Shays' Rebellion and the Financial Bailout- A Surprising Connection

This bailout scam is not something new or revolutionary at all- it is the same old stuff that our revolutionary founding fathers already dealt with. Let me tell you are a little story.

Once upon a time, America started to go into an economic recession. The government responded to this recession by making the value of the dollar weaker, putting in place oppressive regulations on businesses, and raising fees on many goods. This caused the recession to deepen. Many small business owners and homeowners who had taken out loans struggled to repay these loans, as is natural in a slowing economy with rising taxes. They began to sell off any assets they had to make some money- assets in the form of bank notes. Since everyone was selling these bank notes at the same time, and it was unsure whether the notes were worth anything anyways, the notes quickly lost value and became next to worthless.

The story continues. These bank notes were eventually bought up by a small number of speculators- very wealthy bankers on the east coast of the country. These bankers were politically connected, and after paying basement prices for these notes, they then turned around and asked for the government to step in and buy these notes from them at a grossly inflated value. These speculators made substantial amounts of money, while taxpayers and homeowners were outraged. Citizens wrote in to their legislators, asking them to not pass any more taxes, not regulate further, and not pay any more bailouts. The elites in government ignored the citizens requests.

This story is not describing our current bailout crisis. This story describes Shays Rebellion.

These events happened in 1786. Back then, it inspired a revolution against government, a revolution that culminated in the Constitution of the United States. I'm not advocating a revolution today- but how many abuses to our liberties, our freedoms, our property, are we going to take? How many times must we stand by and watch oppression, tyranny, and injustice grow in our own country? Shays is depicted in our history books as a villain, but it was his righteous actions that made our nation better. Do we have any Daniel Shays any more?

Read more about Shays Rebellion at these sites, here, here, here, and here.