The Tea Party – America’s Last Hope

November 8, 2011 10:26


“…It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” — Samuel Adams

By Jack Beavers at Center for a Just Society

The two years following the 2008 presidential election brought about a significant change in grass roots America. To paraphrase Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto statement following the December 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the sleeping giant is awakened and his heart is filled with a terrible resolve.

The abrupt awakening occurred when many of America’s grass root conservatives realized that their beloved republic was being led down the same road as other failed democracies; their elected representatives in Washington were spending the nation into a dictatorship. These conservatives understand the lesson taught by Alexander Tytler:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loss of fiscal responsibility, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.” — The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic by Alexander Fraser Tytler, 1776.

The awakened conservatives began actively lobbying their representatives in Congress and exhorting them to stop passing socialistic legislation and to listen to their constituents. Congress’s continuation of its entitlements agenda and its unwillingness to pass and/or balance the budget confirmed the conservatives’ belief that the US government had become beholden to a leftist agenda. Roman Statesman Cicero saw the flaw in this way of thinking and believed that “the budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced…. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” Sadly our current American statesmen and women do not seem to recognize the same necessity.

Instead of listening and legislating to shrink the government, balance the budget, strengthen defense and curtail entitlements, Congress has arrogantly passed more voluminous, unread legislation containing even more exorbitant and unsustainable socialistic expenditures. Even the average American citizen fails to recognize the importance of working for one’s own living. We have neglected the wise words of Abraham Lincoln:

“You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”

In response to our spendthrift politicians and our growing culture of irresponsibility, grass roots conservatives began to assemble and coalesce into the reincarnation of the original 1773 Tea Party resistance movement. Their purpose was to stop the expansion of government and make it again subservient to the people – as was intended by the Constitution.

The left-wing bureaucrats and their pundits in the mainstream media quickly attempted to marginalize and later demonize the movement, now identified as “Tea Party Conservatives.” The conservatives responded by identifying, nominating and supporting congressional candidates to run in the 2010 mid-term elections. The election resulted in conservatives regaining a majority in the House of Representatives and establishing strong contingencies of grass roots conservatives in both the House and Senate.

By standing upon and espousing fundamental conservative principles such as individual responsibility, free markets, limited government, a strong defense and pride in America’s heritage, the Tea Party has become recognized as a movement aimed at defending and preserving the Constitution – which they do by openly opposing and exposing the left wing socialists and their agenda. Tea Party conservatives enhance and preserve the republic and its constitution. So it’s not a surprising that the Tea Party movement continues to grow and strengthen as Independents and blue-dog Democrats joined the ranks.

The Tea Party continues to work diligently toward the upcoming 2012 election – with the goal of purging the leftists from elected office. The Tea Party realizes that if the socialists win the 2012 election, the republic’s decline into Tytler’s “bondage” will be assured, because a win confirms there is already a majority of citizens dependent on entitlement programs. And this majority will continue to ensure their numbers grow in order to elect more socialists to congress – and therefore by proxy “vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.” When the abnormal become the majority, the normal become the dysfunctional.

A line has been drawn – will America’s future be determined by responsible, self-sufficient citizens or those who would leech their own living from the fortunes of others. Unfortunately, we won’t know what the future holds until the day after the November 2012 election. Hopefully, Samuel Adams’s hope in a strong-willed minority will prove true:

“…It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” — Samuel Adams

Jack T. Beavers is an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Consultant with a BS in Chemical Engineering (BSChE), a Professional Engineering (PE) license, a Certification in Business Management (CBM), and a Certification as an Internal Control Specialist (CICS). He has previously held a Certification as an ISO-9000 Internal Auditor – and his work history includes Enterprise Risk Assessment responsibilities as a Manager of Internal Audit. Please email your comments to forum@ajustsociety.org.



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