Damn, I'm starting to sound like a tea-bagger. Currently I'm reading a book about the Whiskey Rebellion and all I can say is it's Deja vu all over again. That would be a good name for a post if I hadn't used it already. The gist of the rebellion is that Alexander Hamilton wanted a strong central government that was favorable to trade and commerce. Funny thing but the people who were in favor of this were the rich and powerful who made their fortunes through trade and commerce. It was the little guy who got screwed.
Since taxing trade and commerce to support a government whose purpose was to support trade and commerce wasn't popular with the trade and commerce group, Hamilton came up with a novel idea - tax the little guy. Back then, the littlest of the little guys were the settlers in the West. They were too far from the seats of power in the east to have much influence. That is, except the trade and commerce people out there who were rich enough to travel back and forth and ensure that they had lunch every now and again with their buddy, Alex.
For a variety of reasons, they decided to tax whiskey....sin tax, used by the common man, regressive tax, etc.. Of course, those reasons/techniques are still used today proving that there is no problem with beating a horse to death as long as the horse belongs to someone who isn't one of the rich and powerful.
So a rebellion occurred, it was crushed, everyone was forgiven (except the leaders) and the Republic was saved. That is, the republic that was designed to protect the interests of the rich and powerful was once again able to protect those interests with no further resistance from the proles.
So what does that have to do with States Rights and tea baggers. Well, Vermont has a fairly active secessionist movement based on not wanting to fund wars and protecting the rich and powerful but wanting to fund human and ecological needs instead. So we want what they want.....but only different.
Makes sense, eh?
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