1776 Brought Back To Life
We’ve growled about the Tea Party movement on several occasions -- including here, here, here, and here, and this blogger has spoken at a local Tea Party. However, no one has, in my opinion, caught the true spirit of the Tea Party movement better than Kyle-Anne Shiver in an essay this week in American Thinker.
Kyle-Anne attended events in Atlanta and Birmingham, even interviewing people while riding the Tea Party Express Bus. If you do not have the time to read the entire essay, the following few paragraphs provide the sense of why Ms. Shiver believes that tea parties are “misunderstood and vastly underrated:”
“The Tea Party messages are clear and strident.
“Party operatives? Not welcome. Political candidates? Keep your mouths shut and your ears open. Prefer a D or an R after your name? Not here, not on our time, or on our dime.
“The clear message: This is the people's movement. Outsiders, opportunists, and party pols are vehemently not invited. Want a voice in this groundswell, bottom-up oriented movement? Fine. All comers welcome to pitch in, get involved, stand up to tyranny, and do your own thing. Just don't try to hijack the people's movement for personal gain. Like our grandparents' generation, these folks can spot disingenuousness a mile away. They don't suffer fools or counterfeit passions.
“I talked to over fifty Tea Partiers in Birmingham and Atlanta on Monday, and I can honestly say I've never seen such a variety of people from different walks of life, different types of livelihood, and different ways of speaking all in the same place, united in one cause: Throw the bums out.
“Out of all the people I spoke with -- every single one -- I did not find a solitary person willing to identify with a political party. "Independent" was the only identifier with which people would agree to be labeled. Some said, "I used to be a Democrat," or "I used to be a Republican," but they invariably put a sharp edge on the words "used to be." The sense of betrayal by politicians is palpable among Tea Partiers.
“If there is a shared ideology among them, it is the one espoused by our Founders, simply put: God and Liberty. "Unalienable rights" was a phrase I heard over and over again.”
And about the title of this Growls:
“If anyone asked me to adequately describe the Tea Party movement, I would have to reach back into my American civics book to find its root.
“Simply put, the Tea Party movement is 1776 brought back to life.”