Are We the Bad Guys?

I already know the answer to that question.  In the battle of ideologies between the Tea Party, the GOP establishment and the Democrats, we have been portrayed as the bad guys, the hostage takers, the terrorists and now the Legos……  huh?  This is no surprise really.  We are educated and schooled in the Alinsky tactics of demonizing your political opponents that the left has used for years against the right.  We knew what to expect from them when we started this show.  We also knew that the “lame stream media” would come after us with these time honored weapons and were prepared for the onslaught.  What caught many of us off guard was the GOP or at least the GOP leadership using these tools against us.  That’s right, the thing they would never (much to our consternation at times) use against the left, they freely  launch against the Tea Party Patriots.  Why?

First of all we all really know how ridiculous these claims are.  The folks that believe in the constitution, in fiscal responsibility, in common sense foreign policy and that our elected officials should actually honor their oaths of office are not the black hat guys here.  They are your Grandmas and Grandpas, your Vietnam veteran uncle, your church going Mom and Dad, your cousin who just got back from Afghanistan and your preacher.  They are the history teacher you always liked, the owner of the corner market, and the guy who owns the gas station down the road.  They are the farmer, the local pediatrician and the nurse that works in his office.  They are the firefighter, the policeman and the ambulance driver.  In short, they are America.  And they represent everything that made America what it is today.  They are the folks that make this country and this economic engine work.  They are not, as MSNBC or CNN would have you believe “Astroturf” bought and paid for by greedy capitalists to throw the proverbial monkey wrench into the gears of Hope and Change.  They are not as NBC, ABC and CBS claim white hood wearing fanatics who oppose Barack Obama because of their seething racism.  They are patriots, that believe in American exceptionalism, the rule of law and that they are blessed to have been born in or immigrated to the greatest country in the history of the world.  Sounds like a real bloodthirsty bunch huh?

The driving force behind the Tea Party is simple, principle.  They are people who live their lives guided by principle.  And they have watched from the sidelines for decades as the political class in this country sold out principle to either line their pockets or push an anti-American agenda or both.  They are sick of it.  It turns their stomach and in truth they blame themselves for the complacency brought on by their relatively comfortable life over the years and just recently realized that their children and grandchildren will never have that same sort of existence.  And they now urgently desire to set all those years of  political apathy right.  They also know, that unless they do, they condemn future generations to a life of servitude to an overbearing and oppressive tyrannical form of government that bears no resemblance to the republic that the founders envisioned for us.

They have an uphill battle on their hands.  The enemy is a political class that is entrenched and has stacked the deck in their favor.  And an entitlement class that they have created to help them keep their power.  Included in the latter group are not only the welfare recipients, but a larger portion of the electorate that are in the employ of government.  In fact, the real reason for the health care bill is to create government employees out of the country’s health care workers, numbering 50.7 million, this bill would more than double the amount of government employees in the United States.  Added to the current toll, this would represent over 71 million in that workforce.  Think about that for a minute, a voting block of 71 million and their spouses, all having to stand in a voting booth and decide on whether to pull the lever for a party that wants to cut government spending, or a party that wants to grow it.  In 2008 only 132 million people voted.  So you can see how critical the health care bill is to democrats, and how vital it is that the Tea Party gets it repealed.  Of course the icing on the cake for the left is the whole other group (everyone) that will depend on Uncle Sam for all their health care needs.  This is why universal health care has always been the Holy Grail to socialists around the world.  The so called “stimulus” bills were designed to only stimulate Democrat votes, by lumping all state and local government employees in that group, as most of those funds went to those entities.  Considering all of this, you can see how vital the past few years and the next few are to the future of the Republic.

The Tea Party felt pretty good about their chances after the 2010 elections though, gaining a number of seats in the Senate and taking complete control of the House of Representatives who actually controls the purse strings.  Of course all those republicans running, both incumbents and challengers paid homage to the new political movement and promised to go forth and strike down the new health care law and curtail out of control spending in Washington.  Some of them tried, mostly from the freshman class.  The veterans however got back to D.C. and resumed business as usual, wheeling and dealing with our future in some old and perverse chess game that continued to send us hurtling down the road to hell.  Finally, disgusted over congress’s failure to move on the agenda they sent them there to enact, the Tea Party cried out over spending and the budget.  They contacted their representatives and let them know in no uncertain terms that unless they held the line on spending and the debt ceiling they would be fired in 2012.  A number of the representatives, mostly freshmen again, responded and tried to hold that line.  But their own leadership sold them out.  The Speaker of the House told them to “get their ass’s in line”, and subverted a bill that his own house passed called Cut, Cap and Balance that would have capped current spending levels, cut future budgets and called for a balanced budget amendment.  His “compromise” was a bill that did none of the above.  It raised the debt ceiling to avoid a fictitious default on the nation’s debt, and promised future cuts to increases, in the amount of the debt ceiling hike.  It was and is a farce.  During the debate many in our own party mimicked the left’s Alinsky attacks on the Tea Party and called us “hostage takers” and “Hobbits”.  Of course the media jumped on this band wagon along with the DNC and came up with a few extra adjectives to describe the movement.   The desired result was achieved, the Tea Party’s negatives grew among the “oh so vital” independents, thus supposedly vindicating the turncoat Republicans and their “strategy”.

So instead of using the debate to promote fiscal sanity and educate the uninformed independents, the republican leadership caved, and played to the lowest common denominator, as usual.  I am reminded of one of my favorite Jeffersonian quotes.

       "Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors, shall all become wolves."

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787

So I ask again, Are we the bad guys?  Or are we the only hope this nation has?