Tea Party Doubts

I have been spending much of the morning researching what’s behind the Tea Party movement. And frankly, a lot of it scares me. Scares me may even be an understatement.

At first glance, I think the people behind it have a lot of good ideas. Washington is simply not working any more. And while I’m no great fan of Sarah Palin, I happened to see her keynote speech and enjoyed it. Though I consider myself a liberal hippie-type person who is a child of the ‘60s, I also have an open mind about conservative ideas. For example, I oppose abortion and don’t think the bailout was a good idea. I am incensed that after the government saved the banks, they have turned around and made credit way too expensive and far less available to most Americans. In doing so, my home value has collapsed and my social security payments have stalled despite whopping increases in health care expenses. At the same time, I want socialized medicine because the once-nonprofit health care companies such as Blue Cross are now bleeding us dry. And I wouldn’t be surviving financially if it weren’t for the Obama administration’s program of subsidizing COBRA paayments.

And I have been affected by the Tea Party in at least one way. When our Congressman held a meeting to hear comments about health care last year, it had to be moved from a 300+ capacity town hall meeting to a school when thousands showed up violently protesting and police had to stop people from attending because it was so packed.

Anyway, I started running around the Internet looking at various articles ranging from the New York Times to Newsweek to Fox News. And while Palin’s speech was much talked about, she overshadowed the other speeches and I learned that the movement has more than its share of fanatics.

The Birchers – the reviving John Birch Society that finds enemies under every rock. In the 1970s, these were the ones who opposed fluoridation of water to prevent tooth decay because it was a commie plot to soften American’s brains. The Mitchell Trio’s lambasting song still applies. Hear it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG6taS9R1KM

The Birthers – the continuing push for those who claim the president is not a citizen of the United States.

The Truthers – Those who contend the 9/11 attacks came from the political left and not terrorists.

The Oath Keepers -- with their rag tag militia following urging members of the military and police not to obey orders they feel are unconstitutional.

One of the more interesting articles is by Jonathan Kay, a conservative Canadian who is an editor with the Canadian Post. Writing in Newsweek’s web site, he summarizes his attendance at the Tea Party convention as an attendee, not a media member, thusly: "After I spent the weekend at the Tea Party National Convention in Nashville, Tenn., it has become clear to me that the movement is dominated by people whose vision of the government is conspiratorial and dangerously detached from reality. It's more John Birch than John Adams."

Kay examines many of the speakers at the convention and their speeches and comes to the conclusion that the movement is becoming a collation of right wing fanatics.

Go to http://www.newsweek.com/id/233331/page1 for his full article.

Today’s New York Times had an extensive article focusing on many of the people in the movement. Much of the focus in in ultra-rural areas where there is little political power and people feel they are not part of the process. While many conservatives would say that the Times has its own agenda, the article focuses on many people ranging from Ruby Ridge fanatics to a gun toting grandma ready to be at the heart of a new American revolution. "Peaceful means," she continued, "are the best way of going about it. But sometimes you are not given a choice."

Go to http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/us/politics/16teaparty.html? for the full article.

When I was that child of the ‘60s, being against both the Vietnam War and the corrupt Nixon administration, I liked to quote the declaration of independence:
"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

But I learned over time that in this system of government we have survived both Vietnam and Nixon. It has survived George W. Bush and the Great Depression. It survived a civil war and the the McCarthy era. And it will survive the Tea Party.

But it still scares me.