The Future of the Tea Party Movement

The latest Tea Party rallies have subsided yet the clamor of the Progressives embedded in the establishment goes on; the disapproving frowns and the clucking of tongues of those who “hear” “violence and hatred” whenever anyone suggests that the supreme law of the Land – the Constitution – be followed.

There is no doubt about it: the backlash to the Tea Party movement is official.

That means it’s working!

There is fear among the milquetoast middle grounders for they have discovered that the “middle ground,” once seemingly the safest turf in modern American politics, is buckling and provides no foundation for their equivocation. The Left, reveling in its congressional majorities and its presidential patron, has discovered that it can simply buy off or threaten the moderates, as it did on the ObamaCare passage. There is no more pretense of compromise, merely naked corruption. The middle grounders predictably respond as they always have. Instead of blaming their Progressive herdsmen, who are the masters of situational ethics, for their sellout, they direct their complaints at those who held fast to their principles. In effect, they are crying out, “How dare you judge me!” when in reality it is history – and God – that will judge.

There is also fear among country club, Republican establishment types who embrace a conservatism of convenience. In other words, they call themselves conservatives when it is convenient to do so, most notably at election time, but otherwise consider themselves pragmatists when it comes to legislating or wielding power. They are suspicious of principles wedded to passion, which is why they never worked up more than token enthusiasm for Ronald Reagan but could whole-heartedly support George H.W. Bush. After all, the latter was one of them. It is this mind-set that is responsible for someone like Michael Steele wondering how the GOP can infiltrate the Tea Party movement.

He was serious, but it was a laughable premise.

The beauty of the Tea Party movement is that it is essentially leaderless. No, that’s not quite right. There are leaders aplenty, but it is a “from the ground up” leadership that calls upon individuals within the movement to educate themselves and to determine their level of commitment to restore constitutional governance to the various and sundry United States.

A case could be made that the leadership of the Tea Party movement includes such heavy hitters as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Paine, among others. They are speaking to a new generation through their writings and the historical record. We are reading the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, Common Sense, and various biographies. We are discussing the ideas of the Founding Fathers and discovering that concepts are timeless. And sacred. We may restate their truths in modern English, but the ideas themselves cannot be improved upon.

In the Tea Party movement are disaffected Democrats, Independents and Republicans. Once they may have differed on policy but today they are united behind a desire to restore and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity (sound familiar?).

It is not necessary for the Tea Party movement to form a new political party. Several national polls show that anywhere from a quarter to a third of the American electorate consider themselves to be aligned with this movement. That is considerably more than the number of Progressives. It is also significant because the Tea Party movement is but a year old. It is growing, and it will not be stopped by innuendo campaigns whether they originate from the White House/MoveOnDotters/MSDNC or even the GOP. It is impossible to stop a movement based on Truth where the vast majority of its numbers are people of good will and peace. The Polish communist machine could not stop Solidarity, and the Obama machine isn’t nearly that effective.

Wishful thinking pundits, more comfortable with the bilateral politics of the past which favored progressivism, keep writing that the Tea Party movement will blow itself out before the November elections. Dream on! The Tea Party has already changed the political landscape of America and it’s only the beginning.

I suspect that the greatest impact will be on the Republican Party for it is the one most susceptible to restoration and change. It is the one national party where intramural debate and challenge is still acceptable, and this is where Tea Party people can make a difference … by weeding out Progressives in the primary process. That might not make Michael Steele happy, but he may be lucky to have a job come November.

Sadly the once diverse Democratic Party is very inhospitable to genuine patriots at the national level, and that renders local Democrat activism something of a long shot. What is the use of wasting time and effort on a party that won’t listen to its conservative voices? I’m sorry, Blue Dogs, but your granddad’s Democratic party is gone, replaced over time by imposters who don’t like America, or its foundational principles, much. Please spare me your campaign rhetoric of how much you love to hunt, as if that somehow excuses you on other constitutional issues. Tell me, instead, of how you will tell Nancy Pelosi to kiss your ass the next time she tries to get you to vote for something that strips Americans of their rights. And then, if you are elected, do it. In public.

No, it isn’t genteel behavior. But it is the time-tested behavior of a patriotic, freedom-loving American.

We live in perilous times when liberty is at stake. Thomas Jefferson said that when the people fear the government, there is tyranny, and when government fears the people, there is liberty. The government hasn’t had much to worry about for the last 70 or 80 years or so, and that’s not healthy for liberty. It’s time to rebalance the political equation.

That’s what the Tea Party Movement is doing. Peacefully. Loudly. With American pride.

The Tea Party Experience in Little Dixie

I spent mid-day Saturday at a Tea Party, though the beverage of choice was the iced bottled water made available through someone's generous donation.

