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The Tea Parties
by Sean Gangol
[email protected]

Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

Ever since the Tea Party protests began to show up in the spring of 2009, the organization has found itself under attack by the left and its allies in the mainstream media. The members have been accused of being everything from corporate cronies to white supremacists. At first most of the mud slinging came from third rate commentators like Janeane Garofalo, who took great joy in accusing the party members of being racist. Rachel Harris, who played a mean-spirited girlfriend in the movie, Hangover, also accused the Tea Partiers of being racist on an episode of Larry King Live. She shared the forum with Penn Gillette and Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy. MacFarlane also mocked the Tea Party members by calling them stupid for working against their own best interests. Penn, a comedian/magician, was the token libertarian who actually defended the Tea Parties, despite some of the ideological disagreements that he has had with the groups.

Personally I don't really put much stock in what any celebrity says about anything. I just find it amusing that these celebrities are too vain to realize that instead of coming off as witty and clever, they actually come off like pompous windbags. Especially Seth MacFarlane, the creator of one of the most brain dead shows ever conceived. It's a good thing that we have him to tell us what is best for everybody.

The mainstream media has also aided in these slanderous attacks. They spread propaganda by showing pictures of people carrying signs with racist slogans and they always fail to mention that these racist clowns only account for a tiny percentage of all Tea Party protestors. Yet, with the exception of Fox News and a brief mention on CNN, the media has been relatively silent on the incident where a member of the New Black Panthers stood by the voting polls, carrying a club and shouting obscenities at the voters. Who says that the days of responsible journalism are over?

The attacks were even uglier when the NAACP got involved. Ben Jealous, the head of the NAACP has demanded that the Tea Party expel all the racists from their ranks. They base their accusations on fringe elements that wave racists signs at the protests, but they also bring up the incident where Tea Party members allegedly yelled racist slurs at a group of black congressmen.

First of all, anyone with the slightest inkling of common sense can tell that the bigots who show up at the Tea Parties are just fringe elements that show up at every protest. All one has to do is look at the anti-war protests and you will find almost every kind of freak that inhabits the far left. I have seen hippies, socialists, communists and even wannabe anarchists who show up to put in their own two cents whenever there is a protest. So should we assume that anybody who opposes the war in Iraq is part of any of the fringe elements that I just mentioned? Of course not. So why would you expect any organization to be responsible for the loonies that show up at their protests? I believe that Jealous and the rest of the members of NAACP are aware of this, which makes it even more infuriating.

As for the incident with the black congressmen, whether the Tea Party members actually hurled racial slurs has been disputed by other witnesses. The black Tea Party members who were present at the time, claim that there fellow members said nothing of the kind to the congressmen. Somebody is lying about the incident and if I was a betting man, I would put money on the men who lie for a living.

What I find the most amusing are those who claim that the Tea Parties are going to start some violent revolution by assassinating the president. I have even known people who said that this was reminiscent of the time when JFK was assassinated. Now if you believe in the conclusion made by the Warren Commission, then it was a wannabe communist revolutionary named Lee Harvey Oswald who killed Kennedy. If you are like me and believe that it was a conspiracy that brought down Kennedy, then it was either the government or some organization with the power and the means to get away with it. Either way, it wasn't an organization like the Tea Party that caused his death.

Just by taking a look at the majority of the Tea Party members, one would find the notion of them being violent revolutionaries absolutely comical. Most of the members are college educated, and even though the majority of them are conservative, there are some who are moderate or have libertarian leanings. There are even some who are disgruntled Democrats that are unhappy about the direction that their party has chosen. I seriously doubt that these are the type of people who would pull out sniper rifles and take aim at government officials.

What disappoints me the most isn't the rhetoric from the left since I almost expect these people to resort to slander, since they don't have any other way of arguing. It is actually the Republicans that have come up short. Last year I wrote an article titled "Can the Republicans be Saved?" One of things I thought the Republicans needed to do to restore people's confidence, was to become the party that they always promised to be, which means that they needed to ditch their neo-conservative platform. They should have done that in the 2008 elections. Instead of going with someone like Ron Paul, the party chose to nominate a big government conservative like McCain and they wonder why the people chose Obama. Apparently they didn't learn anything from 2008. When the Tea Parties started nominating their own candidates, instead of jumping on the bandwagon, the Republicans whined about not being able to take back congress because the Tea Party candidates were less likely to win. It just goes to show you that the Republicans still don't get it.

What neither party seems to understand is that people want smaller government, less spending and fiscal responsibility. If the current government can't give it to them then they will elect somebody who will at least promise it. No amount of slander, petty insults or whining will change that. I also hope that the new candidates who just got elected into congress realize that their positions are only going to be temporary if they choose not to keep their promises. It happened to the Republicans in both 2006 and 2008 and it just happened recently to the Democrats in the House of Representatives. If they choose not to keep their promises, their jobs could just as easily end up on the chopping block in 2012 or 2014.

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