It's your money... or is it?

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes," wrote one of America's great philosophers, Benjamin Franklin, in 1789. In our time, conservative populists have often tried to prove him wrong.

It's an easy way to get votes: tell people their government is stealing from them and needs to be replaced. "It's your money" is a popular way of referring to people's gross, not net, income. "You can spend it better than the government can," the masses are told.

This subject came up again, as it does most years, in small protests across the country on April 15, the date when federal income tax is due. This time, the anger was directed at President Obama for, as the protesters said, using tax money to pay for bankers' bonuses. The protesters, numbering between a few hundred and a few thousand in each city, brought boxes of tea, which they publicly destroyed. (See photos.)

This was supposed to recall the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when protesters climbed aboard ships in Boston Harbor and threw their cargo of tea into the ocean as a way of rejecting a new tax on tea. The British parliament, in which the colonists were not represented, had introduced the tax; so the slogan at the time was "No taxation without representation!"

Today's Republicans, of course, are well represented in government. Some of the protesters held signs or wore shirts saying "Don't blame me: I voted for Sarah [Palin]" (no mention of the actual candidate, John McCain). The logic behind the protest, however, sounds much more like the libertarian position held by another candidate, Ron Paul, whose supporters may have been there as well.

According to Paul's interpretation of the constitution, the U.S. federal government has no right to tax individuals. Until the 20th century, in fact, the government funded itself by selling land to individuals and corporations, and by taxing imported goods. It kept control over the money supply by regulating the mining of gold and silver.

By today's standards, it didn't have very much money to work with. Without enough federal agents, the government failed to prevent prospectors and settlers from violating agreements with Native American tribes. Time and again, it had to send in soldiers to protect the settlers, which usually led to war with the Indians.

Regulations could barely be enforced. Entrepreneurship flourished, but so did risk. The 19th century saw lots of technological progress, but also lots of bankruptcies. Speculation and bank failures plunged the national economy into chaos at almost regular intervals .

The 19th century was a time when land was cheap and when one good idea could earn you a fortune — but you could also lose everything. That's what happens if "it's your money".

The media have tried hard to portray the 2009 "tea party" as a grassroots movement that is sending a message to the government. But it turns out the media itself — the Fox News television network in particular — had actually organized the demonstrations.

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart had the last word on this. He was happy to note that, in order to protest wasteful spending, the demonstrators had actually bought a million tea bags.