On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:53:04 GMT, Joseph Oberlander
wrote:

And yet we are taxed HOW MUCH MORE than back then, even
adjusted for income/inflation? And we meekly accept it.

It depends on how you think about it. In one sense taxes were much
lower as a percentage of income. But as a percentage of cash income,
for many people they were much higher because very few transactions
were carried out in cash. So the danger of falling into tax arrears
and losing your land--landownership was also much more widespread than
it is now--was a consideration that affected the colonists much more
than it affects us now. This is why they understood the taxes as a
conspiracy to deprive them of their liberty and enslave them--i.e. to
institute a feudal regime much like in the home islands.