Recently, some idiot teacher named Michael Kaechele positively compared the riots in Ferguson to the Boston Tea Party. Yes. He really did:

The tragic event of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri have [sic] led to protests and rioting against police brutality. It brings to the surface (again) the institutional racism that has always been in our country. I think white privilege causes some to look at Ferguson as an excuse for criminal activity rather than a political protest. William Chamberlain tweeted a comment about the looting comparing it to the Boston Tea Party.

Along with this commentary, Kaechele included a picture:

One would think that even a teacher would be able to see the difference here. Just look at that picture. Can you spot some immediate differences? Just to be sure, I’ll point some out:

Patriots didn’t steal and drink the tea. I’m pretty sure the Ferguson looter isn’t going to dump those bottles of wine into the harbor.

The Patriots’ actions were against foreign business interests (England’s), not against the local community. When looters robbed from and burned down a QT, this had no restraining effect on the police. It wasn’t even remotely connected.

The looting was not a carefully planned act of political defiance. It was criminal opportunism.The Patriots dumped tea so that the East India Company would put pressure on Britain to change her policies toward the colonies. What exactly were the looters trying to accomplish in Ferguson?

For this and countless other reasons that have nothing to do with race, the Ferguson lootings and the Boston Tea Party, no matter how you try to spin it, are entirely different acts. The fact that most of the arrests in Ferguson related to the riots were of out-of-state residents should indicate that political and criminal opportunism were the most prevalent forces driving the lootings.

If any point was made by the riots, it was this: more police involvement is necessary in order to protect the law-abiding citizens in Ferguson from dangerous criminals. If you want to resist the tyranny of the civil government, you have to be smart about it. The Tea Party was smart. The Ferguson Riots were not.