History of New England political freedoms and local democracy, which they felt was increasingly threatened by the English government. The main grievance was taxation, which colonists argued could only be imposed by their own legislatures and not by the Parliament in London. Their political cry was "no taxation without representation." A ship was planning to land tea in Boston on December 16, 1773, and Patriots associated with the Sons of Liberty raided the ship and dumped all the tea into the harbor. This Boston Tea Party outraged British officials, and the King and Parliament decided to punish Massachusetts, passing the Intolerable Acts in 1774.
Taxation as theft economic gains should be used to fund basic provisions that provide for infrastructure and enhance economic growth. Taxation as theft The idea of taxation as theft is a viewpoint found in a number of political philosophies. Under this view, government transgresses property rights by enforcing compulsory tax collection. Voluntaryists, anarcho-capitalists, as well as Objectivists and most minarchists and libertarians see taxation as a clear violation of the non-aggression principle. Murray Rothbard argued in "The Ethics of Liberty" in 1982 that taxation is theft and that tax resistance is therefore legitimate: "Just as no one is morally required to answer a