The obligatory “Look, there’s a tea party” column

Jeff Emanuel has high praise today for the “Tea Parties” taking place at various locations around the country, a topic which thus far I’ve pretty much passed on. First, it’s being covered from hell to breakfast all across the blogosphere, and second… it’s getting blown out of proportion for all the wrong reasons.

To be clear, I’m not “protesting” these protests, nor do I plan on “crashing them” even if I had that much free time on my hands. In fact, it’s important to continue to support the ability of Americans to speak out publicly when they disagree with the actions taken by their government. In this case, they certainly have a point to make. It is not at all unreasonable to disagree with the current administration’s profligate spending and the path they’ve chosen to address the financial crisis.

My lack of enthusiasm, however, was summed up when I called in to Rick Moran’s radio show last night during a discussion of the same topic. The point is, I can still vividly recall standing side by side with more than a million people in New York City in early 2003 to protest the impending invasion of Iraq. (These were numbers that certainly dwarf anything we’ll see today.) Later that year my wife and I were standing with far smaller numbers of folks in more remote areas of New York and Pennsylvania for the same reason.

What came of it? The cruise missiles still fell, the troops still went in and we remain bogged down there to this day.

Why am I bringing up Iraq? Because today tens of thousands of Americans will take to the streets to protest the economic policies of the Obama administration. Tomorrow Barack Obama will still be president. The Republicans will still have less than 180 seats in the House. There will still be nearly sixty Democratic Senators in the upper chamber. Nothing is going to change. Just as with George W. Bush and the Iraq question, the administration is not “worried” about these tea parties, as much as the participants would like to think they are. Polling still shows that a solid majority of Americans are satisfied with the administration’s leadership on economic matters and are not looking to the GOP for alternate answers. The Democrats in Congress are not about to say, “Oh no! Tea parties! We better start voting for fiscal conservatism!”

It’s important to have your voices heard, but don’t begin dreaming that it’s going to change anything. You’re only setting yourself up for additional heart-ache.

Are there problems with the concept behind these parties? Yes. The Jeff Emanuel piece I linked above revisits the history of the original Boston Tea Party. It’s worthwhile to remember that those individuals were destroying vast amounts of private property, breaking the law, and fostering an armed revolution which led to all out war and the ouster of the government in charge of the country at that time. If you’re not endorsing actual treason, this really isn’t good branding for the “movement.”

It has also been pointed out that some of these participants may just be doing this because they would take any cudgel to wield against Barack Obama. I’m sure that’s true in some cases, as there are more than enough activist partisans to go around on all sides. But that doesn’t dilute the validity of their message, nor invalidate their right to protest and have their voices heard. And yes, the vast majority of these people were not taking to the streets and organizing these types of protests when George W. Bush ran up the deficit and spent like a drunken sailor, but a lot of them were still unhappy about it. It’s just easier to take to the streets when there’s somebody from the other party in charge.

So I would advise those who disapprove to not try to interfere with these activiites. During the Iraq war protests there were groups of reprobates who actively worked to organize “counter-protests” which included intimidating elderly ladies into leaving the field, rather than simply stating their own opposing point of view. It was despicable then and it would be equally despicable now to do the same to tea party protesters.

This is democracy in action. It’s not going to result in any changes, but it’s an important part of our society and our rights. It should be embraced if you want the same right to object next time the government does something you don’t like.