March 30, 2011

Tea Party March Madness

Dallas 2009 Tax Day Tea Party.

In an interesting post on Hot Air, Allahpundit echoes Michael Barone who asks if the Tea Party has given up on Wisconsin. While Allapundit rightly and deftly answers with a collective call to arms, Barone asks a valid question and the answer is very worrisome indeed.


With productive busy lives to lead, conservative Tea Party activists don't have the time, or perhaps the inclination or even incentive to stage a long game strategy against the ceaseless leftward march the country has found itself in for most of the last 80 years. The left on the other hand is guided by the principles of Saul Alinsky and the implicit understanding that victory takes decades and a lot of hard work. To use a March Madness themed analogy, we on the right are so far a picturesque slam dunk and they have always been a game long full court press. The press will eventually win over a single highlight reel dunk.

When you have the likes of John McCain Lindsey Graham who would manage the leftward drift rather than combat it you begin to see what an uphill battle this really is for those of us on the right. The clamor for an easy ride is a contagion. To combat it, the Tea Party must remain vigilant and active.

Nations rise and historically they have always fallen too. As they grow and prosper they become lazy, soft and self-indulgent. They are too willing to rest on their laurels and feel entitled to their prominence and permanence. But that's not how the real world works. In sports when you become the champion other teams do not defer to you the next season. In fact, they try harder against you. You are the one they want to beat. Similarly, you can't stop working out, practicing and putting on weight and expect to win again.

Modern liberalism is exactly that - welfare, entitlement, and a lack of the will to win. Everybody should just have fun playing the game. Of course those playing against you probably will because they will be winning, and not in the Charlie Sheen sense. No, that sort of meltdown is reserved for those who feel entitled to their perch and are not prepared to defend it. It is reserved for those who believe they have tiger blood but aren't prepared to work to make sure they really do.

What is both odd and striking is that while that is how progressives are with respect to America, bloated and content and self-indulgent with social programs, that's not how they are with politics. In fact it's quite the opposite. They are savage and relentless in their pursuit of the drift towards socialism and the welfare state. It doesn't matter that the numbers don't make sense. It doesn't matter that it is self defeating for America's unique greatness. They actually want to be like other countries.

The problem I fear for conservatives is that we may be the polar opposite of that. While we are savage and intense for all things to do with American and her unique greatness, we seem to be far less intense when it comes to working towards keeping it that way. I’m not talking about national defense, I’m talking about protests and rallies and community involvement and the day to day effort that it takes to fight for fiscal and legislative sanity. The Tea Parties should not have stopped with the election of 63 more Republicans to the Congress and a handful to the Senate. Satisfaction with that end is the laziness of which I speak. Is anyone in the Tea Party truly happy that the argument over a $1.6 trillion deficit has come down to a fight over $60 billion Sure it’s a start but it’s not really very meaningful in the bigger picture.

So where is the Tea Party? Have they really given up in Wisconsin? Are the resting on their laurels with the electoral victory in 2010? Are they sitting back waiting for 2012 expecting that a gap in their momentum through 2011 will have no deleterious effect on their results? I just don’t understand. I argued that the first Tea Party rally of 2011 should have happened on the day the new Congress was sworn in. The message should have been “we’re watching you”. Instead it appears a bit of complacency has crept in, and conservatives more than anyone should understand what that means for the future. This is not about defeating Democrats it’s about saving the country and keeping it strong and uniquely great.

The original Tea Party was the backdrop for an entire revolution. It did not fizzle out with meager concessions
The colonies refused to pay the levies required by the Townsend Acts claiming they had no obligation to pay taxes imposed by a Parliament in which they had no representation. In response, Parliament retracted the taxes with the exception of a duty on tea - a demonstration of Parliament's ability and right to tax the colonies. In May of 1773 Parliament concocted a clever plan. They gave the struggling East India Company a monopoly on the importation of tea to America. Additionally, Parliament reduced the duty the colonies would have to pay for the imported tea. The Americans would now get their tea at a cheaper price than ever before. However, if the colonies paid the duty tax on the imported tea they would be acknowledging Parliament's right to tax them. Tea was a staple of colonial life - it was assumed that the colonists would rather pay the tax than deny themselves the pleasure of a cup of tea.
The colonists were not fooled by Parliament's ploy. When the East India Company sent shipments of tea to Philadelphia and New York the ships were not allowed to land. In Charleston the tea-laden ships were permitted to dock but their cargo was consigned to a warehouse where it remained for three years until it was sold by patriots in order to help finance the revolution.
A revolution in thinking is needed now. Americans all need to understand what is at stake if the government continues to bury itself in debt while crippling the private industry that has been the greatest powerhouse economic engine the world has ever known. Business as usual will not work. That message cannot be resurrected every 2 or 4 years; it has to become ingrained in the consciousness of Americans. You cannot awaken it as required, especially in the face of the unrelenting march of progressivism and the Alinsky tactics the left uses. You have to find the time for this. Across the country Tea Parties exist and not every local Tea Party has to do something every day, but with that level of resources, something should be happening somewhere all the time. And the rest of us should be talking about it when it happens. The time is still NOW. To abandon that thinking is perilous for conservative prospects in 2012 and for American prospects well beyond that. You know it. So what are you doing about it?

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