Getting our own house in order
An astute reader made a very, thought provoking comment on the outstanding blog post, “What Tea parties are and are not”. This insightful comment needs to be met head on and addressed directly by the nationwide, grassroots movement.
The reader cites a comment from the original blog, then adds brief commentary:
“We felt this way when George Bush was President and we’d be holding Tea Parties today if he was still on the job.”
Um, really? Because he was president for pretty much eight years and there were (hang on while I add ‘em up) zero tea parties. The non-partisan tone here is manipulative and wildly disingenuous.
The reader makes some valid points.
Read more
For example,
Where were the tea parties when President Bush oversaw the largest federal budget expansion since FDR’s New Deal?
Where were the tea parties when President Bush and Congress (a Republican Congress for most of the time) passed its first $2 trillion budget, then the first $3 trillion budget?
Where were the tea parties when President Bush doubled the national debt?
Where were the tea parties, when by some accounts, President Bush tripled the size of the Federal Government?
Where were the tea parties when Bush and a host of Republicans in Congress passed the first $700 billion bailout and the government began taking stakes in private companies?
And why weren’t all the “conservative” media pundits calling for tea parties during the gargantuan spending spree of the Bush era?
You get the point. It’s little wonder that the liberal media and Obama stalwarts view our movement as being strictly motivated by partisan politics.
To specifically address one of the reader’s points, it should be duly noted that there was a small segment of the Republican Party which vehemently and consistently chastised the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress for exploding the size of government and skyrocketing the national debt. Over 1 million cast their votes for this Texas Congressman in the 2007/2008 Republican Primaries, yet for the most part, he was dismissed as a fringe candidate.
We the People have got a lot of work to do to restore our credibility. We’ve been asleep at the wheel for far too long. We’ve allowed partisan politics to cloud our better judgment. We’ve let CNN, Fox News, the New York Times, and “conservative” talk radio do our thinking for us.
It’s time to start throwing out the waste in Washington D.C, whether Democrat or Republican. It’s time to call a spade, a spade. When a Republican stinks, say so. When a Democrat stinks, say so. Or, when a Republican votes in accordance with the Constitution, praise him/her. When a Democrat votes to reign in federal spending, praise him/her.
It’s time to open our minds to new possibilities, new ideas, and new candidates. If an Independent or Third Party candidate presents a more constitutionally sound alternative or a more fiscally conservative budget proposal, don’t waste your vote on the same old Democrat or Republican.
It’s time to hold a lot of these so-called conservative media darlings to a higher standard as well. Have a lot of these individuals jumped on the band wagon simply because the Democrats are in power now? Did they spend eight years coming up with creative justifications for many of the egregious Republican spending extravaganzas? Do they simply mock and degrade those who share even the slightest difference of opinion?
If we begin to rectify our own inconsistencies, then we may witness an unbelievable explosion of the tea party movement. Instead of just preaching to the choir, we will begin to attract more and more Democrats, Independents, Third Party members, and a wider spectrum of Republicans. Until we begin to convince some of the skeptics, this movement will never reach its true potential.
ReTeaParty is dedicated to becoming the most highly respected and independent-minded tea party organization in the nation. To the best of its ability, ReTeaParty will not tolerate the poisons of partisan politics, nor will it become a tool of opportunistic media. Though mistakes will be made along the way, ReTeaParty will do its best to uphold the integrity of the Constitution and to encourage thoughtful discussion from all political persuasions.
Doug said:
I think the two major parties are like any other competitors in a market. They rely on marketing to differentiate themselves from the other, but both sell the same product and life in the short run wouldn’t be that much different either way.
I didn’t vote for Mr Bush in either of his two victories. In 2000, when it appeared I had to choose between which prescription drug give-away was better, I voted for the Libertarian. I have to admit I may have reconsidered if the Libs had a chance, but I wanted to help them make a showing, to let the major parties know they didn’t have a total monopoly.
It didn’t work in 2000 nor did it in 2004. The Libertarians aren’t relevant and the major parties do have a monopoly.
Mr Bush was not a conservative and added the final punctuation to his liberal leanings by “suspending the free market” letting Paulson run amuck.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Doug said:
I think we didn’t organize tea parties during the previous administration because we were in denial… we just didn’t want to believe it.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Timothy Joseph Shaw said:
Most people Sat indifferent to a lot of things taking place. But with this smash crash Obama brought into the white house even a blind person with a hearing impairment could see it was time for Americans to stand up and be counted as Voices against This new administrations total disregard for the will of the people.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Kristina Horvath said:
Part of the reason that I think tea parties were not organized is because most people individuals tuned out news regarding Bush. It’s like the little boy who cried wolf. Eventually, there is a wolf, but no one pays any attention, because he’s been screaming about it for four, six, seven, eight years.
