Will The Real Tea Party Please Stand Up...?

Note:  Apologies to those who are regular readers to BTPS.  I have been working on a few projects to be published soon.  Needless to say that these projects have kept me noticeably absent from regular blogging. However, I promise that I will soon be back to full-blogging strength here and on my various other blogs.

When you’re dead, you don’t actually know you’re dead; it just affects those around you. Being a political extremist in America is a lot like being dead; you don’t know you’re an extremist, but it affects those around you just the same. One of two major differences between the two realities is that the dead cannot convince themselves that they are dead—as they are absent of consciousness—while those who make their intellectual homes with the margins of political fringe thinking can routinely convince themselves that they are “true patriots” or “real Americans.” The rest of us apparently are self-delusional, intellectual dullards who took the blue pill.
Now that Congress has successfully kicked the budget can down the road until early next year, it should become apparent that this is the reality of the state of politics within our government. Egged-on by the “real Americans” known as the Tea Party, favorite party son, Senator Ted Cruz of Florida led a doomed-from-the-start effort to tie creating a federal budget deal to continue to run the government’s day-to-day business with his (and the Tea Party’s) disdain for President Obama’s signature health care reform law, hoping to get the last defunded—or revoked entirely. Ostensibly, this effort on the part of Cruz to revoke funding for the health care law was to trim the budget and curtail federal spending by the government. If it were the true motive, it would indeed be laudable. However (and at the risk of painting all Tea Party-backed

                     Florida Republican Senator (and Tea Party favorite) Ted Cruz

Congressmen with a broad paintbrush), most of the grandstanding on the part of Cruz and his Congressional cohorts was mostly political, a transparent effort to garner favor with the “real Americans” back in their home districts (although I will concede the benefit of the doubt and grant that not every member of the Tea Party caucus in Congress are as self-interests-driven as Cruz and the other “patriots”). Needless to say, despite being cheered on by supporters, the effort failed miserably. In fact, this effort on Cruz and the Tea Party’s part to avoid compromising on any budget proposal in exchange revoking funding for Obama’s (bad attempt to reform) health care failed to not only trim government spending, but the resulting government shutdown cost the country some $24 billion in lost economic output according to the Standard and Poor’s ratings agency (see: “How Much Did the Shutdown Cost The Economy?”). Even anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist called

Cruz and his allies as “defund terrorists.” Norquist previously slammed those who tried to use the government shutdown to roll back the Affordable Care Act by saying, “They hurt the conservative movement, they hurt people’s health care, they hurt the country’s economic situation and they hurt the Republican Party” (“Grover Norquist Slams Ted Cruz”).

Already, Cruz and many within the Tea party have attributed the failure of the effort to defund Obamacare and the lack of any tangible results—at least by their standards—to “turncoat” mainstream Republicans who dared to strike a compromise rather than support the Tea party’s failed effort. Of course it would never cross their minds of Cruz and the Tea Party that they represent an extreme point of view, that they lack general support because of this, or that they are on the fringes of political ideology…it’s the rest of us. It's what they "see," not how they see it that's at fault.  Of course!
Part of their philosophy (and political strategy) is to "prove" how “overstated” forced spending cuts like those from the sequester from earlier this year, the shutdown from 2 weeks ago, and failure to raise the deficit ceiling is, and that such sudden spending halts would be more beneficial to the nation’s fiscal solvency than the harm that almost every reputable economist has projected.  But to Tea Partiers, the more level-headed among the rest of us are either “RINOs” (Republicans In Name Only), “liberals,” “brainwashed by the media,” or “socialists.” Their mantra is simply to “stop government spending,” with no hint or reasonable suggestion as to how.
A proposed Balanced Budget Amendment wouldn’t work simply because inflexible requirements to spend within a budgetary limit every year are not realistic—they do not account for cycles of economic boom and bust and the need to readjust spending to compensate. And inserting provisions to allow for exceeding budget spending limits based on exigent circumstances wouldn’t work because—as we have seen—the two major parties can’t even agree on what day of the week it is, yet along be expected to compromise on major spending issues such as what defines extenuating circumstances that calls for more (or less) spending.
All-out cutting much needed programs would harm those who need them (although I will admit that some programs are surely riddled with costly lack of oversight and (as a result) abuse.  And besides that, austerity spending measures worked so "well" in Europe... (sarcasm alert).
Reforming entitlements is a good start, but let’s face it…neither party wants to give up any sacred cows that might cost their membership(or their party) an election or legislative control. What will work? Unfortunately I don’t have all the answers, but holding policymaking hostage to ideological demands, and basing policy on ideology rather than the reality of need and pragmatism is definitely not the way.  However, the most logical start to balancing the budget would be a combination of taxes and hard-choice spending cuts (which includes accounting for every paperclip or errant piece of paper if necessary).
The Tea Party has proven itself capable of exerting political pressure, getting their favorite elected officials to office, and organizing itself into a formidable political force. But its extremist views and rigid adherence to ideology (rather than reality) does not benefit all Americans (deny if you will, but it’s the truth). This organized group counts among its membership (and supports) the most intolerant and xenophobic of Americans. Those who have kept up with their various marches, rallies, and public protests have seen the pictures and heard the quotes—they are present at almost every numerically significant Tea Party rally (I provided a few in the event that denies attempt to portray these appearances as aberrations with the organization).

Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch (a conservative political advocacy group) and Tea Party ally during the government shutdown. According to Klayman, American is "ruled by a president who bows down to Allah," and "is not a president of 'we the people.'" "I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come up with his hands out" (see: “Larry Klayman Defends Obama-Islam Link”). 

Its funny how being dead and being a political extremist in America seem to have some things in common. The other major difference between the two is that it seems to be easier to convince of a dead person of their station in life than to convince one of these so-called “real Americans” that they are not purveyors of true American ideas, but are obstructionists who could refocus their goals and energy on something that could benefit all Americans, and not just those who they deem as “real Americans”—their rhetoric about “personal rights” notwithstanding.

Tea Party supporter and protester Michael Ashmore stands in front of the White House recently during the Congressional breakdown in budget talks and the attempt to defund Obamacare by Senator Ted Cruz the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives. 

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Americans Standing Up - Which Movement Speaks For You?

Government gridlock. A shrinking middle-class. Companies sitting on billions of dollars, and refusing to reinvest in expansion. Banks seemingly inventing fees to gouge the consumer (come on, does it take that much money to manage other people’s money?). Politicians putting party affiliations and self-interests before the greater good. CEO’s, corporate officers, high-level financial decision-makers (you know…those “best and brightest” who are partly—but not exclusively—responsible for nearly tanking America’s market economy) still earning indefensible incomes and bonuses. And as a result of all of this sociopolitical chaos, people have finally taken to the streets and started putting the pressure of the voting electorate on those responsible.
But there are two distinct groups of protestors who seem to getting on their respective soap boxes and adopting the mantle of the voice of the American people. On one hand, there is the Tea Party movement, which purports to speak for the shrinking American middle class, and is opposed to larger government, the current tax structure, and for all things conservative…including social policies. In the last year, they have organized locally and even marched on Washington D.C in an effort to promote these and other conservative forms of government.
On the other hand, there is the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has targeted the banking and lending industries and local government offices by attempting to cause disruptions in day-to-day commerce and the business of government. Their primary aim is to put faces on the economic suffering of the “99%” of Americans they say they represent—those who do not command large salaries, hold public offices, and who have been “victimized” by corporate greed and government apathy toward their suffering. They are opposed to corporate greed, the Big Money influence in government, unemployment, and the current economic state of the nation.
At some points, there is a blurring of the line of policies that these two disparate groups oppose that gives the impression of a single populist uprising, such as the issue of the influence of Big Money in the political process. But with more social issues on their agenda, the Tea Party movement is distinctly different from the more ambiguous, seemingly more progressive Occupy Wall Street movement. So the question of the moment is which group and/or movement speaks you?

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Citizen Protesters, or Ideological Spin Doctors? Part 2

Continued from Part 1


"It is not the state that orders us. It is we who order the state."

With regard to the anti-tax & spending protests of last weekend in Washington D.C., that quote could just as easily be assumed to be the mantra of those who participated in the protests. However, those are not the words of some famous American patriot who uttered them in defiance of presumed government tyranny, and whom we are so proud of that we immortalized them in the pages of elementary school textbooks. They were not words of the leader of some populist movement leader who turned a cleaver phrase to gain popular support for progressive policy. They are not even the words of an American. They are the words of the former chancellor of Nazi German, Adolf Hitler. But such was the message ostensibly carried to Washington last weekend by the protesters.

