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It’s tax day and I doubt anybody who reads this has not heard in advance about the many "Tea Party" events that have been planned around the country for today. Ive been hearing about them from various sources for months and I have been conflicted in my feelings related to such activities. From a constitutional perspective we have a first amendment right to free speech and peaceable assembly so barring any violence there is no question as to the legality of these events. My conflict is in the way the events are being promoted.
Many of the public figures who are promoting these events paint them as a kind of legitimate political action. Among those who really care about the issues of constitutionally limited government and perpetual government deficit spending there are many, such as myself, who recognize that these tea parties have no possibility of bringing about real political results – they are a grand publicity stunt played off of the frustrations of one segment of the population. As such they are merely a political reaction and political reactions are easy to spin. Promoters are spinning this as an argument against larger government and deficit spending. Detractors are spinning it as a bunch of ridiculous anti-Obama rallies.
Real political action, in contrast to political reactions, is very difficult to spin. It takes much more time and effort than simply gathering some press coverage and getting people to show up one day carrying signs and shouting in megaphones. Real political action, for those who are interested, would include regularly seeking information on issues of interest to you. It would include attending county party organizing conventions. As Rob Miller so aptly said, "If you believe that you have something to contribute to the American experience, you should come to a county convention." In Davis County that would be this Saturday (4/18) for both Democrats and Republicans. If you really want to make a difference you should be looking to be a delegate to county and state party conventions (or even national conventions if you are so inclined). It means participating in those caucus meetings and conventions where parties are organized and candidates are chosen. It means not letting your party get away with ignoring its principles in the name of political expedience. (That does not preclude the possibility of compromise, but it does reject the argument that all of politics is compromise.)
Thankfully today I have come to my own resolution regarding that internal conflict. Real political action is what this country desperately needs from many more people of all political persuasions. We need people who are willing to put in the work and engage in civil debate even when the debate gets spirited. While political reactions do not qualify as real, effective political action they can serve as a first step for those who have not participated in real political action before. I hope that whatever else happens with the tea party events we will see many among the attendees who will start to take part in lasting political action.
15 replies on “Political Action vs Reaction”
It’s worth pointing out that the real purpose of the Tea Parties is to stiffen the spine of those who were already elected on small government principles (non-believers in Keynesian economics) to actually stick to their guns, instead of go along with the status quo ante. It’s an influencing activity, as opposed to an elective one. Now whether or not it’ll have lasting effect remains to be seen – but the mere fact that they are occurring makes some difference. How big of a difference? Only time will tell.
Naturally, the Tea Party idea would work better as a mid-to-long term movement than it would for a single day. We’ll have to see on that one, too.
The only real value that these tea parties can have is if the participants (especially those who have not been politically active before) take their need for action and apply it to the types of activities I listed above, in other words, they have to make it a mid-to-long term movement in their own lives.
I think you are assuming that the people that attended the tea parties have generally not been as politically involved as you think they should have been. I think this is a rather arrogant assumption in more ways than one.
The tea parties show that there is a significant chunk of the population that feels disenfranchised. They show that there are some people out there looking for some political leadership in areas of interest to them.
I didn’t attend any tea parties. For one thing, I had to work. But I was also unsure exactly what was being promoted, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be associated with that lack of clarity. Time will tell how useful the demonstrations were and whether there is staying power.
I know that many of the people who participated in and organized tea parties were already politically active but I believe that the tea party events have very little lasting value except for the fact that such demonstrations are attractive to those who are frustrated but who have not previously been involved and who don’t really understand how to take meaningful action. The possible value of the tea parties that I see is that those in that situation might be induced to take further action after the party is over and the cameras stop rolling.
On the other hand, I have to admit that this perspective may partially be an arrogant assumption on my part about the people who would be drawn to this kind of public demonstration over practices which are decades old.
I am not clear from what you wrote whether or not you attended a Tea Party in Utah, but the message that you are trying to get across is similar to the message that was being delivered at the tea Party, which I attended in Augusta Maine.