Also, in GW’s defense, had the military not been all but disassembled prior to 9/11 (thanks Clinton), a ton of spending wouldn’t have been needed to defend ourselves and take the offensive instead of defensive. It costs money to be one step ahead of other countries in defense, and when you stop spending that money, the country goes backwards in time.
But regardless, if the media would have refrained from taking every shot their could at Bush, and actually been fair minded and balanced, when he started spending like crazy, more citizens would have stood up in outrage and more protests, I think, would have occured.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Not here anymore said:
>Most people Sat indifferent to a lot of things taking place<
I can’t speak for most people, but I was in SHOCK!
Now, that shock has turned to ANGER as Obama rolls out his socialist agenda and endangers the USA on every level.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:03 pm
oldvw said:
I believe that most Americans were asleep while President Bush and Congress were handing our money to all who could vote them back in. I think some Americans are still in shock and are now are realizing what has been going on for some time. It took voting out the the Republicans who pretended to be capitalists
( I live in CA so I know, thanks Arnold) and a jolt of voting in People who at least admit they hate capitalism and want to be charitable with your hard earned money to whomever they feel “NEEDS” it more than you. This may be exactly what this nation of ours needed. I hope those of us who believe in Free enterprise, individualism and self responsibility win this round. Party like it’s 1773!
April 21st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Val said:
I completely disagree with this story. The spending in the Bush years in NO WAY compares to the spending that has gone in the last THREE MONTHS of the Obama administration. Bush had a national crisis to deal with the size that NO president has ever seen before. And much of Bush’s spending - prescription drug plan for example - was in direct response to his being HOUNDED MERCILESSLY by the LEFT for him to “do something” about these issues. The spending that was incurred for TSA employees was in direct response to the 9/11 attack. We had wars on two fronts. There were legitimate reasons to spend money during those years. NONE of Bush’s spending was a deliberate attempt to make more Americans dependent on the gov’t and a deliberate attempt to CRIPPLE corporate America the way the Obama spending is intended to do. I’m sorry, but you are WAY off course on this. And if this “re tea party” or whatever you are calling it is strictly a mask for more “Bush Bashing”, you can take me off your roll. Thank you.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Val said:
“Over 1 million cast their votes for this Texas Congressman in the 2007/2008 Republican Primaries, yet for the most part, he was dismissed as a fringe candidate.”
Oh, wait, this is a Ron Paul site, isn’t it. I wish you people would just be frank and say this up front instead of constantly trying to “sneak” Ron Paul into everything. I’m out of here.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Mike W said:
I left the GOP Years ago. I think that More People in Both (All) Parties need to get Involved! Maybe this would bring Moderation to Both Parties? Who knows. I went to the Riverside and Redlands Events in So Cal. There were People of all Kinds there. All Political Parties. Yeah, the GOP People were represented, But, I think that most People in the Crowd blamed Both Parties for the Economic Meltdown. I wonder what the GOP will do now? People are Mad, But they’re mad at both the GOP and the Dems!
April 21st, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Stevelee said:
We had thought that the Tea Parties were over on the last day to file individual income tax returns.
Will another series of Tea Parties have an influence on the Congress? Could this be the start of an independent political movement? Click Underlined Link:
Tea Kettle Starting to Steam
April 21st, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Dave Norrod said:
What no one mentions is 9-11 How much money went to the widows and NYC. They then had to bailout the airlines soon after. They created Home land Security which I think no one argued to much about! Then the TSA which democratic congress insissted would be federal not a company! Then Katrina, bailing out the great corrupt state of Louisiana. Not to mention the other states. While most states have recovered has New Orleans? NO. Then the wars then another hurricane in Tx. So while Bush did spend alot some of that could not be helped. Now we spending like teenagers at the mall with their parents credit card and don’t care how much or what just SPEND don’t read the bill just spend. There is the defference.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Craig said:
I can only speak for myself, but early on during the Bush years, I just shook my head in disappointment at the spending. Then when the shamnesty issue came up, my disappointment turned to anger at what the GOP had become. Then late last year when the obscene bailouts started, my anger intensified. At that point, I was (finally) at a point where I was ready to take to the streets in protest.
Then we elected a new president. He promised “change”. However, when he took office, rather than doing anything differently, he simply hit the accelerator. Now we are going even faster in the same (wrong) direction. This isn’t change. This is the same old stuff, only more and faster!
