bobbyw24
10-10-2011, 11:05 AM
Within the last few years, a phenomenon emerged to become among the most formidable forces in contemporary American politics. It goes by the name of “the Tea Party movement.”
Supposedly, the Tea Party movement is not affiliated with either of our two national political parties. Rather, it is composed of millions of ordinary Americans who, jealous as they are of the liberties bequeathed to them by their progeny, find intolerable the gargantuan proportions to which the federal government has grown.
This, at any rate, is the conventional account of the genesis and character of the Tea Party movement.
I once endorsed it. Sadly, I no longer can.
SNIP
This brings us to our second premise: to judge from the presidential primaries, one could be forgiven for thinking that Republicans haven’t changed their spots at all. True, thanks to the tireless labors of Dr. Paul, some Republicans, like Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, now recognize the need to make the occasional derogatory reference to the Federal Reserve; but outside of that, none of the candidates sound any differently now than the GOP presidential candidates of 2008.
Ron Paul, however, is an entirely different matter.
The doubling of the national debt; No Child Left Behind; Faith-Based Initiatives; the Home Ownership Society with the sub-prime mortgages that it required (and the economic collapse to which it critically contributed); endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan and, in principle, the entire Islamic world; a prescription drug benefit that is unprecedented in its scope and cost; federal funding of embryonic stem cell research; the ominously named “Patriot Act”; bailouts; and TARP; these are just some of the measures that Bush 43 and his fellow Republicans appropriated to consolidate the federal government’s power and authority over our lives to an extent that hasn’t been seen since Lyndon Banes Johnson’s Great Society.
Yet, besides Ron Paul, no other candidate has even hinted at regret over any of this.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/opinion/jack-kerwick/9307-the-tea-party-movement-republicans-and-ron-paul
Supposedly, the Tea Party movement is not affiliated with either of our two national political parties. Rather, it is composed of millions of ordinary Americans who, jealous as they are of the liberties bequeathed to them by their progeny, find intolerable the gargantuan proportions to which the federal government has grown.
This, at any rate, is the conventional account of the genesis and character of the Tea Party movement.
I once endorsed it. Sadly, I no longer can.
SNIP
This brings us to our second premise: to judge from the presidential primaries, one could be forgiven for thinking that Republicans haven’t changed their spots at all. True, thanks to the tireless labors of Dr. Paul, some Republicans, like Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, now recognize the need to make the occasional derogatory reference to the Federal Reserve; but outside of that, none of the candidates sound any differently now than the GOP presidential candidates of 2008.
Ron Paul, however, is an entirely different matter.
The doubling of the national debt; No Child Left Behind; Faith-Based Initiatives; the Home Ownership Society with the sub-prime mortgages that it required (and the economic collapse to which it critically contributed); endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan and, in principle, the entire Islamic world; a prescription drug benefit that is unprecedented in its scope and cost; federal funding of embryonic stem cell research; the ominously named “Patriot Act”; bailouts; and TARP; these are just some of the measures that Bush 43 and his fellow Republicans appropriated to consolidate the federal government’s power and authority over our lives to an extent that hasn’t been seen since Lyndon Banes Johnson’s Great Society.
Yet, besides Ron Paul, no other candidate has even hinted at regret over any of this.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/opinion/jack-kerwick/9307-the-tea-party-movement-republicans-and-ron-paul