Tea Party Thoughts

Not since my (then) young daughter brought me a cookie had I participated in a tea party. The get-together that attracted me was held on tax day in Jefferson City. For those of you who missed a lot of the fourth grade, Jefferson City is the state capitol of Missouri. It has the requisite stately capitol building, which was an ideal setting for the rally. About fifty people showed up - not bad for a small burg. Networking was the order of the day - we had a fine time standing in the warm sunshine and talking to each other. No one orated, no one chanted, no news hounds covered the rally; according to politics-as-usual, it was a non-event.

Lo and behold, some people at the tea party had heard of a similar event held the day before at the same location. Quite a few had read that the tax day rally was slated for 11:00. Still others (including a couple of state reps who claimed to have been invited to speak) said the rally was on for 3:00 that afternoon. Those of us who arrived at noon had learned that time on the internet. The more suspicious folks in the crowd decided that the misinformation was a Democratic party ploy to limit the size of the crowd. Maybe so, but the real problem seemed to be that no person or agency was in charge of organizing the tea party.

Of course, people at the rally were not the only conspiracy theorists that day. Several prominent Democrats claim that the tea party movement is being led by the Republican party. Welll. If so, no wonder the Republicans blew the last election.

Hopefully, the 3:00 tea party went well. Not being a nominee to the Obama cabinet, I had to go home and put my taxes in the mail. And so alas, the later tea party had to go on without me.

A very nice lady from Macon (Missouri) offered me a small poster board and use of a magic marker. So my proud sign said "NO MORE WASTE-ULUS". That may have been a little obscure, but I heard a high school girl explaining to her younger brother that the so-called economic stimulus package is full of waste and ineffeciencies. So I felt good about the sign, and of course was proud of the young lady's keen insight into politics.

There were a lot of signs, but no great memorable ones. There was the typical "Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing its idiot" - this guy got plenty of pictures taken, but I had to explain to some folks that this was a slam against Obama. (Doesn't that sign trot out in one form or another for every president?) Lots of signs said "Taxed Enough Already". And there was a smattering of other messages. But there were no signs with fancy graphics, and no evidence that any group was sponsoring the event.

One guy had a video camera. He drifted around the party, offering to record what people had to say about taxes. He didn't ask me. I'm an old guy with a graying pony-tail, and I don't fit the homeland-security definition of wild-eyed conservative. Perhaps that makes me a poor example for trying to convince conservatives that they need to support the tea party movement. But could be the cameraman was looking for red-necks that could scare liberals about the horrors of tea parties. If so, they absolutely didn't want any spokesman with whom liberals can find the least commonality; and they definitely wouldn't want me.

If you are thinking about going to a tea party, please consider this. The tea party movement appeals to a lot of people, maybe someday the majority of American citizens. The parties of the Democrats and Republicans both fear tea parties for the same reason - we bring together people who oppose both Republican social engineering and Democratic socialism. The American political system works best with two major parties: the social luddites and socialists are afraid that they will have to band together to oppose us. Such a union is not as strange as you might think - both factions love to spend lots of money on big government. And that's where we differ with them. Lots of people differ with them. Let's accept the best of the major parties, and leave the rest to the politics of yore. We can't afford to reject any Democrat or Republican - he or she stands to be a vital member of the American Tea party.