Posted by
Patrick Henry on Saturday, October 09, 2010 12:14:03 AM
A recent poll suggests that more than 70% of liberals think the Tea Party is racist.
In a smattering of televised interviews noted Democrats have said that the Tea Party
is just about "cutting government and lowering taxes." These opinions pitifully miss
the mark, and reflect the fact that the left simply does not understand where the
Tea Party came from or what it is after.
It is no accident of fate that the Tea Party is named after a famed incident in Boston
harbor in which angry colonists hurled large quantities of British tea into the water to
protest soldiers being arbitrarily quartered among them and King George's taxation
without representation. The colonists were offended because they came to America
to escape the rule of the elite class and the trappings of European society. They came
here to be free. And when they concluded that they were not, they rebelled in order
to get that for which they had already sacrificed.
Freedom, more than anything else, is what the Tea Party is about. Over taxation, debt,
regulation, confiscation and redistribution of wealth and the dominance of a supposed
"elite" who treat the commoners like dirt are, in the minds of those who populate the
Tea Party, grounds for rebellion, and they well describe the situation as they perceive
it in America today.
Progressives believe that government should do everything, and that means government
must grow to gargantuan size. Such growth can only be fueled by ever-increasing streams
of revenue, and the government's only consistent source of revenue is taxes. Obama, for
example, shoveled 17 new taxes into Obamacare, in addition to mandating that every
American buy health insurance, a private product. Now, he wants to shore up his
tottering popularity by restoring tax cuts for the middle class, while raising taxes
dramatically for the "rich." He and his inner circle are still talking about a Value Added
Tax over and above income tax. As long as government continues to grow, citizens will
be slaves to the taxes to pay for it. The Tea Party doesn't hate taxes. They hate over-
taxation to support big government that takes away a measure of their wealth and
freedom and which is not, in their opinion, warranted.
Democrats, of course, play right into this by talking down their noses to Americans,
acting as though they are ignoramuses and simply unable to fathom the extent of liberal
"genius." In that matter, they are no different from British royalty whose haughty and
discriminatory attitudes drove the original settlers to leave England and come here. The
Tea Party "damns all gentlemen," and is disinclined to concede liberals' inflated
estimate of their own omniscience.
One of the things early Americans sought was the freedom to strike out and forge
their own destiny, for better or for worse. King George's taxation and interference in
their commerce temporarily interrupted the dream and was, in no small part, a
reason why the colonists took up arms against him. Part of the socialist agenda, the
so-called "just society," is that no one should have more, or less, than anyone else.
That means those who don't work and succeed should prosper off the largesse of
those who do. "Socialism works," Margaret Thatcher used to say, "until you run
out of other people's money."
Welfare is, at its base, other people's money. Very few would deny the poor
assistance to survive. But those who have worked hard for what they have balk
at guaranteeing economic equality to trans-generational laggards. The Tea Party
is seeking to draw a line in the sand. If you want to call that "racist" because so
many of the poor are persons of color, or argue that the Tea Party is criticizing the
president because he is back, then you open yourself to the counter-argument
that blacks who criticize, vilify and mischaracterize theTea Party are also racists
who base their conclusions about others on wild suppositions about their motives
and the fact that their skin is a different color. What liberals want is to have their
cake and eat it to, i.e., to take unlimited free shots at the Tea Party while
insulating their president from all criticism simply because he is black. Well, the
Tea Party just stepped on that cake.
It is the view of many, including those outside the Tea Party, that because of his
neo-socialist redistributionist agenda, Barack Obama is anti-business. Indeed his
tax and regulatory policies, and his dilly-dallying on declaring taxes and regulations
for the coming year are actually causing businesses not to hire, thereby helping to
sustain the obscene jobless rate. In a free society the objective of business is to
work hard, compete and outstrip the competition. But in Obama's socialist utopia
such successes are contrary to social and wealth leveling, so policy must inhibit
unbridled growth and success. In other words business people are not free, their
options reined in by an oppressive and spreading government.
Progressives, including Obama, argue that a society that allows the bright, the
industrious and the thoughtful to succeed beyond the level of the lazy, the
uneducated and the chronic underachievers is "unjust." Therefore, it is the duty
of government to level the playing field by stripping the former of their earned
advantage and gratuitously handing it over to the disadvantaged, just as in
England nobility owned everything and decided which crumbs to dole out and
to whom. In a society where ultimate success is posssible, ultimate failure must
be possible as well. Under Obama, liberals have taken their best shot at turning
modern America into 18th century England. Now the people, many of them
waving the flag of the Tea Party, are storming back to recreate what the founding
fathers intended. That is what the battle for the constitution is about.
If you are of the liberal/socialist persuasion and don't like that, you'll have two
options after November 2. Either move to a country more to your liking, and
take your chances with their notions of "social justice," or wait for your next
opportunity to try "fundamentally transforming America." The latter will likely
be a long, long, time in coming. Every American should thank the Tea Party!