RE THE TEA PARTY TAXATION INDIANS TAX COLLECTORS RELIGION JESUS

Re Tea Party and Race, and comments, DK site:
He had a nice squibb here:

"...The story of which this is a part goes back to the 1930s and the New Deal.  No region was hit harder by the Depression than the South, and Roosevelt probably saved thousands from starvation.    His relief and agricultural programs, as well as the construction of infrastructure including the Tennessee Valley Authority, benefited millions.  White Southern politicians tried to keep the benefits out of the hands of blacks, but they cold not entirely do so.  Until 1937, FDR's economic help trumped his wife's open sympathy for the civil rights movement. But the 1936 elections threatened the South with a terrifying prospect.  For the first time in about a century, as a I learned writing my last book, the Democratic Party won majorities in Congress that did not depend on southerners.  The Negro vote (as it was then called) already played an important role in northern states, and the southerners feared that FDR's activism might draw on these majorities to overturn their social order.  In 1937 they immediately joined the decimated Republicans to block FDR's court packing plan, and that signaled the end of Roosevelt's legislative juggernaut.  A coalition of southern Democrats and conservative Republicans was strong enough to block effective civil rights legislation for a quarter of a century....." DK


Re such nonsense as 'no taxation without representation' arguments justifying the Boston Tea Party and Rebellion, etc., etc., the fact is that the colonists were among the most lightly taxed people, relatively speaking, in human history. 

Furthermore, the practical difficulties of collecting either taxes or duties from the colonists was well documented, even back then. The British mostly ignored the problem, although the rhetoric was bitter. 

Professor Allison, Teaching Company, "Before 1776", has some enjoyable lectures on these topics. See especially his illustration on the Crown agent's difficulties collecting duty on a sugar shipment.

WHY NOT ALSO THROW IN RELIGION, TO RACE AND REPRESENTATION ISSUES?

For comparison, take a look at Roman taxes on, say,  Judea.

Interestingly, Jesus was a friend of any number of tax gatherers for Rome. It is all over the gospels. 

See for example, the accounts in E P Sanders, The Historical Figure Of Jesus.