It's difficult, McGrath, to not read between the lines when you throw tea on the water and gas on the fire. This reminds me of the questions raised in the book Everyday Ethics. The book had better questions than answers in my opinion, like: 'Do you like your friends?' and 'If the saint is such a great guy, why doesn't anyone want to spend the afternoon with him?'

As far as historians can tell, Sam Adams organized the tea party and most of the aggressive acts that lead up to the revolution. He was not involved in smuggling. Long before tea party time, he seems to have lost interest in money and focused on his fight with the British.

Thomas Paine wrote to "Give me Liberty or Give Me Death" in 1776. During the tea party, in 1773, Paine was still working in England as an excise officer. The year after the tea party, Paine lost his job trying to get an increase in pay and then he emigrated to America.

> "But I remember at the time of the Rhodesian UDI the breakaway leader > Smith plaintively protesting that it was unfair the way his regime > was being ostracised by America, because, after all, his position > was pretty well the same as that of the American Founding Fathers. > Which was true enough.">

In what ways do you see this as true enough?