The Tea Party

I have several online friends and we often violate one of the best kept axioms of maintaining good family relations and friendship – “Never discuss politics or religion.” We do that often, but, we do so with the understanding that we all have different views and opinions, and we respect each other’s right to hold different views. Ultimately, we are capable of coming to the point that we can choose to “agree to disagree” and move on.

The other day the discussion came around to the topic of The Tea Party. After providing a link to an article at the New Yorker site: The billionaire Koch brothers’ war against Obama : The New Yorker, one of the circle of friend commented that he was actively opposing the “teabaggers”. This is not an idea that I disagree with, but it got me contemplating: How do you actively oppose a group like the tea party, especially if, as the New Yorker article exposes, that group is so clandestinely well funded?

Well, you speak out where and when you can, and today we have probably the best vehicle ever invented to voice our opinions – the internet and the blogoshere. We can now stand up on our own little soap box in cyberspace and be heard. Instead of reaching 100’s, 1,000’s or even a 100,000+ as was recently achieved by a certain conservative talk show host. We each have the ability to reach 1,000,000’s with our message.

There is a speech at the end of “The American President” that was stuck with me 15 years now, here is a small excerpt:

“I've known Bob Rumson for years, and I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it! We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.
…
We've got serious problems, and we need serious people, and if you want to talk about character, Bob, you'd better come at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card. If you want to talk about character and American values, fine. Just tell me where and when, and I'll show up. This is a time for serious people, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up.”

I do wish that all the politician would listen to this speech and heed its meaning, but to the Tea Party, your fifteen minutes has not yet expired, but it soon will be, and I’m going to tell you why:

Because the landscape of history is littered with carcasses of causes just like yours who’s only purpose was to dominant the lives of others for their own interests, and as is so often the case, you have completely failed to recognize and understand history. Sadly that landscape is also litter with the victims of these causes, but ultimately they fail. Why?... Because the course of human development throughout history has always navigated toward personal liberty with an understanding and acceptance of social responsibility. Put another way, “I am not my brother’s keeper, however, what I do for my brother, I do also for myself.” The majority of people are generally more tolerant, understanding, and giving of themselves than they are given credit. Their leaders, good or bad, do all they can to exploit this condition to their own ends.

The tea party while trying desperately attempt to cover its message in reasonable conservative libertarianism rhetoric, is selling nothing more complicated then fear, despair, and hatred to the masses. Message – if you are not like us, you are a danger to us. They want don’t want the government legislating anything that will better the lives of all citizens, they do want it to legislate how you live your life, as long as it’s their way. They want to dominate your life. I don’t know if domination and submission are an innate human trait, but, I would think so… We are after all nothing more than animals, a fact that abrades many, and we can find reams of evidence of such traits in the animal kingdom. While there are many who will deny this, many who in the follow category, “Where one will lead, many will follow.”

Most political movements, with the tea party being the movement du jour, use this knowledge that many will follow in an attempt to enactment personal agendas that are only in the interest of a selfish few who believe the world is there only for those who willing to take it. Tea Party members and supporters please remember there was a little guy with big ears from Texas a few years ago who with his reform movement was going to fix all our woes with his simple solutions to government… Where is he now? You are destine to suffer the same fate. An obscure bookmark in the history of evolution.

The opening post for A Passionate Moderate

There is the very vocal radical fringe on both sides, there are then additional conservative or liberal voices that lean a little more toward the middle, and all are very passionate about their causes. Rarely do we hear of a passionate moderate, and in most circles that that term would be considered an oxymoron. But, we all have a voice, and it is important that we stand up for what we believe in passionately, even it that cause is a moderate compromise to a very liberal or very conservation ideal.

I was in my younger years a rather staunch conservative. As I aged and gain experience, my conservatism began to moderate. Today I consider myself a moderate who is a social liberal and fiscal conservative. I look at conservatism from the root of the word, conserve. I don’t mind that our government spends money on needed programs; I just would like to see that we get the biggest bang for our buck. I believe that it is socially responsibility does not include activities that prevent people from living their lives in a way the cause no else any harm. And I passionately believe that people and their lives, and their rights are more important than any political, ideological, or religious rhetoric.