Before I left I saw and editorial in the Portland Press Herald titled “The mad Republicans Tea Party?” The editorial was about the tea Party scheduled to occur later in the day in Portland, Me. The Portland Press Herald made no mention of the Tea Party event-taking place at the same time in Augusta, the capita city of Maine. Although I did not attend the Tea Party in Portland, I was aware of it from emails I received from a group in Bath, Maine that is reading and discussing “The 5000 Year Leap” a book about the history of the formation of The United States of America. I was aware that those involved in the Tea Party movement in Portland are philosophically non-partisan.
On all occasions of my own contact with the Tea Party movement, the emphasis has been to get away from two- party thinking. We are encouraged to look at candidates as individuals rather than representatives of a political party. In fact we are encouraged to register to vote as independents
While nationally televised Tea Parties across the nation drew crowds that peaked at in the tens of thousands, the group at Augusta was around four or five hundred people. Smallness has it’s own advantages and in this case it is that any one could take the mike and speak to the crowd. It was the voice of the people telling their own stories. All ages were represented. Pete the Carpenter, one of the organizers, is your archetypical Maine carpenter, speaking with a down east accent and the sincerity and urgency that brings to life the first American Tea Party that ignited the revolution that brought about the creation of The United States Constitution- but the emphasis is on a civil revolution. The crowd was urged to participate in politics from the local to the national level, including the call to run for office. The last speaker was a tweenage young man who struggled with his stage fright but delivered an impressive political speech. Occasions such as this are necessary processes that prepare individuals to become more greatly involved in the politics of their communities.
This is a people’s movement. The only party affiliation is the American Tea Party. This is the voice of all the people who are fed up with the policies coming out of Washington and the gradual erosion of the United States Constitution. It is a call to bring America back to its constitutional roots.
To suggest that the re-education of the American people about their constitutional roots is the first step that has to happen to return The United States to its constitutional foundations.
BTW- there was no press coverage of the Tea party in Augusta. Maine. It wasn’t even mentioned in the Portland Press herald.. So much for downbeat disspirited cynics who portray the participants as beingmotivated by the camera. The naysayers keep saying it only means some thing if it is taken to the next step- not realizing of course that this is exactly the thinking being communicated in the first step- bringing people together who share a common concern. People who downcast the tea party movement, can probably not visualize that a full grown Tomato plant sprouts from a tiny seed. They do not understand process only end results.
Mackenzie,
I have been very happy to see and hear that the ideas I have been discussing about the need to do more than stage a protest are consistent with the messages at many of the tea parties. I think to some extent that you may be generalizing your specific tea party experience to all the tea parties, but from what I hear there was less of the partisanship and short-sightedness than I feared might be the case.
You say that the only party connected with the tea parties is the American Tea Party and yet you are aware that some of the ta parties had some very Republican ties. Perhaps you can say that because you recognize that some who bear the Republican label really do believe in the principles that the tea parties were promoting.
Some of us who were wary of the tea party movement were wary not because we could not visualize the full grown plant but because it was hard to see at times whether the tea parties would actually result in a sustained effort. I’m happy with the prospects that it will.
We need security and the 240+ members of our three branches of goverment to cooperate. In my opinion the ruling class wants President Obama and democrats to fail our nation like President Bush Jr.. I will never forget Barbara Bush’s take on helping the poor of Katrina and how they should consider themselves lucky for the help that our government was giving the welfare state of Louisiana and that people were coming down to hard on her alcoholic son whom was no longer a recovering alcoholic. Our Government failed in the natural disaster of Katrina and 911 but the people of America did not fail those caught in two of Americas worse catastrophes. In order for the power to shift back to Republican control Cheney and others must make the public believe That President Obama’s message of Yes we can! ; and I apologise for using the title of Michael J, Foxes documentary to air May 7, 2009 as nothing more than Terminal Optimism that will lead our Nation to disaster. I with all of my being believe in everything our President is doing to keep us safe and restore the world’s confidence in the United States of America; America will become again a country for the people and bye the people!
