Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Not So Fast, Mr. Tea Partyer


 I received a response from a gentleman in Nebraska about my Labor Day Blog– the one yesterday about the ten moments that changed America’s ability to have reasonable discourse about our goals and future. Let me quote from his letter:

“America is not about Social Security or the wars we have fought and won or lost and it is not about the men who served it in the White House. It is about the people’s will to get the government off their backs and leave them alone. Your attack on the Tea Party is un-American and shows the leftist leaning of your political views. It is the Tea Party that is saving America from itself. The reason the Tea Party has not gotten behind Obama’s job bills is that they cost money. That’s tax payer (sic) money, and we don’t want that. … The only thing that can save America today from its Godless ways is returning to Jesus and his bible.”

I think James Tally’s letter proves my article’s point.

The Tea Party member is too concerned about the cost of helping another American than he is getting both a neighbor and a country back to work and on her feet. A nation working will pay off the debts and raise revenues faster than a nation on unemployment. But the Tea Party is too focused on Grover Norquist’s no new tax pledge, that they can’t see how ground up economic policies work.

Theirs is not a simple idea; it is a simple-minded notion.

A country going through the type of near-depression we encountered in 2008-2010 has to be given a spark to get the economic engine pumping again. (Even Ronnie Reagan knew that and acted upon it to get America out of Stagflation in the early 1980’s.) And I stand on my notion that the Right has helped sit on job creation, tax reform and economic stimulus, because they knew it would get the economy revved and that would get the Democratic incumbent reelected by a wide margin, if not an outright landslide.

Mr. Tally, I am neither un-American or a Leftist; however, I am a bit left of liberals on a lot of issues facing America today. (I don’t think the Affordable Healthcare Act went far enough and I want Guantanamo closed yesterday.) I am not a communist, a Baptist or a hands-off free market junkie. I am a free thinker. I realize that America needs to lower taxes. We need to cut spending. And I would imagine that if I said let’s begin that cut with bringing world-wide troops home and diminishing the Pentagon’s budget, you, Mr. Tally, and those like you, would put up the biggest howl.

No, you want your way or no way. Big military spending makes you feel safe and secure and protected. No new taxes and lower taxes makes you feel economically privileged. In both cases they, in the long run, make our wonderful country poorer.

This is a complex world, Mr. Tally. It has complex problems. And while you bring the name of Jesus up in the latter part of your letter as the only hope for America, I still believe that he would have us pass a job’s bill to help our neighbors out of the tough times of unemployment. But then again, he would have us feed them, clothe them and house them. And I am afraid that Jesus would never fit into the Tea Party’s agenda for this land. He would be called a socialist. His ideas and ideals are far too radical for you to stomach. So, I’d be careful evoking his name in your cause.



I borrowed this picture from the Internet and from the show The Newsroom. It says a lot about the Tea Party in it. It has to be stopped.


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