No, Americans threw the tea in Boston harbor because the Brits had lifted the tea tax and the Yankee smugglers were going to have to find another racket. Your precious teabaggers, like their crooked namesakes, are a bunch of self-serving tax-dodgers, scofflaws and corporate criminals passing themselves off as patriots. Not that that's anything new.

John Hancock did not directly participate in the Boston tea party. But he stood to lose the most from the East India Company imports of English tea to Boston.

John Hancock was a wealthy shipping magnate, who made the bulk of his money illegally by smuggling. Many colonials were smugglers, Hancock just happened to have a flair for it.

It was a well known fact that John Hancock had made his fortune through smuggling Dutch tea, which was cheaper than East Indian tea. A commonly forgotten fact is that East Indian prices were cut before the introduction of the three pence tax, in effect making its price, even with the tax, cheaper than Hancock’s tea. Presented with this information, many loyalists did not wonder at Hancock’s involvement in the boycotting of East Indian tea and indeed, the entire war.

...this elegant dandy nearly single-handedly bankrolled the early protests in Boston.

Hancock smuggled glass, lead, paper, French molasses and tea......In the late 1760s, he was formally charge(d) with smuggling and although certainly guilty, his attorney was able to get Hancock relieved of all charges. The lawyer was Sam's cousin, John Adams.

http://www.boston-tea-party.org/smuggling/John-Hancock.html

And since England was a mercantilistic rival of the Dutch from 1652-1795 (UK actually declared war on Holland during our Revolution), this made Hancock not only a criminal, but a traitor as well. The whole Revolutionary War was fought as much for economic control of the colonies' riches as for any other reason. In other words, business interests often exploit public opinion for their own self-serving reasons, and disguise it by appealing to nationalistic, patriotic, and class divisions. That is the true danger of private economic power. It doesn't stay private for long.

Tom, you can be such a gullible child sometimes.

And as far as "red herring" is concerned, are you calling me a commie again? I'll have you know I'm a true blue American herring.