I had missed the Tea Party experience on April 15 "owing" to the fact that I owed Uncle Sam a fairly hefty tax due, and I had waited as long as I could to pay it. But you can believe that I was definitely with them in spirit. Oh, yes.

This event was the second Tea Party for the people of Poteau. The first one apparently drew a fairly sizable crowd. This one was a bit more modest, which I would attribute to the heat and humidity of the parking lot upon which it was held. Those who braved the swelter were enthusiastic and, thanks to the "Cap'n Tax" vote in the House the night before, very motivated.

There were a couple of T-shirts that explained that the "TEA" in the party stood for "Taxed Enough Already," and the day's focus was on the federal government's reckless spending and the taxation, direct and indirect, that we are already beginning to experience as a result of this irresponsible conduct.

The local AM and FM radio station -- KPRV -- was on hand to interview people. The emcee was organized with a set of bullet points and several anecdotes to illustrate the grievances of the American people. There were a few speakers who knew in advance that they would be called upon to speak. A couple were small business owners who detailed the impact of government tax-and-spend policies, especially Cap and Trade, would hurt their ability to stay in business and would drive up prices for everyone.

One of them told of how in a single year he paid over a quarter million dollars in fuel taxes from sales at his station. If the "Cap and Trade" legislation is approved by the Senate, he said, it would be an indirect tax added to all those currently collected.

"I won't pay this tax," he said. "No business that wants to stay in business would pay this. You will pay the taxes. Your costs will go up."

Apparently every Oklahoma politician, including Senators Inhofe and Coburn, to Rep. Dan Boren and Mary Fallin, to Gov. Brad Henry and Attorney General Drew Edmondson, had been sent invitations to take "tea." A handful sent regrets, but some, like the governor and Rep. Boren, did not even bother to RSVP.

If my read of the crowd is correct, Rep. Boren has a problem, even with his "no" vote on Cap and Trade. "He waited to see if it would pass before he voted no," one man told me. His remark drew grim laughs from a small crowd around us. I don't know if this is true, or not, but the perception is that Dan Boren is a liberal who cloaks himself in the Second Amendment and who has been fortunate to have weak opponents in his two races. "His very presence helps keep the liberal leadership of Nancy Pelosi intact," one woman told me. She recently changed her registration from Democrat to Republican, but says she is thinking of going independent. "I don't think you can trust anyone because of a party label," she said.

"Let's clean house," another shouted. "Throw 'em all out next year!"

What kind of people attend Tea Parties, I had wondered. History geeks? Secessionists? Black helicopter conspiracy nuts?

If Poteau is representative of the movement, the type of people you see can't really be categorized. There are working moms and stay at home moms. Grandmothers and grandfathers who are heartbroken at the thought that their grandchildren, and their children, are being saddled with unsustainable debt which will reduce their quality of life and limit their freedom. Farmers with a "beef" against government proposals to further encroach on their freedom to farm. Retired military vets who survived war but believe that an apathetic populace is trading its liberty for assurances of economic and environmental "security", and this galls them because of the dear price paid to safeguard those liberties from enemies outside of the country. There were small business owners and at least one minister in the crowd. An insurance man. A couple of school teachers.

In other words, I saw a cross-section of the people of LeFlore County, Oklahoma. Decent, God-fearing, hard-working folks who are politically aware, and possess an intelligence much greater than they are given credit for by the national mainstream media. Yes, they may speak with accents that show they are from "Little Dixie," but they have read, or are reading, their Constitution, and they know that this nation is in trouble. They point to an elected "leadership" that goes to Washington and gets rich on salaries that should not allow it. They are aware of unelected elites who staff the executive branch and the congressional offices, well-educated bureaucrats who stay in their positions regardless of which party is in power, and who move their Progressive agenda slowly, but surely, down the field.

These were not racists, or agitators, or paranoid cultists. In Oklahoma many of us have Indian blood in varying percentages. We don't much care what your skin color is or what you do behind your bedroom door. We'll treat you like a neighbor unless you act un-neighborly, and even then there's a hard line you would have to cross first. You see, these are not people of hate. Hatred takes a lot of energy, and they can't spare it on such silliness. They have families to feed, and so they work for a living. Real work. They love their families, and they love their Oklahoma mountains, fields, and lakes. Life is such a hoot, most of the time!

But what the people at the Tea Party are is sick and tired of being sick and tired. They are frustrated. They love their nation and are unafraid to sing the "Star Spangled Banner" at the top of their voices in front of their neighbors. They are not dangerous to the Republic; they are its potential restoration. The danger they pose is at the ballot box; this, indeed, is their promise.

