Yeah, yeah, I know. Where have all the posts gone? Perhaps it’s spring fever. Or maybe the fact that it’s not an election year. (Or that I’ve been busier with work. Which is good.) But I have posted fewer blog entries recently. I won’t say I “promise” I will put more together, but I will “try.”
So here’s something now that I’ve been meaning to discuss. All these “tea” parties—which with great misfortune began to be known as “tea bagging” parties… ehhh—on April 15. What was that all about? I think it was about a lot of things, actually. I don’t think it was what many conservative commentators were trying to frame it as, that being some kind of conservative groundswell/revolution for the Republican point of view. As has been written about extensively by others (I promise—go read it if you haven’t already), most of the supporters were not fans of Republicans, either. Some of them even got booed when they tried to sort of preempt the event or earn some political points.
I think the tea parties were a groundswell of sorts, but mainly of the Ron Paul-esque libertarian variety. I think that the economy being in the tank has hurt a lot of people, and many of these people are feeling very poorly used. So they’re mad.
What the tea parties were not about was accuracy. The guys in Boston who threw the tea into the harbor to protest the British Empire’s tax upon the product were, in fact, not represented. A Parliament and king across an ocean were making policy and extracting money from the colonies for their own imperialistic purposes (i.e., war-funding in Europe). They were quite ill-used. So, to make a point, they threw out the tea which was owned by a government-sponsored merchant outfit (the East-India Company) in protest. The people who attended the tea parties circa 2009 voted or had the opportunity to vote. Presumably, their candidate lost. I doubt they would be protesting if they’d voted for Obama, though I suppose I could be wrong. They also are not being taxed more now than they were last year. They’re being taxed less. So, the name for the protest was a bit weak in my opinion.
The hyperventilation about the government suddenly being tyrannous also seems to be quite resoundingly false and misleading. Is the government suddenly a dangerous tyrant because it, on the advice of virtually all economists—the specialists in the field of our capitalistic economic science—is attempting to stimulate the economy with public investment? Because, based on similar recommendations, it is trying to save the financial system? Because it is trying to fix our wildly warped and UNCAPITALISTIC health care system? Because it is attempting to internalize the cost of pollution emissions? These all seem to me to be good purposes for the government to pursue. Indeed, some of these tasks are things that ONLY the government can do, because it requires enormous collective action.
Let me tell you what I think. I think that our government is now LESS restrictive and “tyrannous” because we no longer have a government that thinks it is okay to take people and hold them indefinitely. To torture people. To set up warrantless wiretaps. That refuses public disclosure at all costs and destroys electronic records. That initiates costly wars upon specious evidence with questionable motives. That favors the wealthy at the expense of the poor. That cynically disputes science in order to reward special interests.
I also have a name for those protestors: sore losers. Believe me, guys, back in 2004 I was ready to move to New Zealand. How could the country have re-elected that fool and his bungling outfit? I get it. But I got over it. In part, because I knew that eventually the pendulum would swing, the information would get out there, and we’d see some backlash—like we did in 2006 and 2008.
You lost, your agenda is on the wane and losing steam. I’d try to convince you of the errors of your ways if you’d listen. But I know you won’t. So, I’ll just say, and this should be pretty familiar to you: This is America. Love it or leave it.
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