Tag Archives: Tea Party

Trick or Treat – another election

Halloween_Trick_or_TreatWe Irish know in our genetic sinews, no scholarship need be considered, that Halloween, or all Hallows’ Eve, springs from the medieval Gaelic Samhain, marking the end of harvest and the beginning of the darker half of the year.

It is little wonder then that we have most of our elections as the natural light dims and darkness grows.

In one tradition of All Hallows’ Eve, souls wander the earth until this evening for their one last chance to gain vengeance.

This election season we have the feeling our candidates are making the holy day’s danse macabre their inspiring motivator, calculating a revenge comprised of how they may get theirs — at our expense.

The right to vote that we “enjoy” is a forced choice made before the primary or caucus is held, the product of back room paper and power shuffling that pre-selected whom we may consider.

The districts themselves are drawn not rationally but by the force of numbers in the line-drawing state legislature with one clear purpose – to pre-determine each election’s outcome.

Our voting discretion is “informed” by tall yarns, name calling and distracting issues that make the blood boil.

One clamoring voice outshouts another with high cost hard copy and electronic propaganda that muddle or drown out any contrary fact or opinion.

The election “trick” is the threat of how bad it will be if you don’t choose the imperious “me.”

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Anarchy?

Henry David Thoreau said he heartily agreed with that Jeffersonian remark, “that government is best which governs least.”

He said, however, he’d go one better, believing “That government is best which governs not at all.”

Henry was, in truth and fact, a non-violent anarchist.

Some might think our current brand of green tea anarchists from mostly red states draw wisdom from Henry when enthusiastically shutting down the government – invoking the Affordable Care Act (ACA)(or Obamacare) as their pretext for what they’ve wanted to do ever since they’ve dominated the House Republican Caucus in the U.S. Congress and dictated what the Speaker may move to the floor for a vote.

But Henry’s no-government anarchism presumed a precondition, that would be satisfied “when men are prepared for it, [and then] that will be the kind of government which they will have.” Continue reading

Manhattan Declaration in action, the shutdown

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops lobbied Congress to hold the continuing resolution and debt ceiling bill hostage to anti-birth control ideology. In a September 26 letter, they wrote:

We are writing once again, as Chairmen of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities and Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, on an increasingly grave concern to our Church and many others: Preserving religious freedom and the right of conscience for all who take part in our health care system.
We have already urged you to enact the Health Care Conscience Rights Act (H.R. 940/S. 1204). As Congress considers a Continuing Resolution and debt ceiling bill in the days to come, we reaffirm the vital importance of incorporating the policy of this bill into such “must-pass” legislation.
Loudoun’s Chuck Colson inspired Manhattan Declaration lays out the programme for the tea party/”Christian” right led sedition.
…we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.
Chuck Colson Founder, the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (Lansdowne, VA)
Congressman Frank Wolf co-sponsored H.R. 940.
Thanks Frank!

How to be an online tea party activist

That was easy.

This is the way I just saw a young activist instruct other tea party activists on how to “give our ideas a fighting chance” in the marketplace of ideas:

Go to any website that allows ratings of books, movies, etc., search for “liberal” products and give them all one star, then search for “conservative” products and give them all five stars. You can do this relatively quickly for “hundreds” of products. Isn’t that easy? It doesn’t require the ability to make a cogent argument that convinces other people, to listen to and understand other peoples’ stories, or all the time-consuming reading and thinking that would take. “The vast majority of the books I rate, I’ve never read,” the young man assures his audience.

This was filmed at an actual workshop at some tea party event at which new activists were being trained. I didn’t catch where or when this was, but it appeared to be in a large meeting room in some sort of conference facility. I give that detail because it shows this idea to be mainstream within the tea party universe, not just something some crank said to 12 people in his basement.

The irony is that tea party patriots are fond of quoting Mr. Jefferson’s famous assertion that the cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate; “whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”