Nationwide Tea Party

Last weekend, over 5,000 people gathered in Cincinnati to protest the bailouts and multi-trillion dollar spending in Washington in a Modern Day Boston Tea Party. Michelle Malkin reports that this is the beginning of a growing revolutionary movement. “The tax-paying rebels are not going away. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, March 7, an estimated 500 protesters gathered for a Tea Party at Titletown Brewing. Similar Tea Parties have been held in Seattle, Denver, Mesa, Arizona, Olathe, Kansas and in other cities around the country but the Cincinnati protest is by far the largest one yet.

The Tea Party concept, of course, gets its name from the famous Boston Tea Party of 1773 when colonial Americans said to George III of England that the colonists would not accept any further taxes imposed by the Crown unless they had representation in Parliament and were able to speak on and vote on all issues. The colonists just wanted a seat at the decision table. When George III denied the colonists that seat, revolution was all but assured.

Strangely, as citizens of the United States with elected representatives in Congress, we find ourselves in a position very similar to colonial Americans almost 250 years ago. While we elect our representatives and senators and technically their votes reflect our wishes, increasingly they pass legislation and increase taxes without checking with their constituents.

On Saturday, Inside Government posted the article When Representatives Don’t Represent Their Constituents. Even though Americans call their representatives, write their representatives, email their representatives, increasingly it’s become the norm that the representatives’ staffs just send out a form letter response with boilerplate language that does not address the concerns of the citizens that took time to write to their representatives to express their views. When Congress passed the first $800 Billion Bailout, known as the TARP last October, the American people were overwhelmingly against this bill 9-1. But it didn’t matter. The few in power, probably needing the banking industry’s financial support for their reelection campaigns, passed the bailout anyway. Outrage followed immediately not just because Congress went against the wishes of the American people, but because that money was squandered and instantly used for purposes other than what were authorized in the TARP, much to the chagrin of various Senators such as Richard Burr of North Carolina.

The Tea Parties that are popping up across the American landscape are a potent reactionary response to the unconscionable realization that our representatives are acting counter to the wishes of the American people. We all know the economy is bad and many of us are suffering financially. However, the American people don’t believe that socialistic programs, an expansion of government, and out-of-control spending that will leverage our children’s future is the correct response to the deep recession we are in. Hence the call for a Nationwide Tea Party on April 15th, 2009.

It’s unconscionable that the leaders we elect to run all aspects of our government see their election as a mandate and a blank check to work on and pass legislation that doesn’t reflect the wishes of the people that elected them, but that is exactly how our elected leaders are acting. And as long as they remain unresponsive to the wishes of the American people, the question to be asked is not really: “Has it really come to this, that Americans are rising up and calling for revolution?” but rather “Why have Americans waited so long?”

You can read more about the Boston Tea Party in these excellent articles from Eyewitness to History, Wikipedia, and the Boston Tea Party Historical Society.

Thanks for reading.

-Matthew S. Urdan

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1. Inauguration Party Like No Other
2. CNN Reports Massive Benefits for Illegal Aliens at US Taxpayer Expense
3. Obama: “It’s Too Late to Save Economy”
4. $1 Trillion in Perspective
5. When Representatives Don’t Represent Constituents

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