The Tea Party, The Constitution, Freedom and Liberty

The Tea Party from the very beginning has been outspoken about their interpretations of the Constitution, about the freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and about the limits and powers granted to the government. They have all along insisted that what they stand for are the freedoms and liberties guaranteed to them and that they believe the government is infringing upon. One of the constant parts of the rhetoric espoused by Sarah Palin and the rest of the Tea Party celebrities are those freedoms and government infringement and how all citizens have the responsibility to demand that they don't suffer under government infringement by making their voices heard and by voting.

I've already written about how social conservatives and the activists among politicians who created the Christian Coalition and the 1994 Republican sweep of Congress have co-opted the Tea Party. It is such a blaringly obvious hypocrisy that the Tea Party candidates continue to run on slogans invoking liberty, the vision of the founding fathers, and rights guaranteed by the Constitution while at the same time denying and fighting against the rights of many minority and marginalized groups in our country. They preach about freedom of thought and expression and especially about freedom of religion, yet they are some of the most vocal in championing the Islamophobia exhibited in the discussion of the mosque near Ground Zero. They constantly use the phrase 'it's time to take our country back', explicitly state that Obama is foreign and Muslim and deny his legitimacy as a democratically elected official, and describe his administration and the Democratic majorities in Congress as totalitarian and socialist.

We who believe in progressive values of inclusiveness and honesty must acknowledge and tolerate the hateful, bigoted and outright lying rhetoric of those on the political right who advocate and are leaders in the Tea Party. At the same time we do not have to agree with them nor do we have to like what they say. Not only is there mutual agreement between the visible members of the Tea Party with socially conservative groups on issues of abortion and gay rights, but they are funded by far-right fringe elements of the political right and actively support and promote candidates with radically un-American views and dangerous positions and rhetoric.

One example is how they say they're for smaller government, which to them is linked in part to high taxes and the IRS, as though the IRS is the villain because they collect and process taxes. But...they also are instrumental in processing Medicare and Social Security. Both of those programs are socialist programs. Both of them are central benefits that the Tea Party, according to polls, supports and refuses to give up. Still, they support candidates who quietly, and some openly, advocate for abolishing those 'entitlement programs' and privatizing them. That fundamental divorce from reality is of course central to their interpretation of the Constitution and constitutional rights as civil rights. They also support candidates like Sharon Angles who has advocated for abolishing the Department of Education. Well, the Dept of Education is principle in issuing and handling student loans, the student loans that most college students depend on. Christine O'Donnell advocates for local control over curriculum and education. The reason she advocates for that is so that parents can have a chance to enforce their religious beliefs into school curriculum and somehow circumvent the First Amendment.

Keith Olbermann said it best, I think, when he characterized the Tea Party as the 'Something For Nothing' party. They want to cut all taxes but they want the benefits that the government uses those taxes to pay for. They want food to be safe to eat, they want their prescription drugs to be safe and paid for, they want bridges built, emergency services such as police and fire departments to be responsive and well funded. They want hospitals, many of whom benefit from large subsidies from the government either through direct aid in grants or through the benefits of Medicare and Medicaid that offset the costs of the poor they are ethically obligated to treat no matter what. They want all these things yet they want the government to cut the administrative structures critical to funding and supporting and managing these agencies.

They want all the rights guaranteed to all citizens, especially the rights to free speech, freedom of religion and the right to bear arms, yet they only apply them to themselves, somehow limiting the concept of freedom and liberty for all or 'all men are created equal' simply to people who share their skin color and religious or political ideology. To all others they view constitutionally guaranteed rights, civil rights, as 'special rights', and groups that work to guarantee that laws aren't enacted which infringe on those rights, whether they are minority caucuses working to register black and Latino voters or groups working for LGBT rights, as 'special interest groups' advocating for changing the fundamental fabric and vision of what America was meant to be.

Either the Tea Party is truly for freedom, liberty and justice for all citizens of the United States, as well as treating those who are not citizens with compassion and respect, or they are hypocrites and liars whose selfish and bigoted motivations are simply to ensure that they are able to legally discriminate without punishment. Either they believe in the fundamental tenants of the Constitution and the democratic process, or they a group seeking to enforce their religious and political ideology on the rest of the country through political control. Either they are people who truly understand the process and purpose of a democracy or they are a group of angry voters who are willing to ignore all facts and scientific reality by supporting far right fringe candidates whose policies are bad for our society in order to express their outrage that they lost and at the candidates whose political positions they disagree with.

They are not in anyway mainstream, they don't represent the majority opinion in America, they don't represent the intentions or vision of the founders of this country, and they don't really believe in the concepts of freedom and justice.