Sam Adams: "Badass Founding Father"

David Forsmark has a quote from Sam Adams which suggests to me that many political things have changed mightily, and not for the better, since the American revolution:

“No taxation without representation” was the unifying theme behind much of Adams’s rhetoric, including this line from his speech protesting the Sugar Act:

For if our Trade may be taxed, why not our Lands? Why not the Produce of our Lands & everything we possess or make use of?

Import duties? Property taxes? Taxes on crops? Inventory taxes? Taxes on business machinery?

More on seven such founders here.