Most of the American People have not been politically active until recently. We’ve all been too busy working for a living and raising our children to spend our time on politics. And only about 60% of eligible voters in Bethel even bother to vote each year. However, the economic crisis, coupled with the actions of President Obama and the Democrat-controlled legislatures have changed all that.
Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, after his attack on Pearl Harbor, is reported to have said “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” The President’s and Congress’s socialist agenda is an attack on the American way of life, and has awakened the American People. We are standing up and letting our displeasure with them be known.
The Tea Party Movement is a name for this displeasure. It’s not really a group—it’s not that well organized. There are coordinators in many cities and there are a large number of groups who support the Tea Party Movement. Each group, and each “Tea Party Member” seems to have a different agenda, but there is a shared value, which has been expressed as:
Promoting the Constitution, fiscal restraint, and individual responsibility.
And also as:
Constitutionally limited government, free market ideology and low taxes
Many groups, from the center to the far-right believe in these values, and support the Tea Party Movement. However, the press seems to look for, and showcase, those on the extreme far right and claims that’s what the Tea Party Movement is about.
While the more liberal members of the press have decried and depreciated the Tea Party, the truth of the matter is that the Tea Party Movement is a centrist organization that is neither (or is both) Republican and Democratic. The local coordinators of the Tea Party movement are very reasonable and rational, and most of the people who self-identify as “Tea Party Members” are average working folks.
A recent Gallup poll found that more Americans support the Tea Party movement than oppose it. These supporters generally representative of the public except that the Tea Party supporters are more economically conservative than the average American.
One of the more important complaints I’ve heard from the coordinators of the Tea Party is that legislators look to special interest groups who can assure their re-election, and will “buy” votes by pandering to these special interest groups. The Tea Party is a potent political force because average working American voters are standing up and being counted, and are learning more about what their legislators have done for them, or sometimes, what their legislators have done to them.
The Tea Party is the political awakening of this generation of the America People, and we are filled with a terrible resolve: namely, we want to reject socialism and communism, and bring back the American Spirit of entrepreneurship and independence so that our Country, our Economy, and our Families can thrive.
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