Principles

At first I was happy to hear about the advent of the Tea Party, because of their potential for splitting the Republican vote and therefore guaranteeing that Democrats will retain control of the Presidency in 2012.  However, this group of right-wing extremists has become such media darlings that I now feel compelled to rebut their ridiculous slogans that pass for arguments.  The mainstream media is offensively captivated by the Tea Party, to the point where it has apparently lost all perspective.  It is lamentable that the media is demonstrating such an overwhelming lack of capacity for critical evaluation, but these are the days we are living in.

One might ask, why does the Tea Party get so much more attention from the media now, than the anti-war movement got in 2003?  The answer is simple: money.  The Tea Party is very well-funded by sponsors with deep pockets.  The media loves money.  The media is not interested in a movement without money, even if it is a movement that includes millions of voters and activists.  Money buys airtime: it’s really that simple. To their shame, the mainstream media refuses to ask any tough questions, so it falls to small blogs like Self-Directed Society.  And the question of the day is this:

Do the Tea Party loudmouths have a double standard, or are they simply hypocrites?

Wherever they are coming from, it is finally time to put a lid on all the hot air spewing forth from the Tea Party wingnuts.  Their arguments are self-contradictory; their principles evaporate in the face of their self-interest.  Their little costume party is too loud for our residential neighborhood of democracy, and they don’t listen when we politely ask them to take it back inside.  It is time to file a noise complaint.

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I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the part of Big Government. Yes, I am speaking of the American political party that ran up the largest budget deficit in our history after inheriting a budget surplus from their predecessors. This is the party whose leaders have consistently supported such privacy-invading policies as warrantless wiretaps and renditions. This party is pushing for a surveillance state: the true “Big Brother is watching you” scenario, where the NSA reads all your e-mails, the FBI has a computer system to transcribe all your phone calls, and the police have cameras on every intersection to track your movements. This party’s leaders lied to Congress, the United Nations, and the American people in order to start a war on false pretenses, a war they wanted for no other reason than because war is profitable. And lest we forget, this party’s leaders also handed more than a trillion dollars in taxpayer money to irresponsible financial institutions.

Yet somehow this party’s spokespeople like to pretend that it is the party of small government??? The party of fiscal responsibility? How do a surveillance state and record deficits square with small government?

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