More Tea!

As many of you know—well, at least the few of you who actually read my blog posts, I am not and have never been a fan of the Tea Party movement, or whatever one might call it. It’s hard to fathom that these “patriots” didn’t notice the rising deficit, political corruption, and deviation from the constitution when George W. Bush was in office, and, what’s more, the past few decades. The deficit didn’t seem to deter them from voting for Reagan or George W. Bush, and the political corruption can be applied with broad strokes to nearly all lawmakers. Therefore, this “resurgence” of a desire for personal responsibility and smaller government is utterly rubbish. Furthermore, the feckless attempt amongst these different Tea Party upstarts to absolve themselves of any culpability in the current state of affairs is completely misguided and cowardly. However, one should not forget the hypocrisy on the other side of the political fence line; while the used the deficit and foundering employment market to take back the legislature, the democrats used Iraq to regain control of the legislature in 2006—and, to an extent, the presidency. Both the democrats and the republicans, as a whole, have failed to properly address the deficit—not to mention a plethora of other issues—and, also, were both culpable for the fiasco in Iraq. But, while Pelosi promised to attack a lot the bad policies and decisions that Bush had enacted, the freshmen legislators who rode the Tea Party wave into power have actually demonstrated some ideological backbone in standing up against the GOP establishment.

The Tea Party still has a long way to go, however, before they will prove that they are more than a trend of anger and self-absolution. Already, many neocons, self-serving politicians and pundits have supplanted their movement. Theses “patriots” would do well to distance themselves from these megalomaniacal frauds and loudly profess their distaste for, at least, how the GOP behaved under George W. Bush. It is, however, unreasonable for the movement to distance themselves from GOP power-players, as well as insufferable pundits.

Both right-wing lawmakers and pundits—they are definitely no conservatives—have been promoting themselves by championing that they, more than anyone else, understand what the Founding Fathers would have wanted. This is beyond absurd it is demagoguery. Moreover, the Founding Fathers are not the same as the framers of the constitution. These Tea Party folks, and what’s more, any actual conservatives who vote republican, would do well to realize that many moderate conservatives, such as myself, have been turned away from the GOP by these ego-maniacal fiends and will not come back until education and reason are valued. The constitution is a tremendous document. But no one or thing, historical, is without flaws. It is unfortunate, but true, that the framers had to make political decisions when ratifying the constitution. The terrible institution of slavery was, just that, terrible. But slavery, was viewed by many, at that time, a necessary evil, as well as an economic imperative. Slavery is, and was, deplorable, but there is no need to pretend that many of our early leaders sought to protect it.

Ultimately, the original revolutionaries were not afraid to stand up against the status quo. They were not afraid to risk whatever they had to in order to better their own existences. Revolting against a tyrant thousands of miles of away of whom one could never vote for is entirely different from donning a tri-point hat with a cheap tea-bag fastened to the side to complain about a president who was just elected by a majority of your countrymen. As with the democrats and Pelosi in 2006, many American voters had a chance to effect policy before, but didn’t. To claim that the problems were new is, and was, laughable.

So, Tea Party (whatever you call yourselves), I applaud your week. You all have done more so far than Pelosi and friends did. It is pleasing to see that, to some, actions speak louder than words. Hopefully, you all can stand up against the fraudulently conservative GOP and actually reduce the deficit. But, I expect this will be a fleeting moment and that this article will be laughable very soon.