I guess I was in the minority, as I am a history geek, but I was pleased to meet another. He and I traded "bullet points" in the spaces between the speakers. How telling is it that both of us had read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" in the past year? "It was like reading the headlines from the newspapers," he said. "I couldn't believe how prophetic the book was. She nailed it." He said he was there because he didn't want his children or grandchildren to ask him why he sat by and did nothing while freedom was taken away.

I came not knowing who I would see or what I would think about it, but as I hung around I realized two things: 1) I needed to get my wife's umbrella out of the car. That sun was fierce! And, 2) despite the current race to socialism in Washington, there is hope in the heartland. There are people willing to stand up and shout "Slow Down!" or "Stop the Madness!"

I came not planning to join in but, as a citizen journalist, watch and learn. That I did, but I wound up accepting an invitation to speak on that flatbed trailer "stage," giving the good folks my best three minutes of advice on how to initiate a national constitutional amendment on term limits for members of Congress. I don't know how intelligible I was, but for a moment there I saw myself as a modern Thomas Paine. It felt good. (The reality is that the people probably saw a rambling, middle-aged guy in the early stages of heat stroke. Each to their own, I say.)

It wasn't a huge crowd, but it was passionately united in its love for liberty and its concern for country. I believe that it represents the best impulses of our people, and that it is merely the tip of the iceberg, a vast number of others who think and feel similarly, hidden beneath the waterline of everyday life.

America may yet be an apathetic nation, but it is overwhelmingly still a nation of good people who may not even realize how much they love freedom and the choices that come with it.

The Progressive movement has never understood this very well. In over a hundred years there have belittled us and worked slowly to install a shadow government of "experts" and "managers" to tell us "lesser mortals" what is in our best interests. They want us to trade individual liberty in for group security. They want us to hand over our children for indoctrination into "societal responsibilities" and reject antiquated notions that there is a personal God who cares for each and every human, enough to grant him or her unalienable rights of life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness.

But we know instinctively -- in our "gut" -- that this is not reality. We believe, as did our Founding Fathers, that individuals are best served by large doses of liberty and strict limits on government, which can only exercise such powers as we permit.

It is our birthright, and we shall not trade it for a hot bowl of stew on a cold winter's day, or a cold brewski in July.

My Two Cents on Tax Day (It's All I Can Afford Now)

No, I'm not at a "tea party."

Yet.

But if you are there, you have my permission to notch your voice up another decibel or two.

Since the missus and I are considered "rich" by the tax code, our generous contributions to a child's college education are almost totally discounted this year. (Actually we earned about $300 over the dividing line.)

Bottom line: $1,500 due.

How can you go from an $800 refund to owing $1,500 with very little added income? Our youngest no longer qualified for that special child tax credit. (Even though he eats more than ever, and we're now paying his car payment and insurance.)

The tax code doesn't make sense. True, it hasn't made sense in my lifetime, but it's getting crazier. We need a system that doesn't penalize us when we decide to be a bit more productive. "Progressive" tax rates? Unfairness is what it is, especially when over 40 percent of working Americans now file a tax return in order to receive more money back than they paid in through the Earned Income Tax Credit. We are getting very close to the point where 50 percent of Americans will not owe income taxes at all.

That's a tipping point where, electorally speaking, we cross the Rubicon. A majority of voters have no incentive to push for tax reform, and have every incentive to vote for the politician who promises to soak the rich so that the masses can have more, more, more, courtesy of our redistributionist Uncle Sam.

As broken as the system is today, I must also add that our taxes are not that high.

Yet. It is coming. It is coming fast and it is coming hard. A nation cannot spend at the rate we are spending, and obligate itself at the rate of our current obligations, and not have the cows come home to roost. (Yes, I said cows. They are a lot heavier than chickens, for those of you who are agriculturally challenged.) We are going to see tax rates go up, and we are going to see "hidden" tax rates, also known as price inflation, on items such as energy, education, medicine, food, that will dwarf taxation.

There is little we can do to prevent it from happening except demand that our politicians CEASE SPENDING on all but the most basic, essential public services now. (Yes, I said "demand.")

Those who will not comply should be removed from office, peacefully, through the ballot box.

That means we have to have people who will vow to stop the spending trains at the federal, state and local levels. New political blood.

That means we need to develop a new generation of leaders who understand the principles upon which this country was founded. The small "r" principles of a Republic, with its checks and balances and guarantees of individual liberties, among them the right to life, liberty, private property, and the pursuit of happiness.

I am not optimistic. There are many things which must happen for us to restore our government to a semblance of sanity. But it is worth the attempt.

The path we are on leads to places we do not wish to go; the alternatives are bleak.

I still believe that a majority of Americans believe in the Constitution, although they may not understand it. The fundamental document that should guide all of our lawmaking and governmental activity remains intact. It is up to We, the People, to insist that it be followed.