Tea Partiers from across the country gathered in Washington D.C. on “tax day,” April 15, in likely the largest of many hundreds of protests across the nation. Sponsors of the D.C. event announced an estimate of 25,000 while participants were still streaming in — an impressive number considering most attendees had to take time off work for this mid-week event and forgo their own local tea party protests. Though the gathering was smaller than the Washington 9/12 Tea Party last fall, the spirit was still there last week.
It is remarkable to contrast the Tea Party participants with the typical leftist-generated protest calculated to force others to pay them more or, more commonly these days, to require us to abandon our standard of living because of some imagined catastrophe such as the supposed threat of global warming. Leftist demonstrations promoting collectivist causes are glum, ugly, mean-spirited, and often destructive. Such Marxist-oriented groups carry professionally printed signs with some terse political slogan such as “We Demand Health Care Now.”
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Compare that with the Tea Partiers who bear thousands of cleverly worded and painstakingly constructed placards designed to bring attention to causes they believe in: freedom, limited government, the threat of socialism, the threat of losing our Constitution, the need to replace Congress with lawmakers who will abide by their oath of office. Of course, there’s the homespun humor, too: Give Me Liberty or at Least a Big Screen TV; Small Minds Love Big Government; Proud Member of the Angry Mob; and hundreds of others.
These lovers of liberty are extremely serious, but of cheerful demeanor and full of camaraderie in the best sense of the word. At the Washington gathering, I met several people I suspect will become lifelong friends. Everyone you talk to understands the problem we’re facing in the country due to out-of-control spending and progressivism in Congress and the administration.
It is interesting to speculate what the administration and congressional leaders really believe about the thorn in their side that has developed as a vibrant grassroots movement in America: The Tea Parties. Both President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave the media “whistling through the graveyard” comments touting their lack of concern and respect for the poor, ignorant, old white men they declare to be the self-serving core of the Tea Party movement.
Funny, at the same time pollsters found Tea Party activists are statistically more educated, wealthier, and surprisingly young. Moreover both the leadership and the rank and file are heavily influenced — if not dominated — by women who are trading bridge club for a virtual club to use on progressive politicians, both Democrat and Republican.
Imagine what it must be like to be in the shoes of our aspiring political masters. Across the nation there are some 700-800 groups of people who are spontaneously joining together to hold a Tea Party with the intention of defeating the proponents of big government. People who have never been involved in politics are now studying the Constitution, organizing to turn the big spenders out of office, and attending meetings instead of sitting on the couch — and are enthusiastic about their conversion. These are people who understand that the government intends to bribe them using their own tax money. These are people who know that “progressive” means just the opposite: a regression into big government spending and control that decreases personal freedom, stifles capital accumulation along with the attendant decreases in jobs and productivity, lowers our standard of living, and converts government from a servant to the master. And they don’t intend to let any of this to happen.
But what about the statists — what actions do they take to neutralize these “loudmouths”? Accusing them of being rednecks and stupid may bring accolades from the Left, but it is politically akin to poking a stick into a nest of hornets. During the last week before Tax Day there were attempts to get “infiltrators” to carry obscene, racist, or otherwise bigoted signs so the mainstream media could point to them as evidence that Tea Partiers are “driven by hate.” This ended up being a failure.
Strategies were put in place to thwart any would-be “infiltrators” who dared to wade into large crowds of Tea Partiers to disrupt or discredit. For example, at the Washington, D.C. protest, organizers announced their plan to deal with the situation. If “infiltrators” were to attempt this type of disruption, we were to surround them and ask them to leave. If the provocateurs refused we were to get videos of their actions and show that they were unwelcome outsiders. Finally we were to get these videos on the Web as soon as possible.
A common way for the “progressives” to destroy their opponents is to insinuate themselves into leadership posts of their opponents, then change the direction of the organization. We see that today in environmental organizations such as Nature Conservancy that once were truly for preserving the natural beauty of our country’s wild lands, but have been transmuted into shills for Big Government programs such as Cap and Tax. The problem here is there is no central organization to capture and dismantle. There are literally thousands of small groups, each one basically autonomous. If you infiltrate one and render it ineffective, then like the mythical Hydra, another head grows back and you find you have made no progress. In this regard the Tea Partiers are self-policing: if you see one organization on the wrong track, other groups criticize and isolate it. What a perfect organizational strategy. And like the free market it is not something created by man, but a part of man’s nature. Or at least a “free man’s” nature.
The more the Left tries to stamp out the American spirit, the stronger the spirit gets. They can’t subvert or bribe these diverse, dedicated patriots. They can only hope they can fasten the chains before too many wake up. Too bad for President Obama, the liberals in Congress, and other collectivists — they are going to lose that race.
