The news round up today will focus on the Tea Parties happening around the nation.
*How the tea parties could change American politics, by Glenn Reynolds
“…the tea-party movement may lead to a new third party that may replace the GOP, just as the GOP replaced the fractured and hapless Whigs.”
*From Michelle Malkin:
“Now is not the time to sing kumbaya with the GOP or indulge in celebrity worship. This is the chance to hold your politicians accountable for engaging in legislation without deliberation, for “sacrificing the free market to save it” to paraphrase George the pre-socializer Bush, and for abandoning their fiscal conservative principles in the mad rush to “Do something.” (Quoting Rep. Ryan from last fall: “Doing nothing is the worst thing we could do!”)
*According to Gallup, 48% of people feel like they are paying just the right amount of taxes. As Ed Morrisey at Hot Air notes, that is the exact percentage that won’t be paying ANY income taxes under the new tax code. No wonder they feel like that is the right amount.
*Tax Receipts Plummet as Americans “Go Galt”, by Tom Blumer.
*They Did It For You, Now Do It For Them, by Bill Whittle
*Revolution Rekindled, by Jeff Emanuel
*It’s Way Past Tea Party Time, by Andrew Cline
For what it’s worth, I’m not usually a protest-attending sort of guy. Most of the time I’m too busy working, writing, or spending time with my lovely bride-to-be to bother with this stuff. That has changed.
Although the real progressive expansion of the Fed began almost 100 years ago, it was under George W. Bush and his “compassionate conservatism” that I personally witnessed the ravenous Leviathan in action. I’m not talking about the Iraq War (although the accounting for it should have been handled through the proper channels), and I’m not talking about the Patriot Act, or wiretapping of suspected terrorists, or any of the non-issues that the left has been hyperventilating about for the last 8 years. I AM talking about No Child Left Behind, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, McCain-Feingold, CAFE standards, etc. All of these progressive policies were enacted by and for people who believe that your betters in Washington know how to spend your money better than you do. Republicans and Democrats are both guilty on this score, with the GOP being nothing more than the “slightly less left” party of big government.
Enough. Taxation at or near 50% of personal income has to stop. Progressive tax policies that insure 48% of citizens pay no income taxes whatsoever have to stop. A tax code that punishes some behaviors (smoking) while rewarding others (going green) has to stop. The idea that a government should dictate proper behavior to its citizens is morally repugnant, and every free man or woman should be appalled that it has become so normal.
A government that tosses around trillions of dollars of your money to bail out bad decision-making and greed should be held accountable by the citizenry, and that is what today’s protests are about. Be polite, be calm, and be reasonable, but be there. I certainly will be.
RELATED: Well, at least quasi related, since the DHS has just labeled all of us Federalist types possible terrorists. (Thanks TF for beating me to the punch on that one.)
*Andy McCarthy labels us all “Marked Men” at the Corner.
*Why oh why won’t Jeff G. at Protein Wisdom write a book already?
“Listen: I understand the impulse to keep the fringe actors at the fringes so that the taint of, say, the Birchers doesn’t damage conservatism proper. But the fact of the matter is, we have already allowed progressives and their media cohort to define conservatism — and the result has been to paint those whose political ideology is most tied to Constitutional fidelity and individual liberty as godbothering racist rednecks who are too stupid to recognize the glory that is come in the form of Barack Obama and the Savior State.
Which is why it makes no sense whatever to pretend that what the report explicitly states is anything other than an effort to dovetail a new formulation of “extremism” — equated herein with holding certain “right wing” ideals — with what has been a long-term systematic semantic strategy for marginalizing those voices who represent the biggest threat to an ever-expanding centralized nannystate. That there may be certain members of the GOP who are complicit in that strategy speaks to a rot in the GOP, not an erosion of the ideals embraced by legal conservatives, classical liberals, and many libertarians.”
Emphasis mine.
-QC-
