A letter to the editor in the Flagstaff Daily Sun asks, “Why are liberals so opposed to the Tea Party movement? From what I see, the Tea Party stands for self-reliance, small government, less taxes, reduce the national debt and less interference on the part of the federal government in our daily lives. How can any sane person be opposed to these views? Do you liberals want high taxes? Do you want the government controlling every aspect of your lives? Are you afraid to stand on your own? Do you need the government to take care of you? Do you really believe you are entitled to what I have worked for? I hope you folks of the liberal persuasion think about what the current government is doing to our nation. If you have any common sense at all, you will agree with what the Tea Party is trying to do, which is get our country back on the road to be the nation we once were.”
Like Ronnie Raygun once said, “There you go again....” I hoped to have gotten my disdain for the TP movement out of my system, but since they’re likely to play a major role in this year’s elections – and since I even have friends who are sympathetic to the cause – I can’t help but rise to the bait of this letter.
Confining one’s arguments to these talking points is a have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife proposition. It’s true; taken separately, no sane person would contest them. But I’m not opposed to the ideas that you represent as much as to the collective impression that your movement makes. (1) It’s the height of hypocrisy to lambaste Obama for power-grabbing and bemoan escalating debt after the ravages of the previous administration – suggesting it’s just a poor-loser stance. (2) You take your marching orders from demagogues on a one-sided “news” outlet that laughingly calls itself “fair and balanced.” (3) You lionize a manipulatively homespun political personality who would be more clueless than W was (could that be possible?) if she ever became president. (4) Many of your fellow travelers are so preoccupied with issues like non-existent efforts to curb gun ownership or Obama’s birth certificate that it’s hard to take any of you seriously. (5) You would have to go some to convince me, given the kinds of people your movement attracts, that your belief that government should stay out of private lives extends to sexual and reproductive choice and to the decriminalization of marijuana.
Maybe the bottom line is, those of us of the liberal persuasion are more inclined to see government as a mechanism for solving problems, not as the enemy. It may very well require some tweaking along the lines you suggest – but that’s what representative government is supposed to be about, so let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. You’d rather starve it into submission than change it, but the small government/low taxes mantra just doesn’t fly anymore in a nation as large and complex as ours. Which version of “the nation we once were” did you have in mind? The fifties? Prohibition? The Jacksonian era? Or just any time when white male protestants called the shots?
All of this suggests: (6) Much like the participants in another Tea Party, you’re detached from reality. It’s time you tuned in to the big picture. The world is changing – physically, demographically, technologically – and we can’t turn back the clock to Happy Days.
Like Ronnie Raygun once said, “There you go again....” I hoped to have gotten my disdain for the TP movement out of my system, but since they’re likely to play a major role in this year’s elections – and since I even have friends who are sympathetic to the cause – I can’t help but rise to the bait of this letter.
Confining one’s arguments to these talking points is a have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife proposition. It’s true; taken separately, no sane person would contest them. But I’m not opposed to the ideas that you represent as much as to the collective impression that your movement makes. (1) It’s the height of hypocrisy to lambaste Obama for power-grabbing and bemoan escalating debt after the ravages of the previous administration – suggesting it’s just a poor-loser stance. (2) You take your marching orders from demagogues on a one-sided “news” outlet that laughingly calls itself “fair and balanced.” (3) You lionize a manipulatively homespun political personality who would be more clueless than W was (could that be possible?) if she ever became president. (4) Many of your fellow travelers are so preoccupied with issues like non-existent efforts to curb gun ownership or Obama’s birth certificate that it’s hard to take any of you seriously. (5) You would have to go some to convince me, given the kinds of people your movement attracts, that your belief that government should stay out of private lives extends to sexual and reproductive choice and to the decriminalization of marijuana.
Maybe the bottom line is, those of us of the liberal persuasion are more inclined to see government as a mechanism for solving problems, not as the enemy. It may very well require some tweaking along the lines you suggest – but that’s what representative government is supposed to be about, so let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. You’d rather starve it into submission than change it, but the small government/low taxes mantra just doesn’t fly anymore in a nation as large and complex as ours. Which version of “the nation we once were” did you have in mind? The fifties? Prohibition? The Jacksonian era? Or just any time when white male protestants called the shots?
All of this suggests: (6) Much like the participants in another Tea Party, you’re detached from reality. It’s time you tuned in to the big picture. The world is changing – physically, demographically, technologically – and we can’t turn back the clock to Happy Days. 
No comments:
Post a Comment