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The (Hopefully) Last Tea Party Post

Posted by TONY CAMPBELL, Columnist in At TMV, Media, Politics.
Apr 21st, 2009 | Comments

I have been waiting all weekend for the rest of the dust to settle on the media fallout surrounding the Tea Parties; it seems like the blogosphere and the MSM has finally put this story into the annals of political history so it is time for me to ask the question no one even touched during all of this activity… didn’t the American people vote for these people who raised their taxes? In other words, how can we be ticked off when “We, the People” helped to brew the tea?

Each and every election cycle we put into office people who believe that government spending is a necessary item in a civil society. Republicans (2001-2006) and Democrats (2007-2009) have spent and taxed the American people to the breaking point and we still vote these people, and their political parties into office, year after year and term after term. If we should be ticked off at anyone, we should take ourselves behind the woodshed to beat some sense into our collective heads.

Back in 1773, the colonists had a phrase that explained their agitation with Parliament – “No Taxation without Representation”. Unfortunately, the Tea Party organizers conveniently forgot the meaning of the original Tea Party in Boston Harbor. It does not apply to us in the current context because we have caused our own dissatisfaction - we overwhelmingly elected a liberal House of Representatives to get the country out of the war in Iraq. Two years later, we are still in Iraq and the Democratic Congress has increased spending. What a shock? NOT!

Instead of waving tea bags around, why don’t we do something that will hit these politicians where it hurts? Fire them in 2010! Fire the Republican and the Democratic Parties who have multiplied our national debt and exploded the deficit over the past eight plus years. If the 250,000 people who participated in the Tea Parties are united in this goal, I think we should be able to find 50 viable fiscally conservative Independents who will run for office as Libertarians or Reform Party in 2010… that show of political strength would be worth all of the Tea in China (or in Boston Harbor).

  • elrod
    The silent majority of Americans doesn't mind large-scale government spending. That's the truth the GOP discovered after 1996 when, after welfare reform was removed from the agenda, large numbers of lower-middle class whites no longer found the language of small-government conservatism to be compelling. Alas, the GOP got religion.

    Same for the Democrats. Many made hay over the way that Bush turned the Clinton surplus into a deficit. But that doesn't mean the Democrats were ideologically committed to balanced budgets. No, it was just a way to swing a handful of small-government Independents over to vote against the Republicans.

    But the majority of Americans just don't care about deficits and government spending - at least over the long term. Yes, a short-term Perot-style eruption could come around. But no party is able or willing to sustain it.
  • Ryan
    goodluckwiththat
  • jwest
    Tony,

    It’s obvious you haven’t read or listened to a word about the tea parties other than what could be gleaned from left wing hate sites. It might help to try a perspective outside of that tiny box.

    Reaction to the tea parties has, however, provided one of the truly best descriptions of an individual ever written. David Shuster’s screed about “Teabagging” had one blogger commenting:

    “Shuster was like an 8 year old who couldn’t stop sniffing his finger”

    That is writing.
  • christoofar
    Seems to me that the majority of "tea party" attendees:

    1. Didn't vote for Obama.
    2. Don't like Obama. At all.
    3. Will probably be getting a tax break under his withholding tax change.

    And I'm still wondering where all of them have been for the past 8 whole years.

    And Fox "News" used it to pump up their ratings.
  • Uh, correction. The 2007-2009 stretch cannot be laid at the Democrats' feet. The GOP filibustered everything and the president didn't sign. Since the Dems didn't have 2/3 needed to overrule the veto, their agenda was not passed. Like it or not, the entire 2001-2008 period was GOP rule.
  • roro80
    "didn’t the American people vote for these people who raised their taxes?"

    Yes, except for a few things:
    1) Have taxes been raised? Um...no. They haven't. They've gone down since Obama got to office. Remember that whole bailout thingie?
    2) The Teabaggers didn't vote for Obama. Which means that "without representation" equates to "really really sore loser".

    @jwest. It was dying to be made fun of. Finger sniffer or not, if some semi-large group were to start a movement and call themselves the "MuffDivers" or the "Filthy Sanchezes" with the nearly willfull cluelessness with which the Teabaggers advertised themselves, then somehow get a major news station to do 24-hour coverage on said movement, using the hilarious term over and over and over again, I don't see how anyone could help but be doubled over with laughter.
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