The Charleston Liberty Tree has something in common with its more famous counterpart in Boston: neither tree made it to the end of the Revolutionary War.

The Boston Liberty Tree was cut down by Loyalists in 1775, and the Charleston Liberty Tree was burned down by the British in 1780.

In researching these trees and their ultimate fates, I couldn’t help but laugh: the trees are meaningless. They’re literally landmarks, not secret meeting houses. Removing the trees does nothing whatsoever to prevent the Patriots from doing the Patriot thing; in fact, it’s entirely possible that it spurred the “victims” to rebel all the harder.

It’s just a weird thing for Loyalists to get upset about, right?

And then I realized that things really haven’t changed very much since then. Politically active people of all stripes these days also get kind of overwrought over relatively stupid stuff.

Just saying.