[Waterluvian]

I was talking to some American friends the other day about the Boston Tea Party. It was recently propped up by the ACLU as a proud heritage moment of American protest. But my understanding is that it was a riot involving theft and destruction of property. I don’t think the seizure and destruction of the contents of, say, an Amazon Delivery Van would be seen the same way.

As a non-American with no real motivation to see any specific narrative be promoted, it feels like American history often leans heavily on “the ends justify the means.”

[quacked]

There is a difference between targeted violence and destruction of property as a means to exert economic pressure on a trading entity, and untargeted violence and destruction of property as a means to express your displeasure with current life. The historical claim of the Boston Tea Party rioters is that they broke a padlock and paid for a new one, as the padlock was personal property; the rest of the cargo was dumped into the harbor and ruined deliberately.

If someone was protesting Amazon, or the government's protection of Amazon, and as part of their protest they seized and destroyed the contents of an Amazon delivery van, they would be demonstrating a viable and possibly effective method of hurting Amazon (although you'd have to destroy a lot of delivery vans.)

The fact of the matter is that there are no governments that exist by the full consent of the governed. The only way for a "fully justified" government to exist is for no government to exist. The American revolution was no more or less justified than the formation of the Ottoman empire, or of Egypt during the time of the pharaohs.

[SlickNixon]

Would the contents of the Amazon delivery van end up in the Boston Harbor or on ebay?

[throwaway742]

I personally wouldn't shed a tear over the seizure and destruction of the contents of an Amazon Delivery Van.