Debt and Dumb

[DainBramaged]

Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, and the rest of the Republican candidates are running for president on the idea that today’s federal government is far out of line with the original intent of the Founding Fathers. The Constitution, in Perry’s view, permits only a narrow and specific list of activities to be run out of Washington—and Social Security and Medicare are definitely not on this list. As they vie for the support of the Tea Party faithful, the candidates compete to enumerate the ways in which they are, in the title of Perry’s recent book, Fed Up!

They say this is the Boston Tea Party redux. But that tea party was about the American colonists’ objection to being taxed by the British Parliament, in which they had no representation—not the scope of a national government or the power of a duly elected legislature to tax its citizens. With their steadfast resistance to taxes, their hostility toward central government, and their willingness to risk a national default, today’s Republican candidates tap into a different American tradition—one that begins not with tea but with whiskey: the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.

To understand that rebellion and why President George Washington was willing to send troops to put it down, go back to the early days of the Revolution and look at what really motivated the founders.

In September 1776 a young artillery captain named Alexander Hamilton struggled to cross the woods of northern Manhattan. With the British at his heels, he was one of the last American officers to reach safety. Political considerations had required George Washington to defend New York, but with their fleet and large numbers of mercenaries the British had easily surrounded and repeatedly overwhelmed the patriot forces.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/11/debt-and-dumb-201111