Much like other tea party people like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, Judge Vinson, who overturned the Affordable Care Act, botched some history. In his decision, he references the Boston Tea Party -- an obvious wink and nod to the tea party.
“It is difficult to imagine,” Judge Vinson, of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Fla., wrote in a central passage of his 78-page opinion, “that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place.”
The Tea Act of 1773, which precipitated the Tea Party, didn't impose any taxes -- at all. In fact, as you've probably read here multiple times, the Tea Act gave the East India Company a huge corporate tax cut. The Tea Party protesters were obviously opposed to this corporate tax cut. Again, the original Tea Party was precipitated by a tax cut! Wrap your head around that one, tea party people.
Anyway, Judge Vinson should have actually read about the Tea Act before he wrote this misinterpretation of history into the record.