My latest Pajamas Media piece is up and I have to say of all the pieces I’ve written, it is probably among those that I’m the most proud of:
I’ve taken time off from work on April 15 to be at my local tea party. As the tea parties occur, the media will offer their spin on why people are there.
Large events like this are remarkable. In some ways, they’re comparable to baseball games, where you’ll find some people with an agenda aside from the game. If the media applied the same coverage to baseball games that it applies to tea parties, it would assume that, if someone gets through security and streaks across the field nude, most of the crowd are closet nudists.
Of course, most just want to see the game and have no interest in the streaker. Similarly, the streaker has no interest in the baseball game. He simply wants to streak nude in front of a large audience.
Like our baseball streaker, some at the tea parties will have their own agendas that have little or nothing to do with the cause for which most people are going to attend. Most would rather not be defined by the proverbial streaker, and I’m no exception. I’m not going to the tea party to make the case that President Obama is a Muslim born in Indonesia, to advocate secession from the union, or to explain how America’s problems are the direct results of actions by members of the Council on Foreign Relations. I’m not going as a Republican; I’m going as an American.
My party has let the country down with its massive overspending, corrupt career politicians, and willingness to play business as usual when it’s not called for. As much as I’m not a fan of the Obama administration, if he’s replaced in 2012 by a feckless Republican president with a feckless Republican Congress that believes only its own re-election, our country will be no better for it.
Read the whole thing here.
April 14th, 2009 at 7:01 am
I am also taking the day off to go to a Tea Party.
April 14th, 2009 at 7:43 am
That is a fantastic article Adam. I’m really glad I read it and I hope that everyone else reads it in its entirety.
Your points about balanced budgets, career politicians, and term limits are the kind of foundation issues that republicans need to anchor to. Unfortunately, before republicans have any credibility on these issues they will need to purge a great deal of our current “talent”.
With that said, I think these Tea Parties have become a satire of themselves. Whatever the initial intention was, they have essentially been turned into joe the plumber-like faux activism. While I hope that they are the begining of a reform movement within the GOP, I fear that they will simply be another failed GOP publicity stunt.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Perhaps this deserves a FPP. Rick Perry stands up for the 10th Amendment and aims his sword at Leviathan:
Gov. Rick Perry joined state Rep. Brandon Creighton and sponsors of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 50 in support of states’ rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”
Perry continued: “Millions of Texans are tired of Washington, DC trying to come down here to tell us how to run Texas.”
http://www.drudgereport.com/flashtx.htm
April 14th, 2009 at 8:16 am
What are these tea partiers rebelling against, exactly?
It all just seems like, in the words of Andrew Sullivan, a temper tantrum.
Are they outraged about big government spending? The stimulus? The bailouts? I don’t get it.
It all just seems a product of Glenn Beck-style paranoia and hyperbole.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Alex,
“What are these tea partiers rebelling against, exactly?”
Taxes on tea.
Do you read your history assignments?
April 14th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Yeah, that revolution thing…
As it turns out, though, taxation with representation ain’t so hot, either.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:37 am
nope.
Give us a king!!!!
At least the king didn’t feel compelled to meddle in the minutiae of people’s lives. As long as he collected his (relatively paltry) taxes and was able to pass on his crown to his own heir, he left pretty well alone.
So libertarians and monarchists unite!!!!
April 14th, 2009 at 9:13 am
#4:
You wouldn’t understand. It’s about principles and freedom, and the fact that people have been betrayed. I hope it is a move of awakening.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:15 am
WHAT principles, though, Adam? I’m just asking you to give me some bullet points. What are the people protesting at the tea parties specifically protesting?
April 14th, 2009 at 9:22 am
#9:
I think if there were two things, I’d say:
1) Crushing national debt passed on to the next generation. This is probably the most universal.