Now before I’m inundated with protests myself about how I’m making negative aspersions, I am NOT attempting to compare the mostly conservative activists among the protesters to Nazis. However, what I am doing is illustrating how the tactics of traditionally progressive activists can be hijacked by an ideologically-bound or self-interested few to give the impression of general consensus. That is what the protests in Washington were all about. So this then is a challenge to the protesters’ intent.
Why? Because first and foremost their selective memory when it comes to their complaint that “government spending is out of control.” Take the non-Social Security of the government spending for the last 55 years. The greatest amount of deficit spending (borrowing) occurred under the watches of Republican presidents, with Ronald Reagan and Bush II’s administrations being responsible for the lion’s share of deficit spending during this period. In fact, it was the spending and ill-advised tax cuts of the second Bush which helped to eradicate the budget surplus and pay-down on the national deficit which started under former President Bill Clinton (naturally, die-hard ideologues from the conservative right have disputed this fact by engaging in esoteric hair-splitting of economic theories which challenge the bottom line--that it was under recent conservative stewardship of the government that the deficit spending began to balloon out of control). Furthermore, Bush II had the advantage of a Republican-controlled Congress for much of his presidency. "The Reagan Budget: The Deficit that Didn't Have to Be." http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=879 The Cato Institute; "Bush to Fund a Third of Non-Social Security Spending This Year with Borrowed Money" http://www.ctj.org/html/debt0603.htm Citizens for Tax Justice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

This is not leftist propaganda meant to make conservatives look bad; these are historical and economic facts supported by the numbers. And the selective memories of the protesters and their activist organizers ignores the major difference between the motives for spending by the aforementioned presidents and President Obama; neither Republican president didn't have to contend with crafting policies meant to curtail the effects of an unprecedented economic downward spiral, the likes of which haven't been seen since the Great Depression (although to his credit, Reagan did start out with the intent to challenge the growing budget deficit). True, spending is out of control, but so is the economy...desperate times, desperate measures.
So, after years of deficit spending, no fiscal restraint by either political party, and the continued practice of Congressional earmarks—a practice vociferously supported by both moderate and conservative Republicans –why all of a sudden have conservatives found the testicular fortitude to suddenly don the mask of consensus, take to the streets, and protest government spending?
The reasons are simple. It’s a rejection of the legitimacy of the duly-elected Obama Administration which cloaking itself in the free exercise of civil liberties and ideological differences. Its also fear of change (no pun intended), with hints of xenophobia, nativism, ethnocentrism, and willful ignorance, with the latter propensity resulting in the labeling anyone who desires to help the poor and/or disenfranchised as tantamount to “Socialism.” It is a rejection of policy and government based on lies, innuendo, scare tactics, slander, and misinformation by those who unflinchingly hold on to ideological political beliefs in the hopes of shaping the country according to their particular view of how things should be. It is an embracing of the absurd belief that a particular individual or group wants to reshape the American way of life which we have become accustomed to in ways which are alien and antithetical to our core values; heaven forbid that someone simply sees an inequality and wants to address it through the established legislative process. It is a movement which even challenges the legitimacy of birthright, and revealing how easy it is for a relative few to stir up unfounded fears among those who did not have the legal process go the way that they would have liked.
I’m a firm believer in the right protest unpopular policy. I also believe in unfettered free speech—even unpopular speech—mostly because free speech is how great ideas are exchanged and eventually become policy. I am for progressive policy based on need, not ideological adherence. And with 30-40 million Americans without health insurance (many unknown more chronically underinsured), and an economic crisis which has the country a few steps away from a wholesale economic collapse, this is not the time to cling to the safety of economic timidity. We are not going to eradicate these and other problems without spending money. At the same time, we must learn to practice fiscal restraint, an idea the protesters of last week promote, and one in which I share. However, in order to find a policy which works to the best of both our country’s creed of opportunity and of preserving the system we live by, the selfish intent of people like the protesters must be revealed insofar as their desire to portray themselves as representing the best interest if the entire nation as a whole.

