those words were spoken by the brilliant 18th century massachusetts governor thomas hutchenson, and i'll tell you more about him later. let me tell you what else he said because the words hold true today as much as they did then in 1774. governor hutchenson said you can take the happiest and most comfortable people and use malicious, rhetorical skills to arouse popular discontent with their government, with their rulers, with everything around them, even themselves. this is one of the weaknesses, he said, these are his words "one of the weaknesses of human nature of which ambitious politicians make you to serve their purposes." i year before he uttered those words, a group of boston rebel rowsers convinced americans they were miserable, and to quote hitchenson again, "those who think they are misrabble are so despite real evidence to the contrary." now, i doubt if there's a single one of today's tea party patriots who knew what the original tea party and tea party movement were about. far from being patriots, the original tea partyers were smugglers. some of them, among the wealthiest me