2) The taxpayer funded raids on the Treasury for the irresponsible.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:06 am
It seems to me that if we are not careful, the scope of topics needing to be addressed at the tea parties are so far reaching that we could be trying to address too many topics at any one of these. Should each focus on no more than two or three topics? We can hold others for other issues in the same cities, but it just seems to me that everyone is going to come with their own agenda, and there could be a lot of frustration in feeling that their main complaints was not adequately covered or cared about. So, it seems to me that each need to be advertised to revolve around two or three topics to avoid this.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:07 am
The only way to stop the increase in debt is to tax the people who won’t
decrease their spending in response to higher taxes – people with family incomes
of roughly $150,000 a year or more are comfortable enough to still go out
to eat even if they pay an additional $4,500 per year in taxes at the low end (less than
$100 a week – which sounds like a lot until you realize that at that level they
are pulling down a bit less than $3,000 per week – if I made $3K a week I would never
cook again).
If you hold onto supply side economics, you can’t really complain about the
debt. Your chant needs to be SOAK THE RICH LIKE A TEABAG if you are
really ticked about the debt.
As far as the bailout, I wouldn’t call these raids, but buying at a fire sale.
I frankly wish more of this debt were purchased with a plan to not eventually
recoup the funds. Some suburban tracts need to be bulldozed and turned into
green space, which is hardly possible if you need to make the money back on the
security associated with it.
I do agree, however, that some of the folks which caused the crisis need to be
pursued. Car dealers who gave out high interest car loans with the value of unpaid
balance of the prior car included come to mind – as do mortgage brokers who got
rich off fees while selling borrowers products they knew that they could never pay
back. Some of these fools, as well as the financial institutions that arranged these
instruments and the investment houses who securitized them – as well as the rating
agencies need to be held collectively and individually responsible under RICO and
pay triple damages for any fees or bonuses they collected for this masterpiece of a crisis
they created. The borrowers should not be totally free of responsibility for this
matter either. If they were deliberately participated in the fraud, then the
investors should be made whole. However, if they were sold something they could
not understand and could not have known better than they should get a share of the
fines applied to their balances or returned to them if they have already lost
their homes.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Good luck with that tea-bagging. Just remember to breathe through your nose.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Personally I find Beck to be rather annoying. He seems entirely theatrical and disingenuous. It’s one thing to occasionally rant and rave when something genuinely upsets you (God knows I do), but he does this sort of thing too often. It’s just too much.
At least with Limbaugh, he gets his point across in a calm and reasonable way and doesn’t sound insane. Limbaugh’s sarcasm and wit are far preferable to Beck’s shouting and screaming.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Adam,
I completely agree with #14. Beck is CONSTANTLY indignant to the point of histrionics. It gets really old.
At least Limbaugh is genuinely funny some of the time, and much easier on the ears.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:51 am
1) Crushing national debt passed on to the next generation. This is probably the most universal.
2) The taxpayer funded raids on the Treasury for the irresponsible.
So why weren’t you throwing tea parties against George W. Bush?
April 14th, 2009 at 10:57 am
CNN Poll: 58% think Obama has clear plan
Poll shows that nearly six in 10 respondents think the president has a clear plan for solving the country’s economic problems.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Sort of ironic that one streaker makes the rest “closet nudists”.
I mean, speaking literally, that’s exactly where nudist behavior occurs
April 14th, 2009 at 11:12 am
“Good luck with that tea-bagging. Just remember to breathe through your nose.” Hahaha, you FiLibs just don’t get it.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Or an echo chamber to serve as the site for a mutual masturbatory circle jerk.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:20 am
I’m not a fiscal liberal, obviously. I’m a laissez-faire capitalist. But what are these tea parties about?
April 14th, 2009 at 11:22 am
mutual masturbatory circle jerk.
A bit redundant.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:29 am
The Futility of Protesting
http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/2009/04/the-futility-of-protesting/
April 14th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Yeah, protesting is retarded. It can be fun, but it’s ultimately so dumb.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:40 am
JOHN AVLON: Tea Parties — Just Partisans Letting Off Steam?
