The Tea Party Red Herring

On Tuesday, there was a great hue and cry in the United States as the Tea Party swept to victory in a number of primary elections. The Tea Party is touting these wins and a turning point. The pundits are less sure and as a resident, I am moderately curious, so I thought I would do a little research.

First, just what is this organization that calls itself the Tea Party and what do they really stand for.

Well, oddly, it is very difficult to get a handle on them. Unlike most parties, they do not have a leader, so it is very hard to find a clearly spelled out manifesto. Searching their web site one finds things like:

Many people seem to view the Tea Party movement as nothing more than a lot of people who are angry about taxes and government spending, but it goes deeper than that for many of us. We are tired of those things, but even more importantly and to the root is the Federal government's lack of respect and conformity to the Constitution, responsibility to the people, the intended sovereigns of this country, and its intended limited purpose as a small entity to preserve our rights, not to give and take them away with epic, unrestrained power.--An Effective Tea Party

OK. Sounds a little libertarian to me. But then you listen to their candidates.

First, Christine O'Donnell, who had an epiphany and chose to live a life of chastity, according to the Daily Record. She says There's only truth and not truth. You're either very good, or evil. Pretty black and white if you ask me. She became an evangelical Christian and there is no mention of a spouse or immediate family. I do not believe this is the first time a nun has run for office...what? She isn't a nun? Hmm...chaste, life to Christ...seems like a nun to me. But she is not without sin. Seems she has back tax issues and there are questions about her collage education bona fides. I am sure these are trivial though and she has been fully vetted and will be quickly cleared up or explained away. Based on numerous official statements, she supports teaching creationism, gun rights, is opposed to abortion (at least she does not claim to be pro-life) and rejects Darwinism. None of this is a surprise, she is born again. And there is nothing wrong with that per se.

Next, Marco Rubio, the candidate in Florida. March at least has a political pedigree, with time spent in the Florida House of Representatives and is the son of Cuban exiles. So presumably, he gets it. In the interest of fairness, I will point out that he declares himself to be a Roman Catholic. From his own web site he has this to say:

candidates for office should be talking about their conservative vision for our country’s future. --Marco2010

Conservative vision?

In Wisconsin, Ron Johnson won the Republican nomination to go after the US Senate seat currently held by Russ Fiengold. He is such an unknown that the bits on his wiki page are barely dry. In a May, 2010...do I call it a press release?... columnist George Will effused about him. The most basic right, Johnson says, is the right to keep your property.. Johnson is a pro-life Lutheran, [who] will highlight Feingold's opposition to banning late-term abortions. But more importantly, Johnson feels that the real issues is the transformation of American society in a way foreshadowed in fiction. I guess I am going to have to read Atlas Shrugged to understand what he is talking about because it seems counter to what American society is. And certainly, it seems to be counter to the very fundamentals of what the Tea Party claims to stand for.

For years, the Republican party has been fighting to control the hearts and minds of the American public. Their rhetoric has been pro-Business and smaller government, at least on the surface, while underneath, they have attempted to mandate who can sleep with whom, where and under what conditions, and restrict the rights of Americans more tightly than most dictatorships, while at the same time trying to hold up the Constitution as their document of guiding principles.

Now, along comes the Tea Party, arguing for smaller government, less tax, and a society based on the Constitution.

Fine, if you want to base your rhetoric on the Constitution, perhaps you should actually read it. To begin, as was pointed out previously, the Constitution says, in article VI, Paragraph 3:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Further, if we are going to assume that the Constitution includes the Amendments, all of them, not just the ones you like, then we need to look closely at the First Amendment, which says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You know where I am going with this right? The Tea Party wants to argue that they are in favour of smaller Government, yet the people they are putting up for nomination would like nothing more than to enforce their religious views on those of us that have a Constitutional right to tell them to go pound sand. And this is where I lose my patience with this whole movement. This is nothing more than ultra-conservative, uber-religious people that believe the United States is a bastion of Christianity. And it is not, nor was it ever intended to be.

But let's pretend for a moment that the vast majority of the Tea Party really are opposed to big government. Maybe those same members should enumerate the ways in which big government has helped them everyday. It is a case of let he who is without sin....

The United States has some serious problems, and I am the first to tell you that the Government needs an overhaul on a number of levels. I have covered only a few of them in the years that I have been writing this blog. But if we, as Americans, are serious about holding out elected leaders accountable, should we not actually be electing leaders that know what the issues are? Talking about smaller government is not discussing the Economy. Being born-again will not help improve Health Care. Supporting gun rights does not begin to cover the tough issues of Immigration.

Unfortunately the American voter has a very limited ability to process political information. And the buzz phrases tend to penetrate more than the real issues. Until a gas line breaks, or a levee fails. And then they want to know why the Government did not do more.