargo, not human beings (say, women and children shopping in open markets) was targeted, and not for the purpose of instilling pure chaotic fear into the hearts of the populace to make society itself unstable. There are significant differences.

But...

Ben Franklin did call the Boston Tea Party "an act of violent injustice" and offered to pay for the tea himself (or help raise the money in Boston).

Tom

"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas Berdyaev

Asher
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477

Posted 11/17/2009 1:31 AM (GMT -6)

The Tea Party was PRIMARILY aimed at the British government. It was the fact that the tea in those particular ships had British taxes levied on them that made the tea on those ships the target. It was PRIMARILY about taxes levied through the Tea Act and the Townshend Acts. The British government was reimbursing the East India Company enough tax money on their tea to make it possible for them to compete with smuggled tea from the Dutch. But East India Tea had the tax built in even though it could now compete with the smuggled tea...THAT is what bothered the colonists. Taxation without representation.

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 11/17/2009 1:41 AM (GMT -6)

Right. And that (together with the fact that civilians were not targeted and the absence of religious ideology) makes the Tea Party something other than an act of "terrorism."

Tom

"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas Berdyaev

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 11/17/2009 1:43 AM (GMT -6)

But the connection to Hitler (if true) is VERY interesting.

T

"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas Berdyaev

kingsaint
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 80

Posted 11/17/2009 7:51 AM (GMT -6)

http://terrorism.about.com/b/2007/11/18/was-the-boston-tea-party-an-act-of-terrorism.htm

At the same time, there are some similarities. A violent act (albiet not against humans), by a non-state group (Sons of Liberty), partly done for symbolic value (terror?), for political purposes (taxation without representation). But, I would be the first person to protest facile similarities that are really of no purpose, like saying that music groups like GWAR and Motorhead are just like Elvis Presley because "its just not our parent's music", which is very popular journalistic gambit.

Be without fear in the face of your enemies

Be brave and upright

Speak the truth

Safeguard the helpless

That is your oath

---Godfrey of Ibelin

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 11/17/2009 8:16 AM (GMT -6)

Yeah, the similarities are definitely there too. In a sense, any "unjust violence" reduces to a kind of terrorism.

Elvis was sighted in Boston, or so I hear!

T

"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas Berdyaev

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