This is a first – a person who wholeheartedly supports Obama and yet talks about a ruling class. Some Republicans want Obama to fail. Patriots hope he will succeed, but many of us believe that in order for him to succeed we will have to save him from himself in some areas of policy.
If Cheney has any part in shifting America back to Republican control I just may lose all hope for our society. If we are to return to Republican control it had better be a result of following a new breed of Republicans who recognize and loudly denounce the vast failings within the Bush administration and return to the idea of the rule of law rather than the rule of those in power.
P.S. There are 537 elected members of our government not to mention elected representatives with no vote in Congress (such as from D.C.) and a vast army of appointed positions within our government. Did you just pick 240 out of the air?
Please. It is time to stop pretending that Obama is or ever was running against George W Bush. It is tiresome when the repeated refrain to any criticism of the current administration is “why are you talking about us- look at what they did” That is just a distraction technique, if we are going to do that, then why not take it all the way back to our founding fathers- only then does it become the measure that the current administration should be using.
If we are going to spend all the days of the current administration focused on the administration before it, then it seems that this administration has the liberty to do anything it wants without public examination or even responsibitity because it is always the administration previous that is to blame- as when Obama made his address and said “Number One, I inherited this economy” and then repeated “That’s number One”
Does Obama believe that he is unique in inheriting an economy and other circumstances- that’s the job and anyone running for the job is running on a platform that they have solutions to our contemporary problems- and so to get before America and say “Number One, I am not to blame- that’s Number One” does not inspire confidence – especially when the speaker is a former member of Congress and Congress certainly does have responsibility in the current state of our economy.
Obama is also a former member of the Illinois state legislature and has only failed economic policies to show for it, which is why we never heard much about his record during the campaign. He has been in an influential position on both the state and national level prior to gaining the top executive position in the country and so he is indeed responsible- and further more, our government is not a dictatorship of the administrative branch, it is a balance of powers- making all powers responsible.
You are absolutely right Mackenzie – although I would point out the subtle difference that while Obama was not running against Bush (he was running against McCain as we all know) he was campaigning against Bush (so was McCain to a lesser extent).
If we are to measure any administration against the past we should do so as Mackenzie said by measuring against the Constitution.
David says” If Cheney has any part in shifting America back to Republican control I just may lose all hope for our society”
Cheney is a private citizen who is concerned for the safety of our country due to various actions taken by the Obama administration, as am I. One of the scary aspects of the Obama administration is its propensity to go after private citizens and to even go so far as identifying those who criticize the policies of the administration as “terorists”.
Do you have a problem with Obama selectively declassifying security reports while selectively keeping other parts secret? Are you opposed to Cheney’s request, now that Obama has already done damage to our national security by releasing the selective parts of the report, that he also release the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in regards to that report? It appears to me that Obama placed his obsessive competition with George W Bush, and his own political gain, above our national security by releasing the parts of the report that he so chose. Now he is planning on releasing photos as well, which will only further endanger Americans.
Cheney should speak up- and this should not be politicized as a republican take-over- It is the security of the United States that is at stake and that is not a partisan issue.
And please stop perpetuating the intentional misrepresentation of Republicans through the use of an out-of-context remark by a private citizen that the Obama team attempted to portray as the leader of Republican Party. Quotes taken out of context are just as fundamentally dishonest as declassification of selective parts of top security reports taken out of context.
Let be honest here. Rush Limbaugh, speaking as a private citizen, said (in so many words) that if Obama’s intentions are to transform The United States into a socialist society them Limbaugh wants that goal to fail.
There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that this is indeed Obama’s goal- as it is clear if you consider Obama’s political past from which he rapidly rose to power – which some of us though should have been an important issue BEFORE the election.. Even Obama has admitted that he is indeed a socialist, in so many words, when he said “We are not going to call what we are doing socialism”- obviously Obama knows that what he is doing can be called socialism and Obama also believes that he can pull the wool over American words just by changing language terms. It doesn’t change the underlying real meaning- no matter what words you use. A socialist is a socialist is all too often a communist and then too easily a fascist. Some would argue that we are already entering the fascistic stage as per all the stipulations mandated by the “stimulus” bill and attached to the distribution of freshly printed money that the federal government simply prints ‘as needed” – as per the recent report issued by the Homeland security department identifying those that the administrant labels as “right-wing extremists’ as “terrorists” Now that the Obama administration has won the “War on Terror” by simply renaming it in a vague terminology that could have many different meanings, it seems our department of homeland security has nothing better to do than to go after American citizens who disagree with their policies.
