What the Tea Parties were about

The media decided itself what the Tea Party protests were about and have instructed the country to believe what they decided. Coverage was antagonistic, especially if you contrast it with coverage of anti-war and other leftist protests.

Thomas Sowell, while not talking about the tea parties at all, still makes a nice summary here about why those of us who went to them, went to them. This really does sum up what they were all about. And they weren't about Obama himself, they were about the leftist vision. The big-government vision, which goes way beyond Big Government's current head champion.

Barack Obama's vision of America is one in which a President of the United States can fire the head of General Motors, tell banks how to bank, control the medical system and take charge of all sorts of other activities for which neither he nor other politicians have any expertise or experience.

The Constitution of the United States gives no president, nor the entire federal government, the authority to do such things. But spending trillions of dollars to bail out all sorts of companies buys the power to tell them how to operate.

Appointing judges to the federal courts-- including the Supreme Court-- who believe in expanding the powers of the federal government to make arbitrary decisions, choosing who will be winners and losers in the economy and in the society, is perfectly consistent with a vision of the world where self-confident and self-righteous elites rule according to their own notions, instead of merely governing under the restraints of the Constitution.

Condescending and snide comments in the media about odd sexual practices aside, the Media made the point that the original Boston Tea Party was about "Taxation Without Representation", and since today's Tea Partiers have representation (well, we are allowed to vote in elections anyway) -- they must be ignorant of history. No attempt was made to understand -- from the Tea Party Protester's point of view -- why they were there. A few frustrated ignorant redneck racists. Nothing to see here. And aren't they funny? They don't even know about "tea bagging". [snicker ... aren't we smart?? ... tee hee! ]

The Purveyors of Nuance™ never stopped to draw any other possible parallel with the original Boston Tea Party. The main rallying issue was indeed taxation without representation, but it was really about being fed up with an overbearing, tyrannical government and abuses of power -- taxation without representation being a glaring example.

Our founding fathers went to great lengths in the Constitution to curb and restrain government power. Democrats and Republicans alike have abused these restraints over the years -- clearly Democrats far more than Republicans, to be sure. But both are guilty, and both were admonished at the tea parties. To hear the media talk, these were organized by Republicans for Republicans.

There is a reason the number of people who identify themselves as conservative outnumber the people who identify themselves as Republicans. The reason is that most people who are conservatives (a label that gets applied these days to Classical Liberals such as the founding fathers... that's why I tend to use the word "Progressive" these days over "Liberal". It doesn't mean what it used to mean, but Progressives want it both ways. I don't want to give it to them) ... anyway, the reason is that more conservatives tend to consider themselves independents. Their allegiance is to the Constitution, not to a political party. They tend to vote Republican, but swear no fealty to the party and may punish it by voting independent or not at all if the party doesn't offer up someone who represents their ideals well enough.

This is what I mean by Republicans needing to deepen their base rather than broaden it.

The other nuance that the progressive media miss is that printing up trillions of dollars in new, un-backed money amounts to a huge tax, no matter what you call it. You either devalue the dollar to give the government the authority to spend this new money ... amounting to a transfer of wealth from the people to the Government, or you put the burden of paying that "borrowed" money on future generations. Just because you don't call it a tax doesn't mean it doesn't amount to the same thing.

When most people are against it, but most legislators vote for it... isn't that taxation without representation? They may have been elected, but they ain't representin'.

The "reporter" who got in the face of one protester about Obama's big tax "cut" was laughable. And the argument that the Bush Administration pushed through a big bailout package isn't an argument -- the people at these protests were against that, too. It goes back to that party allegiance thing. Democrats assume that Conservatives blindly support Republicans. In most cases, they reluctantly support Republicans because the only viable alternative is far worse.