Patriotic mobs and harbor tea-dumping returned to Boston on Saturday as the city marked the 250th anniversary of the revolutionary protest that preceded America’s independence.
The commemoration of the Boston Tea Party included scheduled reenactments of the throwing of tea leaves into the city’s harbor and community meetings that preceded the defiant act on Dec. 16, 1773 — though this time, the symbolic protest was aided by spotlights and microphones. City officials were expecting thousands of visitors for the celebration.
Crowds who gathered to watch the reenactment quickly joined in, shouting “Huzzah!” along with the costumed actors as boxes of tea were dumped in the harbor. Later, they resoundingly booed an actor who read King George III’s order closing the bay, and they cheered as narrators detailed the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.
Tea for the reenactment was supplied by the East India Co., the same British company that was at the center of the raucous dispute.
They could have. But they didn’t. Just like the Jan 6 protestors.
The difference is that the Boston Tea Partiers were on the winning side of history. If the British had won the American Revolutionary War, then we’d be talking about those anti-social racists who ruined a bunch of tea because they were pissy about paying for it.
And if the Jan 6 terrorists had succeeded in overthrowing the government, future generations might end up learning about them as revolutionary heroes.