Why the Tea Baggers are Wrong

I've had it up to my neck with the Tea Baggers.  What really scares me is the militance of them.  Democracy only works with civilized debate.  Yet, the Tea Bagger supporters often seem to have a visceral even violent message.  I've seen photos in the news of protesters carrying signs that say something like, "we left our bullets at home... this time."  This is a threat!  We should take it as nothing less.  By contrast, I have never known my fellow liberals to behave in such a threatening manner, even when they've been visceral with me for disagreeing with them.  Anyone who holds a sign saying, "we left our bullets at home... this time," or who thinks that revolution means mob rule is the barbarian at the gates of our democracy.

Their threatening demeanor is more than just individuals who have given way to unfounded anger.  It is part of a pattern of a certain type of militant, radical conservatism that is anti-American to the core.  Yet, for all that, I feel that, as a just man, I must strive to see their perspective.  My conclusion is that they're angry because they're doing the math wrong.  If they did the math right, they'd settle down.  Let me explain.

These Tea Baggers have a twisted view of America and what it means to be American.  What they're missing (or else consciously omitting) is a key part of the motive for the original Boston tea party.  That is "no taxation without representation".  They have the first part right, but are ignoring the second part.

The Boston tea party was a demonstration against the tyranny of King and Crown taxing colonists without representation.  Rather than benefitting from the Tea Tax, they aristocracy back in Mother Britain was benefitting and they, the colonists, had no legal recourse.  Great Britain was not, at that time, a democracy, after all, but a monarchy.  The entire point of the Boston tea party was that the people should decide democratically how taxation should work.

However, the Tea Baggers have twisted this concept into some idea that taxes are inherently bad.  The truth is that every political platform in America supports some form of taxation.  Without taxes, our police, our judges, our DA's and public defenders wouldn't get paid.  Without them, we'd have no justice system and America would be subjected to mob rule.  Without taxes, our soldiers wouldn't be supported to defend our nation.  Without taxes, our roads would crumble to dust.

Because of this, I refuse to call them what they call themselves.  They are anti tax.  The real Boston tea party was pro democracy.

Since I don't particularly see that the vast majority of Tea Baggers are independently wealthy, I must assume that the vast majority of them benefited from public education.  I would be willing to bet that many of them would be out on the street right now if it wasn't for Unemployment benefits.  They benefit from taxes as much as the rest of us do.

So, the idea that we shouldn't be taxed is absurd.  What troubles me, though, is that these people aren't just anti-tax, but anti-democracy.  Anyone who holds up threatening signs at rallies is anti-democracy.  I see this as a dangerous pattern of behavior that runs deeper than just a few individuals, just as a few bubbles on the surface of water can indicate that the water is about to boil.  If we wait to see all of them on the brink of violence, it will be too late.  We need to take action now.  I suggest that the best way to do this is through communication.  Many of these people may be victims of the poor education that, ironically, their platform will only worsen.  Many of them are ignorant of history and thus dooming all of us to repeat the mistakes of the past.

I'd also suggest that many conservatives have a huge misunderstanding about liberalism.  While I respect my conservative friends, I think that there's a tendency among conservatives to vilify liberals without understanding us.

First, I think most of us liberals believe in Equal Opportunity.[1]  This needs to be constantly worked toward or wealthy families will end up controlling everything.  It's the role of government to ensure Equal Opportunity.  Since it's moral to do what's best for everyone, it's moral to support Equal Opportunity for all.

This means having the best public education we can.  It means making sure that workers get adequate health care so that they can continue to work (and unemployed people who want to get back into the work force stay healthy so that they will be healthy when they rejoin the work force).  It means ensuring that children get great health care so that they can get a fair shot at success once they become adults.  It means having great public transportation so that people who can't afford cars can get to work.  It means paving our roads so that cars and buses alike can get to where they need to go.  It means having some sort of safety net for people who lose their jobs or who started out adult life in such terrible conditions that they can't get out of poverty.

This means government revenue and, yes, that, in turn, typically means taxes.  None of us like paying taxes, but it's our civic duty to pay them.  Because we want to avoid having taxes be a burden on the very poor whom our tax dollars are meant to help, we need to a get our tax dollars from somewhere else.  Since taxes are the price we pay for living in a society that at least promotes Equal Opportunity (and ideally actually has it), the wealthy and the corporations are taxed more than others.  This is partially to counteract the unfair advantage they have over people with less money, but it's also their civic duty to give back to society.

I'm happy to pay my taxes at a higher tax bracket than others, because I was born to middle class parents who were able to give me a better shot at success than poor parents would have.  I know that my tax dollars are going to support things like public schools that help everyone have the opportunity that I have.

It's a falsehood to think that there's any such thing as a "rugged individual".  The conservatives have a belief that people are successful on their own.  This is a false myth meant to rationalize their political views.  In fact, everybody who's successful in any way (and there are more ways to be successful than financially) is only successful because of help from society.  Maybe it's just the paved highways that the trucks that deliver their goods drive over or the police that keep gangsters from murdering them as "business" rivals, but everyone benefits.  And, anyone who was successful because of a private education rather than a public one, received that from their parents, so that only goes to prove my point even more strongly.  We're all in this together, and so it's the civic duty of the wealthy to support a society that fosters Equal Opportunity.

So, the liberal argument is that it's the responsibility of the government, and therefore of the People, to support Equal Opportunity in society so that society empowers everyone to be successful.  Equal Opportunity is therefore a moral imperative.

Now, many conservatives have also criticized liberals as somehow being "pro-bureaucracy".  Everybody hates bureaucracy and liberals are no exception.  That being said, obviously government agencies are needed to ensure Equal Opportunity by administrating public schools, public healthcare, and so forth (not to mention paving roads, running courts, etc).

Before we can understand why bureaucracy something that everybody agrees is a problem, though, we must understand its history.  It was originally put in place to avoid nepotism.  So, the original reason why bureaucrats are officious is fairness.

The problem is that this officiousness itself has become a new problem and the new problem needs a new solution.  Fortunately, liberals have one and it's a solution that many Democrat leaders have promoted, but it has gone mostly unnoticed by conservatives (at least it seems to me that it has).

Since we need government agencies in order to ensure Equal Opportunity, getting rid of them won't help (and it will lead us back to the bigger problem of nepotism).  Instead, the liberal solution is to change government agencies from a bureaucracy model to a customer service model.  Rather than being run by uniformly callous bureaucrats, these agencies can be run by uniformly helpful public service providers.  I myself have paid my own taxes directly through irs.gov for the past several years and they actually have a fairly helpful website.  Sure, much more needs to change, but, I see it mostly being conservatives who are stalling these changes by trying to limit funds to government agencies.  Properly funded, they can be revamped to be more and more helpful.

Also, privatization is a non-option.  Social programs all have moral charters, whereas for-profit corporations all have amoral profit as their only charter.  The wise investments in society that these agencies administer are moral in nature and need moral administration.[2]

The Tea Baggers actually have the exact opposite goals as those of the Boston tea party.  The Boston tea party was meant to promote democracy.  This epidemic of threats and nigh-violence ready to boil over is anti-democracy.

Morality begins with empathy.  With enough empathy, we can at least desire to do what's best for everyone.  With all of the power and wealth that the Unite States of America has, I believe we can get very close to accomplishing that goal.

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[1] Yes, I know I'm being weird by capitalizing this phrase, but it's sacred to me and I think it deserves caps sort of like Nature, Liberty, God or Goddess.
[2] Yes, I realize that it may be hard to see agencies like the DMV as moral, but as I've said, they can be changed if conservatives will get out of the way and allow liberal leadership to change them.