"I'm just waiting for one of you lefties to have the balls to step up and defend this sexually derogetory term that you are applying to millions of good Americans."

Gosh, I must have led a sheltered life, I've never heard of that particular description. By the way, the word is 'derogatory'. I'm not aware of it being used in the sense that you describe but, evidently, I'm an innocent when it comes to these things. Anyway, true lefties are too politically correct to use such sexist terms in the way you claim, lefties are very boring that way. You didn't provide a link so I can only assume that your definition of 'leftie' extends to anyone to the left of Palin or Beck, which pretty much encompasses the vast majority of Americans and an even higher percentage of us foreigners.

For the forum's interest, I've copy/pasted a letter to the editor in today's Globe & Mail telling me something about the Boston Tea Party I didn't even know myself. Interesting!

. . . . . . . .

Tea history, one lump or two?

The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was not a protest by principled freedom fighters against “King George’s tax” but, rather, quite the opposite. A clever governor of Massachusetts Bay colony had worked out a way of landing tea at Boston Harbour, with taxes fully paid, and to sell it for less than the smugglers could manage (Tea Party Movement Steeped In American Tradition – Feb. 6).

Tea smuggling was a huge enterprise, far greater than marijuana today. Colonists expected the king’s army to open up new lands, push back the Indians and French, and stop those pesky Roman Catholics from filtering down from Quebec (a complaint to be found in the Declaration of Independence). The colonists expected this high level of government service but, like the Americans they were soon to become, groused at paying for them. The Tea Party was organized by smugglers who saw their profits about to vanish. The mob tossed into the sea 342 chests of tea from three vessels. They demanded, although the tax had been paid, that the ships be sent back to England. This, of course, would have left the tea trade open to smugglers, the mafia of their day. The raid wasn’t called “The Boston Tea Party” at the time. That romantic myth-making came later.

The Tea Party is, indeed, deeply rooted in American tradition, although not in the way most Americans believe.

Ron Haggart, Toronto