We are going the wrong direction in this country (and have been for a lot longer than the Obama administration). Our leaders are completely deaf to the concerns of us Americans and they act condescending towards us, while living lives of lavishness on our tax dollars.
That is why I have attended both Tea Parties here in Orlando and that’s why I’m doing it at this point in time.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:36 pm
jefferson said:
@val: i think the point of the article, as written in the title, is that we must recognize that we, as a whole, did not protest when the Republicans were increasing spending and the size of government. That is not “Bush bashing”, but recognizing that the left has a legitimate argument against us regarding the sincerity of our concerns if it is only because Obama is in office that we complain. This in NO WAY implies that Obama has not accelerated the increase in deficits and government programs. also, if you go to the “about” page on the nav bar, I don’t think anyone is hiding who they are…if you have an independent forum for free thought and voices, naturally, you are going to disagree with some of them. i think its been pretty clear that everyone should be challenged and real debate should be had.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:10 pm
dennyneff said:
I agree with Dave Norrod… There were a host of extenuating circumstances that precipitated extraordinary spending. Yet NONE of those circumstances exist precipitating the extremes to which Obama has spent TAXPAYERS money. The blame however doesn’t rest wholly with him. The Democratic Congress put the bums-rush on legislation that NO ONE in the opposing party was permitted to read. How many times are we to buy his “critical and urgent” professions.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Todd Kading said:
Almost all Democrats and a large portion of Republicans are Statists. They may not even know that they are Statists, but that does not change the fact that they are. It is the job of the people to re-asert Indvidualism. If it is Bush-bashing for me to say that a large portion of what Bush did was completely unconstitutional, then I guess I am Bush-bashing. If I am being anti-Obama because I am saying that nearly everything he has done has been unconstitutional, then I guess I am anti-Obama. Who cares? Read the Constitution, and then tell me how I am wrong. The Tea Parties need to be about reigning in the Federal government and stopping the unconstitutional acts of our “leaders”. TARP, Stimulus, Bailouts, Wiretaps, Nationalization of Banks, Confiscation of Private Property, Banning of Guns — it is all unconstitutional. Obviously, the things I just laid out are various and wide-ranging. For the time being, let’s just start by agreeing that the SPENDING HAS GOT TO STOP. Let’s start there and see where it takes us.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Richard Fischer said:
I turned sour on the Republican party last year when President Bush(who I voted for both times) and many of the Republican leaders started turning their backs on the people they were supposed to represent. I think many of us started getting a wake up call last year , but it took the first several months of this new administration with the runaway spending and the rapid movement toward Capitalism to really get us in gear. I believe the Tea Parties are just the start of a huge grassroots movement and I can’t just sit here and watch both parties spend us into debt that my grandchildren will never be able to re-pay. I believe this site will be a very good forum to get information and share ideas. We need to encourage everybody to get as much education as possible so they don’t continue to send snake oil doctors to Washington.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Not here anymore said:
Todd - Very well said! You captured exactly how I feel! Also, I think that The Declaration of Independence is a document that needs to be seriously revisited!
April 21st, 2009 at 6:32 pm
ben frank said:
So glad to hear this is a non-partisan site. Keep up the good work.
If anyone out there still hates Republicans or Democrats… ask yourself, is America Divided? Could this be the result of the age old strategy, Divide and Conquer? While the media continues to promote the D vs R battle on wedge issues, our country is being looted. They get us to fight each other, while the Useful Idiots in DC vote on bills they haven’t even read.
It has got to stop. We must unite across party lines.
Divide and Conquer: Don’t Fall for it!
April 21st, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Matthew Webb said:
The congress is supposed to be D vs R (or atleast opposition of ideas). Dissent and disagreement are the heart of liberty.
I couldnt believe my ears when the Obama followers were jumping up and down when they said Democrats held a majority of the house and senate as well as the presidency.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Sean Haugh said:
Great post, and excellent questions. Ben just above hit on one of my favorite themes - divide and conquer. The insane level of partisanship between Democrats and Republicans only serves to keep us divided so they can go about their bipartisan business.
Val, I’m not ashamed at all to invoke Ron Paul.
I do believe one reason why Tea Parties didn’t start last year is that the Paul campaign gave us something to do in 2008. The remarkable thing is that people stayed engaged after the election, which is rare.
The tipping point pretty clearly is the economic collapse and the first bailout, which happened on Bush’s watch. Hard times motivates people to get involved like nothing else.
If anything, people who got motivated because of the change in residency at the White House are outraged not because Obama is different, but because he is so very much the same. Personally I see a continuity of federal policy that dates back to the first President Bush and includes the Clinton administration.
