No, we're not saying we wish the British had won the war or that we wish America had never been born. We're just saying that American history glosses over a lot of true dick behavior. After all, consider that...

But as it turns out, these latest teabaggers are simply carrying on a longstanding tradition of proud, vaguely patriotic douchebaggery that they learned from the OG's of asshole behavior; the guys who tossed some tea into a harbor a couple hundred years ago.

It's easy to say the modern teabaggers are assholes. The modern teabaggers are assholes. See? We didn't even break a sweat.

5 Great Britain Had No Idea The Colonists Were Unhappy

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Benjamin Franklin had been chosen by the Pennsylvania colonial legislature to represent the colonies before the crown. If the colonies were pissed, or sick of paying unfair taxes (or as was more often the case, not paying them), it was Franklin's job to let the crown know.

Unfortunately, Ben really loved the crown. Right before the revolution, he had been trying, unsuccessfully, to convince the king to take back Pennsylvania from the Penn family, and put it under royal control.

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When the issue of the Stamp Act first came up, even though the colonists were furious, Ben Franklin was all about it, and he told Great Britain as much. Hell, he even gave a friend of his the cushy job collecting the new taxes.

But Why?

Because he was fucking clueless about the people he was representing and spent most of his time in Britain. When colonists eventually showed up at his house rioting, he must have been just shocked that they were so angry about the Stamp Act. Or, he would have been shocked, but people were rioting at his house and threatening to hang him, so he kind of had some other stuff to deal with.

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When you think about it, Ben Franklin was a terrible choice for Voice of the People. The dude managed to be a rich, successful, self-made, internationally jet-setting playboy in the 18th goddamn century, for fuck's sake. John Q. Public he was not. Of course he didn't mind the Stamp Act; if it didn't at all impede his ability to fuck princesses on hot air balloons, (or whatever the 18th Century analogue to the mile high club was), why should he care? Franklin's hypothetical balloon-humping to one side, the point is that Great Britain was blissfully unaware on the other side of the ocean while the colonists steamed and let their rage build.