The Tea Party - what is it that they really stand for?

The Coffee Shop
1

I just went to the Tea Party website. They seem to believe in everything and nothing at the same time. They’ve got a lot of nonsense posted on their website. http://www.teapartypatriots.org/

At the top in their banner they show: Fiscal responsibility, Limited Government, Free Market. The definition of what any of this means has been debated for over 200 years, but according to the Tea Party they mean the following.

***Fiscal Responsibility: Fiscal Responsibility by government honors and respects the freedom of the individual to spend the money that is the fruit of their own labor. A constitutionally limited government, designed to protect the blessings of liberty, must be fiscally responsible or it must subject its citizenry to high levels of taxation that unjustly restrict the liberty our Constitution was designed to protect. Such runaway deficit spending as we now see in Washington D.C. compels us to take action as the increasing national debt is a grave threat to our national sovereignty and the personal and economic liberty of future generations. ***

Fiscal responsibility is therefore the ability for us to enjoy the liberty that our Constitution (Bill of Right perhaps) was designed to protect. But it’s not just any liberty from a monarch, it is a liberty to spend money, which is a blessing specially when taxes are low so we can spend more. So somewhere in the Constitution, we have the right to a government that is fiscally responsible, ehhhh, hell, that doesn’t make any sense… Let’s try the next one.

***Constitutionally Limited Government: We, the members of The Tea Party Patriots, are inspired by our founding documents and regard the Constitution of the United States to be the supreme law of the land. We believe that it is possible to know the original intent of the government our founders set forth, and stand in support of that intent. Like the founders, we support states’ rights for those powers not expressly stated in the Constitution. As the government is of the people, by the people and for the people, in all other matters we support the personal liberty of the individual, within the rule of law. ***
**
Ok, this one should be easier. The founding documents (Federal papers?) and the Constitutiton are the supreme law of the land. OK, hard to argue with this one, I suppose and as long as we exclude the Bill of Rights. And not only is it possible to read the minds of the Founding fathers (as hundreds of thousands of lawyers in America have been able to do over 200 years since we’re all in agreement of what the Founding Fathers meant by every line and word they wrote). They also support a Federal government of States (maybe that’s where the United States part comes in) and personal liberty that is only restricted by the supreme law of the land. A bit confusing since all it states is basically what everyone already has to believe in since, well, it’s our form of government… Ok let’s try the next one.

Free Markets: A free market is the economic consequence of personal liberty. The founders believed that personal and economic freedom were indivisible, as do we. Our current government’s interference distorts the free market and inhibits the pursuit of individual and economic liberty. Therefore, we support a return to the free market principles on which this nation was founded and oppose government intervention into the operations of private business.

Modern free economic market theories existed in 1776? Yes, I guess that Adam Smith did write the Wealth of Nations right around that year, but it was not widely read and did not even become a reference for economists for many decades later. However, our Founding Fathers believed in the free market principles which can only be attributed to modern 20th century economic theory because not only could we read their minds, but they could also foresee the future of global monetray policy, trade, and capital markets. Them founding fathers were freakin amazing when they wrote the Constitution, they thought of everything… Well, except that part of a truly “free market” that excludes tariffs, trade barriers … oh wait, weren’t we charging import taxes back in 1776, and issuing out business permits and taxing people?.. oh well, never mind.

2

Demographics:

http://www.salon.com/news/tea_parties/index.html?story=/opinion/walsh/politics/2011/08/17/getting_to_know_the_tea_party

Scholar Robert Putnam, best known for his study of American atomization in “Bowling Alone,” has produced new data on the Tea Party and it’s being billed as a shocker. Sit down before you read this: They are older, white conservative Christians “who were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born.”

Not surprised? Neither was I, but the research is actually fascinating. Putnam and Notre Dame’s David Campbell tracked the role of faith and politics for their last book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.” They went back to look at attitudes toward the Tea Party among 3,000 survey respondents for the paperback edition, and wrote an Op-Ed in Wednesday’s New York Times.

3

My problem with the Tea Party is how are they going to do what they want. You can have slogans all you want but what is the game plan? Every time I ask I always get a version of, “Change!” but how are they going to make the change happen?

