Tea Party Time

The biggest “big” city near where I live is Rockford, Illinois. A couple of days ago, Rockford was treated to a ‘tea party’, with all the trimmings.

Yes, the “Tea party” idiots rolled their “Tea Party Express” into town so they could have a chance to rail against the Evil Big Government. They drove into town (on roads funded with federal taxes and built at the behest of the federal government they love to hate) and brought their message to “the people” in a place called Davis Park (a park bought, made by and maintained by the taxpayers of the city of Rockford) of the evils of taxes and “big government”. They vented their anger over the “unconstitutional” health care reform law (one of their main speakers looking well past the age where they are probably taking full advantage of both Social Security and Medicare) and to advocate for the conservative ideals of smaller government and less “burdensome” regulation on American industry (this was the day before the mine explosion in West Virginia, now being blamed on a mine owner who loved to skirt federal safety regulations). They waved their flags and their usual signs denouncing the “socialist” and “communist” government (I wonder if any of them would like to try to stage a similar protest in, say, North Korea or China to see how a real communist/socialist government reacts to criticism?).

Hypocrisy in politics is nothing new, in fact, it’s one of the most common threads of every strain of political thinking. What I find so amazing in the case of the tea party types is the fact that they seem to be completely and totally oblivious to the level of hypocrisy their “movement” embraces. Hell, they seem to revel in it! I guess it goes hand-in-hand with their posturing of being the Next Big Thing in politics. Given that the Rockford event was advertised about well in advance, you’d think a town of over a hundred thousand would turn out a huge crowd for a movement styling itself as “grass-roots democracy”. On a dry and fairly warm day, the Tea Party Express drew around 700 people, many of whom admitted they’d come, not just from out of town, but from out of the state. A fundamental truth of the world is that, the smaller you are, the bigger you try to portray yourself. Not unlike the lizard from Australia that puffs out its frill and dashes toward a predator trying to intimidate it, the Tea Party make itself appear impressive by making lots of noise and playing the part of The Big Movement. It only is if people let it be. It doesn’t deserve to be and, hopefully, will go the way of every other “angry average American” movement that has come down the pike before it. Here’s hoping it soon joins the Know Nothings and America First movements on the garbage heap of history.