If the anger is not directed beyond Democrats and the Obama administration, if a solutions-oriented agenda is not articulated, then all this will just be a ritualized venting of spleen, manipulated by people with self-interested partisan agendas — a whole lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/04/14/avlon_tea_party_acorn/
April 14th, 2009 at 11:49 am
#21 – Reform of medicare and medicaid, no doubt. Along with volcano monitoring, mormon locusts and research funding for the NIH.
And probably the fact that we are only getting 187 F-22’s instead of 249.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:58 am
“Hahaha, you FiLibs just don’t get it.”
I can recognize a horribly disjointed PR stunt going wrong, easy enough, though. It’s a shame there’s such a lack of leadership within the party, that the rank and file are taking orders from Beck and the fringes….
April 14th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
“I’m not a fiscal liberal, obviously. I’m a laissez-faire capitalist. But what are these tea parties about?
” Hello, to protest out of control government spending and to remind our congressmen that we Americans are fed up with this out of control spending. Is that not part of fiscal Conservatism (or even fiscal Moderateism?)
April 14th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
If you think only the fringes of society are against wasteful over spending than you know very little about America American Ideals.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Well done Adam, many times it seems politics becomes more of a sport where you cheer for your favorite “team” or party in this case. I hope all Republicans have learned their lesson and whoever our nominee is better drastically cut the size of the federal government if elected.I don’t listen to Rush but I watch Beck when I get the chance and I like him.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Right on Sean M. At least a few Republicans realize that we need to be fiscally responsible.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
“If you think only the fringes of society are against wasteful over spending than you know very little about America”
No, I said tea-baggers are taking their cues from the fringes, like Beck.
I don’t think anyone is FOR wasteful spending, on either side of the aisle. You can debate what each side considers wasteful, but that’s another issue.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
“I don’t think anyone is FOR wasteful spending,” No, but it is OK for the government to spend billions of dollars, right?
“No, I said tea-baggers are taking their cues from the fringes, like Beck.” False, the train already was moving on the tracks, Mr. Beck just decided to hop on before the train got too far from the station.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I personally like crumpets and those little finger sandwiches.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
We are so used to top down politics…this is actually the reverse and we should all take part. Beck is not leading this (although he is a strong enabler as are other radio talk show hosts).
Who is leading this? Again this is grass roots at its purest…
What are we protesting? Come on, aren’t you paying attention??? Runaway away government spending and their resulting deficits/taxation…
Where is this going? Not sure. Maybe it will fizzle out, maybe this will be a big national movement…
When is it happening? Tomorrow will be the launching point, the ending point, who knows…
Why are we doing this? Because no one (including apparently many on this blog) is paying attention…
How do we know when we achieved victory? When we stop mortgaging our children’s future…
Ross Perot ran a very serious campaign for president on a very similar message that prevented Bush Sr. from getting re-elected. How quickly we all forget…
April 14th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
FreedomWorks’ Long History Of Teabagging
April 14th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Aron, the first step is to convince you the movement is not real (so people don’t show). The second step is to convince you it is. Not widespread (to minimize it). The last step is to convince you it does not matter anyway (so we do nothing else).
Is
April 14th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Here Come the Plastic Pitchforks
Our latest populism is vague on the issues.
By THOMAS FRANK
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123975925509119297.html#printMode
April 15th, 2009 at 2:11 am
Aron, we will see tomorrow what happens (or for that matter today). Many political leaders are not happy with this as it is not orginating from them (see Michael Steele and him not being invited to speak).
In the end I am pretty certain we know what this march is about. It is anti-progressive and anti-big government at its very root. Both Dems and Repubs have been mortgaging our future and we need to stop it. Is this populism? Maybe not in the purist sense, but it is a common cord that most Americans agree with and this is the chance to be heard as the letters to congress seemed to have done nothing yet…
Sorry if you don’t agree, but the bad sentiment against Obama and the government is rising (just note the Rasmussen daily tracking polls). This movement can make the dent in Obama’s armor even bigger and if Republicans are smart they will own this issue. Why? Because most likely the economy will recover (unless we go into hyper inflation) and Obama will have a difficult time defending the debt that he is putting us all in as this has larger long term implications (which most of us understand)…