Obama excites people because unlike most politicians, he peddles a message of hope rather than fear. Now that his hope is turning out to be false, we have an amazing opportunity to reach out to left and right, all across the political spectrum, and come together on the core issues we all agree on. These core issues are expressed well by Ron Paul’s “4 Points” and the Statement of Principles for ReTeaParty, and were the ones I tried to touch upon in my original post.
Thanks General for your very honest and thoughtful post.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Gayle Bacon said:
Yes I’ve heard that question more than once. Where were we? It was pretty spontaneous. It started with a rant by Rick Santelli (sp?) It caught fire. I’m not sure that people still wouldn’t have been just sitting around in abject apathy except for that. There was some pretty wild spending going on during Bush’s administration. Bills presented by the Democrats and rubber-stamped by G.W. He went after the terrorists and protected us, but those last two years of his term, we still grumbled about the spending.
This Tea Party Pheonomenon, that’s what it is you know, was something that occurred because the time was right. And it’s not about race. What it really is, is that he and his liberal constituents played their hand too fast because they could. That alarmed people. The black citizens of the U.S. were not kept from attending this event. They stayed away because they are blindly following their “black” brother. He ain’t BLACK! He’s mixed race. His mother was white, his father was black. So we could claim that he’s white! and I’d still like to see that Birth certificate he’s paid $800,000 to avoid showing us.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Michael H said:
I think the tipping point for public dissent (ie. the tea parties) was when Obama started unveiling his socialist agenda and enforcing it.
As someone said earlier, the run-away deficits, unbalanced budgets, and let’s not forget, the giving our technology innovations, manufacturing and engineering jobs, and our infrastructure away to competitor nations (China, India, the Middle East, to name a few) has been going on for decades(Bush, Clinton).
All of the above, has contributed to gradual decline in US strength at home and abroad.
They say if one puts a frog in boiling water, he’ll jump out immeadeately. But if one puts a frog in cold water, then bring up the heat gradually, he’ll eventually boil to death, never knowing what happened.
Obama has turned up the heat radically, and now people are willing to do something about it. The “frogs” (us), are starting to jump out. May it continue until we put out the flames.
When we fix this mess, strangely, we may actually have Obama to thank (not that I like Obama) for turning up the heat quickly…
Michael
April 21st, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Matthew Webb said:
Michael H connected the frog analogy to the tea party reaction perfectly.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Minuteman said:
Who cares? So I was asleep at the wheel the last 8 years. I’m awake now and am hopping mad! So NOW I’m protesting and looking to fight as hard as I can to get our country back to what the founders envisioned. Nothing else matters. Not what I was doing during the Bush years and not who is in the WH now. I’m going after the real culprits….CONGRESS! All of these spurious arguments are just distractions and misdirections. We are focused now and must continue to protest this runaway government. Republican, Democrat, Aunt Sue, whomever….if you are spending our money recklessly and looking to make America a socialist country, then it is our civic duty to protest and oppose you.
Period.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:52 am
Robert J. Paxton said:
No doubt the timing of the Tea Party movement makes it look like partisan politics to those on the left. Unfortunately, no amount of persuasion, common sense, logical thought or rational reasoning has ever changed a liberal’s mind before and it’s not going to happen now. We’d be well served to just stay on message and not worry about what our opponents think our motives are.
Yes, I think too much money was spent on Bush’s watch, but we also have to remember that Congress is the real culprit. A President can ask for money to be spent all day long, but it’s the Congress that actually holds the purse strings.
We can call President Obama a socialist all day long, but it’s Congress that we must hold ultimately responsible for all the reckless spending.
One thing I don’t understand is why we don’t have more people calling for giving the President line-item veto power. Granted, this President probably wouldn’t use it if he had it, but I think we need to work toward getting that tool in place. Then when we get a real conservative in the White House, the mechanism will be there to stop all this earmark spending dead in its tracks.
Let’s Roll!!
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:52 am
Jim Fraser said:
I think this movement will have a positive impact on both parties. We need to focus on the future and not worry about the past since we cannot do anything about that. First and foremost we need to get the big spenders out of the government. We can debate who we should support along the way but we should continue to focus on the task at hand.
April 15th was a good day for our country and more days like this will get our politicians to take more notice. I think we are really onto something here and we do not want to lose anybody. Hopefully Val will reconsider coming back.
Personally I am looking at Mike Huckabee to support. He was against the Bush bailout and, at his own peril, critisized Bush for spending.
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:59 am