Inside the Tea Party

I wrote this in response to a friend's Facebook post which took a very poor view of the Tea Party movement. I felt compelled to reply since I have become very active in trying to preserve, protect, and restore our freedom and nation. It's in two parts as he responded to me and then I replied again.


I like your new pic! Are you including me, too? I'm a tea partier! I have to do what I can to attempt to restore this nation to our Constitution for my future and my kids' future. How can I look them in the eye down the road knowing I didn't do everything I could to try and stop our great nation from becoming socialist? I'm not trying to create civil unrest or sabotage anything, and I'm definitely not a racist or an anarchist or even a republican or independent. I'm registered "no party." What am I supposed to do as I watch the government take control of everything? I see our freedoms quickly slipping away. I greatly cherish my freedom and can not remain silent.

I don't want to make you mad at me for holding such an opposite view of yours, but I wanted to let you know that you are wrong about the "tea party" movement. It is a term applied to the broad group of people from all walks of life, all races, religions, ages, and political persuasions who are all upset enough at the loss of our nation and our freedom to get up and speak out and try to do something about it while we still can. We don't care what color the president is despite the continuous cries to the contrary. I'd love to see Alan Keyes for president and he's 100% black. I don't even know anyone who is racist and I know tons of people. If people are racist, I sure never hear anyone say so.

I don't know anyone trying to sabotage anything or cause any civil unrest. We are just regular people who do NOT want a socialized country. We are working within the system, sharing information, contacting our elected officials, and working to get politicians in office who will truly uphold the Constitution, not just swear to and then promptly disregard it.

Since you have an opposite view, maybe you can clue me in on something that I can't figure out. Why would anyone NOT want to remain free? Is is that you and others like minded don't believe that we are losing our freedoms? Or, do you want sacrifice freedom for promised government care? I have really wondered about this as I can't figure out why anyone would choose to live in a socialist country. People around the world are trying to get HERE because we are free and have unlimited opportunity.

Don't be mad at me for identifying myself in a group of folks you don't like. I still love you! :)

(Second post)
Thanks! I'm glad you are not offended by my opposite view and that you are open minded. I thought I'd address a few of your points since you love dialog. Me too! I'm often concerned about offending friends by sharing my thoughts. You know me and how I like to get along with everyone. :) Anyway, I can't keep silent with everything going on and just hope I don't upset anyone.

I don't think the tea party is an official political party. It's just the name tacked onto the folks who have had enough with the country being socialized so they've become politically active and are going to town hall meetings and their state capitols and the national capitol, and so on.

I went to DC last Sept. 12, which was the largest gathering to date of fed up Americans, aka tea party folks. I also went to our state capitol the past two April 15ths. I am also active online and just now there seems to be a local group forming. Since I have been involved with tea party people for over a year, I can give insight into it.

I'm sorry to hear about the anarchists crashing the tea party gathering. That is a definite problem: people who really do want to sabotage the tea party movement. I had not heard of that in Portland, and I don't know what their purpose was. Of the gatherings I've attended, including the giant DC one with well over a million in attendance, I saw no anarchists or any violence. There was no vandalism and no arrests. They even picked up all their trash. I saw regular people of all ages and colors. Many had homemade signs, and they had come from all over the country.

I have also found these people to be very politically informed. Many have been reading lots of books on history, the founding of America, how our government is supposed to be run, and the Constitution itself for example. We are reading and teaching ourselves things that we never learned in school. Schools don't teach our true history or system of government. Politicians constantly call us a democracy, for instance, and we're not; we're a republic. Here's a great free e-book regarding the education system: http://deliberatedumbingdown.com/.

So, I would say that most of these people are very aware. The current administration has pushed a socialist agenda so fast and so hard that it has caused people to become politically active as we watch our freedom quickly slipping away. We are actually reaping seeds sown over 100 years ago. This attempt to crush America and socialize it has been ongoing for a very long time. It has been so gradual though, that people accepted the changes. Now we realize what has been happening. As they move forward with the final crushing blows, we are speaking out. We do not want to become socialist/communist/ fascist/Marxist. We want our nation restored to our Constitution. We want to be a free people, not enslaved to a government that watches and controls us.

If McCain would have won the election, the slow socialist agenda would have continued, and most would still be asleep. Obama/Reid/ Pelosi and company are so radical and have moved so aggressively in taking over the private sector that it has woken up millions of Americans. Actually the thing that seemed to first set lots of people off was the passage of the TARP stimulus bill back when Bush was still in office. Despite the outcry of a great many Americans to Congress, they passed it anyway. A massive bill that we can't afford loaded with special interest pork projects. And, that was only the first such bill. We've now passed several more. Congress is spending money that we don't have. Our national debt is now almost 13 trillion dollars!!! It is unsustainable and will wind up bankrupting us. It's very scary. We will never be able to pay it off because of the massive interest on such a gigantic sum of money. A real time debt clock is here: http://defeatthedebt.com/.

We have a Congress who refuses to listen to the people and is hurtling us to an economic collapse with its massive spending. Tea party people are exceedingly concerned for our nation and our future. We've taken to the streets attempting to get our representatives to listen. Yet, most don't. So, we are greatly hoping to get politicians elected to Congress this November who are committed to the Constitution, in deed as well as oath, which they all have to take but few follow.

The overwhelming majority of people who participate in tea party events are regular people who who much rather be doing something else and have never been politically active before. However, they see what is happening and see no other choice. We can't go down silent. We may go down anyway, but we know we must do all we can for our future and our children's future. I can't stay silent and uninvolved when my country is on fire.

I honestly don't know why more people aren't involved. I don't know if it's because people don't realize what's going on, or they don't care, or they feel helpless, or they hate America and want to see her demise. I suppose there are people in all those categories.

As far as race goes, I know that's all you hear is tea party people are racist, but that is not the least bit true. I vote for politicians based on policy, not race. I didn't vote for Obama because he's pro-abortion, and I only vote for pro-life candidates. If I can't trust a politician with the lives of babies, I can't trust them with anything else.

And speaking of people casting racist votes, I think many, many people voted for Obama solely because he is part black, and that is being a racist. Anyone who votes for someone based on their skin color is racist. What a superficial way to decide who will run the country! I look at their past voting history, and if I agree, they get my vote. Skin color is meaningless to me. I think tea party people are called racist as the critics are grasping at straws trying to discredit us and that's the best they can come up with. Here's a great video interviewing some black tea partiers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1CLPhz0DHM&feature=player_embedded.

I know this is really long, but I'm thankful for the chance to explain what is behind the tea party. It is honestly comprised of ordinary people like me compelled to action by an out of control government.

I hope all is well with you. I'd love to hear your point of view as well. :)