Mail Call: Politics in the ol' Inbox

Ok, here's one from a "liberal-progressive" homeschooling mom who I converse with on a quasi-regular basis. She is taking issue below with my political position and affinity for the Tea Party movement. (I did seriously consider dressing up like an Indian on November 2 when I go to vote. I wondered if the joke would fall short, however, as so few people really know history...)

Here's her cut/paste message to me with the link on the top.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904?RS_show_page=0
If you think the tea party is for you, you're likely being had.

The Tea Party today is being pitched in the media as this great threat to the GOP; in reality, the Tea Party is the GOP. What few elements of the movement aren't yet under the control of the Republican Party soon will be, and even if a few genuine Tea Party candidates sneak through, it's only a matter of time before the uprising as a whole gets castrated, just like every grass-roots movement does in this country. Its leaders will be bought off and sucked into the two-party bureaucracy, where its platform will be whittled down until the only things left are those that the GOP's campaign contributors want anyway: top-bracket tax breaks, free trade and financial deregulation. The rest of it — the sweeping cuts to federal spending, the clampdown on bailouts, the rollback of Roe v. Wade — will die on the vine as one Tea Party leader after another gets seduced by the Republican Party and retrained for the revolutionary cause of voting down taxes for Goldman Sachs executives. It's all on display here in Kentucky, the unofficial capital of the Tea Party movement, where, ha, ha, the joke turns out to be on them: Rand Paul, their hero, is a fake.

wishing you better, with all due affection,xxxxxx

Dear xxxxx~ Thanks for sharing that. Intereresting how one's worldview shapes their perspective. According to the "blind men and the elephant" folktale, we can both see the elephant from differing perspectives and be seeing "a rope, a wall, a snake, a tree...." and in a sense, both be right.

My take: Yes, the Tea Party is [an element] of the GOP in that many of the tea partiers are Republicans. (Strangely enough, many of the them are Democrats and independents also who are sick of BO's idea of "hope and change.") If the writer believes that those activists don't realize that the goal is to "take back" the GOP from its moderate leanings (the tax-hike division) then this person grossly underestimates the movement. Whether we like it or not, we are STUCK in a two-party system and if any reform is to be made, it has to be done through the system until things change.

Hey, what's wrong with tax breaks, free trade and financial deregulation? That's the point. The problem with progressives is that they haven't figured out that increasing tax revenue is destructive The "top-bracket tax breaks" affects everyone. Many of those who would be affected (those earning $250K according to BO--the "rich") are the business owners who hire a vast percentage of our working force in America. Rather than lose their income, it's much easier to downsize their businesses. The more taxes, the more downsizing. If you lived in our little town, you would realize, in our little community who all would be affected. Everyone, except those employed by the University and the hospital. My husband's business falls in that category,and we are by no means "rich". Tax hikes, we lay off. That means that these men stand to lose their home, they stop buying non-necessary goods, they stop supporting area businesses, they go on the public dole (Medicaid, food stamps et al.) So, all that said, I absolutely support tax breaks for "the rich."

Free trade. "Free" as opposed to highly regulated, government controlled trade? 'nuff said. It doesn't matter what kind of deregulation happens, financial, health or otherwise. Regulations strangle prosperity.

If the "Tea Party" leaders get seduced (which is possible considering they are human and subject to the same temptations that we all are--people pleasing, insecurity under scrutinization, money), it won't be the Republicans alone to blame but the whole system and the media that supports it.

Lastly, what makes Kentucky the "unofficial" capital of the Tea Party. Has the writer not been anywhere else? I would probably consider South Carolina the "capital" if a capital needs to be defined considering that's the state served by Jim DeMint. Rand Paul is nothing more than a senatorial candidate at this point.

As for the liberal call to class warfare, the tension created between the haves and have-nots, the increased social programs that the liberals push, I have to agree with Samuel Adams and Benjamin Franklin regarding this welfare society that we have created. They recognized that a society that harbors resentment against the "haves" and desires to give to the "have-nots" by requiring the Federal government get involved is counter-productive to the "care and concern for the poor" (that the progressives pretend to espouse while destroying their liberties at the same time). Samuel Adams wrote: "The utopian schemes of leveling [restribution of the wealth], and a community of goods [central ownership of all the means of production and distribution] are as visionary and impracticable as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and in our government, unconstitutional."

Franklin, after living several years in England where he saw government welfare in action, had this to say: "I have long been of your opinion that your legal provision for the poor is a very great evil, operating as it does to the encouragment of idleness. We have followed your example, and begin now to see our error, and, I hope, shall reform it." He also said "to relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity; it is godlike; but, if we provide encouragement for laziness, and supports for folly, may we not be found fighting against the order of God and Naure, which perhaps has appointed want and misery as the proper punishments for, and cautions against, as well as necessary consequences of, idleness and extravagance? Whenver we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence, and to interfere with the government of the world, we had need be very circumspect, lest we do more harm than good."

We could use your enthusiasm for justice on the side of conservatism. Blessings~