As I watched Sarah Palin speak at the so called “Tea Party Convention” tonight a few thoughts occurred to me.
I agree that the Tea Parties are leaderless at a national level. I can safely say that I have met a fair number of “Tea Party” people and NO ONE speaks for any them. That in fact is why there is a Tea Party movement and from the outside and especially from the lame street media, it looks disjointed and disorganized. This in fact, is a good thing!
“The ultimate in disposing one's troops is to be without ascertainable shape. Then the most penetrating spies cannot pry in nor can the wise lay plans against you.” Sun-Tzu
The Tea Party as of 2.6.2010 is neither a political party nor a coherent organization except in terms of general principals. I hesitate to use the term ideology because the thought of “freedom” being an ideology that has the competing philosophy of “fascism” or “tyranny” is too depressing. As an American, a veteran, a parent, a citizen, and especially a taxpayer, I never expected to have to defend the basic principals set forth in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and most of all, to protect myself against our elected officials.
The fact the Tea Party is both a huge groundswell and very disjointed is both strength and a threat to the way traditional politics has worked (or not...) for the past 25 years or so. What the MSM and the Demopublicans fail to recognize is that the “progressives” (I hate to even dignify it as “liberal”) awakened the populace against the tremendous threat to basic values and beliefs. America is conservative in the sense that conservatives want to be left alone, leave their neighbors alone, work hard, and are fair, pious, just, and generous. What is going on now is the federal, state, and local government is acting fundamentally against those values – not listening to the constituents, rather only to ideologues. There is no “vast right wing conspiracy”. Poll after poll shows that Americans are basically conservative. The fundamental American values are simply not being reflected by their representatives and government.
The people of the USA do not want to live in Cuba or Venezuela. They understand the threat. They understand that no one in the Administration or senior members of the Cabinet, House, or Senate, has every created something, met a payroll, or took a risk with their own capital and not someone else’s. Why should these people be respected? Why should the media who propagandized them be listened to?
The fact that the Tea Party is truly just people who can no longer stand idle and watch the values that created the wonders of the technological modern world be co-opted, diminished, ridiculed, and slandered while they continue to pay, and pay, and pay for the very people and institutions that are attacking them is the strength of the movement. In the same way America can’t be successful as a 100% service economy where we all serve each other fast food and take out each other laundry, we cannot all be suppressed and rounded up as subversives or it will be Galt’s Gulch. The politics of personal destruction won’t work once the meme of the Founding Fathers vision and foresight is spreading again. The meme of “Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness” as stated in the Declaration of Independence, and made law in the Constitution and Bill of Rights cannot be suppressed or stopped. It is too powerful and will never be killed. This is why the Tea Party is rising!
This is also why the Tea Party will not be co-opted, will not be a GOP “get out the vote” campaign, and will not go away. American should be grateful that the progressives finally showed their true colors and the alarm has finally been sounded. A fundamental trust was broken. The Tea Party at its heart, is nothing but citizens who demand that trust and honor be restored and the American contract between the people and the state be rebalanced.
