Tea Party Patriots

Years ago I learned of groups all over our great nation who were organizing Tea Parties on April 15th to protest income taxes. I hated taxes and I thought it was a great idea. I used to talk about doing one of my own, but like many things in life it turned out to be one of those things I guess I didn’t really care enough to do.

Several years have past since then and my opinions have changed a bit. I still hate paying taxes and I still think the market is the best place for ideas to win or lose. I’ve learned a great deal, however, about the responsibility one citizen has to help his fellow citizens. I’ve spent time reading the writings of our nation’s founders and I’ve learned a couple of things. One, some of them were more liberal than your conservative friends would like you to believe. Two, sometimes their ideas were just plain wrong. I think many of us like to take an idealized view of these men but we must remind ourselves that they fought about the issues for a reason – they were not right about everything.

The evolution of my thinking on these matters has led me to the point where I am surprised by movements like The Tea Party Patriots. According to their website, they hold three core values – Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, and Free Markets. As I’ve written many times, I believe in all of these things. My problem with this movement is the extreme to which they carry these points and the emphasis on financial concerns. I’ll discuss each of the core values separately.

Fiscal Responsibility

Fiscal Responsibility by government honors and respects the freedom of the individual to spend the money that is the fruit of their own labor. A constitutionally limited government, designed to protect the blessings of liberty, must be fiscally responsible or it must subject its citizenry to high levels of taxation that unjustly restrict the liberty our Constitution was designed to protect. Such runaway deficit spending as we now see in Washington D.C. compels us to take action as the increasing national debt is a grave threat to our national sovereignty and the personal and economic liberty of future generations.

I’ll admit that I agree with much of this one, but the first sentence really gets me. They start with an assumption that is incorrect – two actually. One, that any individual has the freedom to do with her money what she wants. I disagree. The other, that the government should honor and respect that freedom. If such a freedom existed, I’d agree wholeheartedly.

Why do so many of us believe that we have the right to control something simply because we earned it, created it or have some other claim to ownership? This reminds me so much of the two year old who continually screams “Mine!” Do we not have a responsibility to use our wealth in a way that benefits others? Am I really free to do with my possessions as I wish?

I guess the point is that no other person has the right to tell me what I can or cannot do with my property. I agree, but that doesn’t mean I can do what I want. The question, then, is whether a government “of the people and by the people” has the authority to tell me what I can and cannot do. Like any good libertarian, I would argue that the government does not have the right to restrain my freedom except to protect the freedom of another individual or group of individuals. Much of the poverty we see around us is most certainly caused by a callous disregard for the rights and freedoms of other individuals. If _we_ don’t watch out for others, who will?

Constitutionally Limited Government

We, the members of The Tea Party Patriots, are inspired by our founding documents and regard the Constitution of the United States to be the supreme law of the land. We believe that it is possible to know the original intent of the government our founders set forth, and stand in support of that intent. Like the founders, we support states’ rights for those powers not expressly stated in the Constitution. As the government is of the people, by the people and for the people, in all other matters we support the personal liberty of the individual, within the rule of law.

Once again, I have no issue with the substance of anything but the first sentence – which I’ll get to in a moment. Where I would disagree is in the application. I think the Constitution grants more power to the federal government than members of this movement would admit. My assumption is that they interpret this phrase – “those powers not expressly stated” – much more strictly than I would or than was intended. Before you get all “English teacher” on me, I know what expressly means. My argument is not with that word. In my opinion, Section 9 and Section 10 of Article I expressly grant the power to enact quite a bit of legislation – even though the specifics of that legislation is not expressly stated.

Now for a look at the first sentence. Is the Constitution the supreme law of the land? Yes and No. Yes, it is the final authority in matters of law. No, it is not the final authority on all matters. This, in fact, is why it is necessary to amend it from time to time. We must be careful not to hold the Constitution in such high regard that we neglect the importance of natural law and the rights of the individual. The U.S. Constitution is a wonderful document precisely because it helps gaurantee our rights as individuals. It is easy to assume that those rights are granted to us by the Constitution. It may grant us some rights, but other rights were ours before the Constitution was drafted.

Free Markets

A free market is the economic consequence of personal liberty. The founders believed that personal and economic freedom were indivisible, as do we. Our current government’s interference distorts the free market and inhibits the pursuit of individual and economic liberty. Therefore, we support a return to the free market principles on which this nation was founded and oppose government intervention into the operations of private business.

This is a matter of great sadness for me. I believe in the power of the free market. Always have, always will. The operative word, however, is FREE. Our current economic system is very far from free in many regards.

I can hear the Tea Party Patriots yelling now. “That’s right. That is precisely what we want to see changed.” Okay, I hear you and I agree. Our current system may be broken but let’s not assume the answer is the unfettered permission to do as we please. This is a common misconception of freedom and it all seems to be rooted in the first sentence of the first core value – I have a right to do with my possessions as I see fit. This is simply not the case. In many cases the actions I take have a negative impact on the freedom of others. This is why we don’t allow businesses to behave in certain ways.

So What?

I was drawn to this topic today because of the reading I’ve been doing about the health care reform that was signed into law yesterday. If you’d asked me 15 years ago I would have been very much against this proposal. Today, I may not agree with everything proposed by the new legislation but I am happy something is happening. As a society we have turned a blind eye to policies which are not fair to all citizens while they pretend to be conservative and based on free enterprise.

Like I’ve written and said many times – if the government is going to tax us and dictate policy, it is about time they begin to pass legislation that is fair. I know this proposal is far from perfect. I’m confused, for example, why it still involves employers in the equation. I’m sure I’ll have something more to write about that.

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