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Citizen Protesters, or Ideological Spin Doctors? Part 1

It’s been said that the road to hell is paved with great intentions. This caveat is true, whether we choose to ignore it with regard to the decisions we make as the heads of our households, or with consideration to the social and political policies we choose to follow. Perhaps no single recent policy decision illustrates this better than our choice to go to war in Iraq, a decision which has run up a tab of some $700 billion dollars to date, a death toll of over 3000 American soldiers, and a cost to the country’s global image and credibility which will no doubt take years to repair…all with the intention to protect the country from the perceived dangers of a “rogue nation” with “weapons of mass destruction” in a post-9/11 world. In the time since the rationale given the American people for going to war was proven incorrect, the criticism for this costly venture has been limited to political posturing, what amounted to token investigations resulting in no particular blame, and [the] hundreds of publications revealing how in hindsight pre-war intelligence was both wrong and wrongly interpreted.
In yet another policy intention—this one questionably so—a segment of the American people have (and their leadership) have opted to only now concern themselves with the amount of spending that the government engages in on our behalf.
This past Saturday, tens of thousands of mostly conservative marchers gathered, marched, and rallied in Washington DC against the policies of the Obama Administration with regard to the spending it has employed in its effort to shore up the ailing economy, as well as its proposal to revamp access to health care for the uninsured.
In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with marching and protesting as a way to illustrate to our leaders that the American people speak with one voice; its what led the way toward the signing of civil rights legislation and the country out of the quagmire of the Vietnam War. However, it seems the opponents of progressive policy have learned how to take the tool of mass street rallies often employed by progressives, and use it to project the image that they represent the desires of the American people. These so-called “Tea-Partiers” and other conservative anti-tax activists march with the goal of influencing the government to start limiting spending. Not an altogether bad goal considering the national deficit is $10 trillion and growing.
But for many reasons, these “protests” lack either the credibility or the nobility of a true expression of the collective American will (as exemplified by either the 1963 March on Washington or the anti-Vietnam war protests of the late 60s & early 70s). Consider the lack of broad spectrum ideological representation. Are we to believe that these mostly conservative activists and voters represent the will of all (or even most) Americans? Where are the ethnic Americans who believe that the government is overspending in these protests? The Democrats (or their leadership in substantive numbers)? The Liberals…the Moderates? How about those without insurance who feel that government spending is spending too much in the name of the public interest? Considering that there are somewhere between 30-40 million of them, its hard to believe these individuals represent a cross-section of the American electorate.
But during the television interviews of these protesters over the weekend, many seemed to go out of their way to assert that they represented mainstream Americans, and that they were not “fringe” Right-Wingers. Indeed, there were many protesters present representing many age and geographic differences, some with their children and even pets in tow. Strictly speaking, this is true…these are indeed mostly Middle-Class Americans, many who have no economic stake in the companies and business which benefit directly from the bailouts and spending the government has used to prop them up during this economic downturn. However, it’s a good guess that these individuals are probably and overwhelmingly not among the Americans who voted for President Obama (or any Democrat for that matter) in the first place, so it’s a little hard to believe that they are being objective about the reasons for why the government seeks to infuse large businesses with federal funds. One look at the protest signs carried to Saturday’s rally is proof positive that their motives and fears are more ideologically motivated rather than borne of a measured consideration of need.

A group of anti-tax protesters from Saturday, September 12 (take particular note of the signs, indicative of the ideological bents of their political--not populist--position)

Do I believe that government spending is out of control, of course. But what should be of concern is the selective memory of the protesters as well as their propensity to engage in a revisionist view of reality as they justify their opposition. This in turn calls their intent into question.
What's funny is that only now do Conservatives find alarm in the government’s “rampant level of spending,” when it was former President Ronald Reagan who initiated the era of big spending in the modern era of government.

The fiscal shift in the Reagan years was staggering. In January 1981, when Reagan declared the federal budget to be "out of control," the deficit had reached almost $74 billion, the federal debt $930 billion. Within two years, the deficit was $208 billion. The debt by 1988 totaled $2.6 trillion. In those eight years, the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the largest debtor nation (“Reagan Policies Gave Light to red Ink,” The Washington Post, June 9, 2004). http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26402-2004Jun8?language=printer

For conservative leaders who support deficit spending, it didn’t seem to be a real issue as long their political party was the one in power and engaged in tax cuts with no commensurate cuts in federal spending spent. Indeed, former Vice-President Dick Cheney validated this as much when in 2002 he was alleged to have said that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter" in regards to former President George Bush’s economic stimulus policies.

To Be Concluded...

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