4

I was really surprised in what the definition of what they believe. It is a bunch of idiotic words - kind of like saying “we beleive in apple pie, mom, freedom, courage, etc etc.” without any substance. Sounds like a Palin slogan. They are truly a bunch of morons.
***But even within the Republican ranks, there is a desire for more details about the party’s vision for replacing Democratic policies. ******Rep. Trey Gowdy (S.C.) said the GOP must put forward its own solutions on issues such as health care, job creation and mortgage assistance. He said he is not convinced that there is a need to take on climate change in the same way. ***“Being the party of ‘no’ . . . is an appropriate response” in some cases, Gowdy said. “It’s not appropriate when you’ve been extensively critical of someone else’s ideas” and have none to replace them, he said.

5

In theory, the Tea Party sounds good as the webpage you linked to shows a disagreement with how both the Dems and Republicans are behaving currently.

As a small business owner, I can completely relate to this political cartoon:

http://www.carrollstandard.com/images/stories/automatic/13068/20465_image.gif
C

Only I also feel like you could just as easily put a Republican in Obama’s spot and change the passengers to big business, banks, etc.

So where is the group that opposes entitlements and big government; promotes fair taxes; and leaves religion out of the mix?

6

I know the feeling, I too feel like I’m carrying all the load for America. My next door neighbor feels like he’s carrying all the load. My retired parents who no longer work feel like they are carrying all the load. Small business owners are not carrying any more or any less of a load - why, just because you have to work for your money? I’ve been a small business owner and must admit that I too felt like someone should be giving me a break or acknowledging what it was that I was doing for America - which really was just working for myself.

7

You missed my point. Perhaps I was too specific by calling attention to being a small business owner.

What I am frustrated with is an ever increasing sense from people who receive welfare. etc. that what they receive is their salary and they by God need more.

And then the banks weigh in with “Woe is me, we made a bunch of bad loans, where is our cut?” And then the large auto companies weigh in with, “Woe is me, we sat back on our lazy asses cranking out K cars and so on and are getting beat by Japan; we owe so much to the pension plans; we are too big to fail, where is our cut?”

I don’t want a cut. I just want the BS to stop.

8

I understand what you are saying and I don’t necessarily disagree. I will give you a few thougths.

  1. It is well understood that in a free capitalistic society employment will not ever be 100%, even with unrestricted free movement of labor, and that there will be cycles of high and low unemployement. It is the nature of supply and demand, and the dynamics of how pricing and production works, and it is even more pronounced by global dependencies. What this means is that because of the very nature of our economic model not everyone will have a job. Yes, there are people who don’t want to work, and people who cannot work, but the question that our society has had to answer is what to do with those that are unemployed? What are the alternatives? The decision was made to create a safety net - why? Well, because the alternative was crime, poverty, pictures of children begging in the street, long lines in the soup kitchens, and did I mention crime? It is simply cheaper to provide a welfare social safety net than to not have one and experience the alternatives as a society (did I mention crime - the thing that desperate people turn to). Today the question is not whether we should have a safety net, although some people naively think everyone should get a job when the very nature of capitalism means that not everyone can get a job, but how and which programs we should have.

  2. TARP and the big bank and auto industry bailouts. Well, this is an area that can be debated. The question our government faced was whether we should save those industries with taxpayer dollars. On the one hand, hundreds of thousands of jobs, and two entire industries were on the brink of collapse. Perhaps millions of additional peripheral jobs were going to be lost, and without saving those industries our entire economy would have fallen off a cliff bring American and the global economies into a depression that would have taken a decade to recover from. The answer, I believe, was a no brainer - yes, save those industries at all costs. However, the alternative point of view was let those business that were poorly managed with poor quality products fail. After all, businesses fail all the time, and why should these businesses be saved when “my” business isn’t getting a handout? Good question, but what we have to remember is that if our financial industry wouldn’t have been saved, nothing would have been left. The auto industry is another question, and while we definitely can now survive without an auto industry, the alternative of millions of jobs being lost was just too painful of a decision for any politician to make. In fact, I don’t think any sane person could have made that decision. I think today the question is why no one from those industries is in jail, why those same persons are still running those companies, and why investors all made money at the expense of the taxpayer, and how we avoid this in the future. All these poor business persons made money because of the reason we don’t want to raise taxes on them, we truly believe they are helping America, when in fact they are only helping themselves.