Obama took an oath to preserve and protect and defend the United Staes Constitution. Go back and re-read Federalist paper #10 – in which it is made perfectly clear that the philosophical founding principles of the United States constitution are diametrically opposed to the political philosophy of socialism – a plitical philosophy to which Obama has adhered throughout his political career.
I’m fine with Cheney as a private citizen. In fact, I have nothing against what he has said regarding the actions of the Obama administration. The idea that I meant to convey was that I have serious issues with what he did as part of the Bush administration and do not wish to see him helping to define the future of the Republican party because his past actions have tainted his reputation and because I could never be comfortable that he would not be the same Dick Cheney that seemed to be a driving force in many of the worst policies of the Bush administration.
As far as I can see I have done nothing to defend any move toward socialism in this country.
David said, “I think to some extent that you may be generalizing your specific tea party “
Reread my post- I took care to say that I could only speak in terms of my own experience, which is a “grass roots” experience to which the Speaker of the House is totally occluded as she pays attention only to big power and big money. She can stand there before the American public and assert that the grass roots movement wasn’t the motivating force behind the Tea parties, as she pleases. I guess it is better that she doesn’t know about us, lest we all be named on a “terrorist” watch list.
David said “You say that the only party connected with the tea parties is the American Tea Party ‘
This is not at all what I said and in fact there is currently no political party that is called “The American Tea Party”- I was suggesting that maybe that this will come about- if the Republican Party continues to stray from it’s conservative principles based in the conservation of the United States Constitution.
David says “and yet you are aware that some of the parties had some very Republican ties.” =
OH horrors! I guess that makes them Republican Parties as defined by the left wing liberal propaganda spin. Why should the American tea party movement be permitted to define itself when we have such a high profile entrenched BS spin machine rushing to do it instead? If Republicans are represented it is because there is a strong conservative movement within the Republican Party that wants a return to our constitutional roots. The tea party movement (in my grass roots experience- which by definition is a local experience) is unhappy with BOTH political parties. – The Democrats because they are literally trying to push our country into socialism- and the Republicans because they have strayed from their conservative roots. It is false to say this is a Republican movement. It is fair to say it is a conservative movement- a movement to conserve the United States Constitution,- and there are former Democrats – and some that voted for Obama in it is well. The policies that Obama is instituting is not the “change” that they voted for.
If you were at a tea party, which clearly you were not, you might have seen as I saw that when a man who is a representative in our state legislature took the mike a vocal minority booed him just because he is in politics. The tea party movement does not kick people out just because they have political affiliations. That would make the Department of Homeland Security happy- since then the tea party movements would be very small and remain that way.
To quote you Mackenzie:
How can you say that “the only party connected with the tea parties is the American Tea Party” is not at all what you said?
You may complain that I acknowledge the fact that the only partisan elected officials that made any attempt to participate with the tea parties were Republicans. Of course that does not ensure that the tea parties were a Republican movement – in fact I fully agree that they were a conservative movement (not that liberal talking heads would ever recognize or acknowledge such a distinction).
The problem here is that I believe that we don’t do ourselves any favors by burying our heads and shouting “No, you’ve got it wrong” when the pundits start trying to fit the movement into one of their pre-defined little boxes. We have to instead put forth accurate information instead of arguing among ourselves about how accurate their representation was. We don’t need to draw fine lines about how this is not a Republican movement. Instead we need to respond to their questions such as “why did you never protest taxes under Bush but now you do when Obama has lowered taxes?” with facts – such as the fact that many of us were protesting the spending policies of the Bush administration but the MSM wasn’t listening then because it didn’t make the same kind of “Opposition Party” headlines that they like to use to sell their stories.