Posted on 02/12/2010 6:44:43 AM PST by Tolik
If the tea party movement is the soul of small government and personal responsibility, the Republican Party is the institutional body conservatives need to regain control over government run amok. You can't have one without the other, says Bill Whittle.
The transcript of this video essay is below. IMHO: video is better - Bill Whittle's presentation is characteristically passionate; and his passion is contagious.
Well, the Tea party movement is not even a year old, and already it is holding its first national convention. I was honored to be asked to speak at the West Los Angeles event on September 12th of last year, so unlike most of the talking heads you see opining on the Tea Party movement, at least I am one of the very few to have been to one personally.
Now the most remarkable thing about that remarkable experience is something that is very hard to put into words. It’s the quality that makes me reluctant to try and tell you what it is, because it clearly is so many different things to so many people. And that grass-roots, “never-done-this-before” sense of excitement and empowerment is the first thing that really hits you.
These are the most regular, decent people you’ll meet, and with very few exceptions not one of them has been involved in politics in any way. It’s just that — like so many of us — They’ve just had enough!
Of course, the media coverage has tried very hard to portray the normal, average, every-day Americans of the Tea party rallies as dangerous and angry racists and Wal-Mart knuckle-draggers, while identifying the mass-produced signs, the mass-produced T-shirts, the mass-produced members of bused-in wiccan nihilist anarcho-Maoist lesbian eco-weenie anti-war protestors as somehow the genuine voice of the American people.
So as a person who has been there, let me try and explain what I think this whole movement is about.
The people I have met at these events were generally the happy, decent, hard-working people that make up the vast middle of Silent America. They are not bitter, and they are not “consumed with rage.”
But they — I mean, we — are angry. We have a right to be angry. As a matter of fact, we not only have a right but in fact have an obligation to be angry. The spending orgy in Washington brought on by the Democratic control of both houses of Congress and the election of the most liberal member of the Senate to the office of the Presidency is taking the country off the edge of a cliff and everybody knows it.
This spending is so monumental, so out of control and so beyond the pale that huge numbers of what were honest, decent, hard-working and unassuming citizens no longer feel like taxpayers but rather like host organisms: we find ourselves staggering around in shock, like victims of a plane crash or some natural disaster, looking around at the destruction of the work ethic that gave five percent of the population an economy four times the size of its nearest competitor. We watch, horrified, at the government takeover not of businesses or industries but entire sectors of the free market. That’s why there’s a Tea Party.
You know what this reckless, Imperial orgy of spending feels like? It feels like coming out of the shower in the morning, dazed and exhausted after a good night’s sleep, and stepping in front of a mirror to find yourself covered in leeches that are sapping not just the blood it takes to make government function, but rather all of it — every last living drop of it — to fund entitlements and work projects and boondoggles of every description: congressional “climate change” junkets that include skiing and snorkeling days in New Zealand, and Bridges to Nowhere, and the use of Air Force jets as the personal chauffeurs not only of the Speaker of the House but for her families and business cronies, too. We see a President who talks about sharing hardship but who then decides to go out on date night and catch a show in New York City and ends up spending every single tax dollar you and your kids will make in your entire life: gone!
Gone! What did you get for it? Nothing. What service did it do the country? None! So why did they spend it? Because — listen now — they spent it because that’s not your money. That’s their money. Just because you got up in the morning, sat in traffic, and worked all day before sitting in traffic again to come home exhausted… that doesn’t mean it’s your money to these bloodsucking, leather-winged, Big Government entitlement-mongers. No, that’s their money to spend as they see fit — and not just all the money you send in taxes today, or next year, or the next ten years — they — Democrats and Republicans too — have spent all the money you will make in your lifetime, and then spent all of the money your kids will make, and the pool of work that your grandkids will do in 2060 or so — that’s mostly been spent too.
You want to know why we’re angry? What once was a social compact between the people and their representatives has rotted away into this: a people no longer paying a reasonable price for the limited number of things that only a government can provide, but rather victims of identity theft — people who open a monthly credit card statement only to discover fifty thousand dollars of vacations not taken, and jet skis and plasma TV’s paid for but never delivered. That’s why there’s a Tea Party.
Now some critics of the Tea Party movement say it is hypocritical to complain about Democrat spending without complaining about Republican spending as well. Well, there are two things to say about that: first, that is a profound insight from someone who has obviously never been to a Tea Party event, because if they had been there, they would know that the real thunderbolts thrown in response to this spending orgy is aimed not at the Democrats but rather the Republicans; the people who should know better, the people, in fact, that we thought would be standing guard over our hard-earned treasure, not shoveling it out the door by the fork-full.
Secondly, I’ll just let this graph do the talking.
The grey bars are Bush’s Deficits. Notice that they were declining yearly in his second term, until TARP — which President Obama claimed as his own personal miracle — drove them up during his last year. Now look at the red bars: that’s Obama’s spending: four times Bush’s last year — the spike of TARP included — and not for an emergency fix of the banks, but rather to buy things like ATV trails on one hand and General Motors on the other, all in the name of “stimulus,” which, we were promised, would cap unemployment at 8% instead of the nine or 10% we would see without the line at the government cash trough. The official unemployment rate is now at least ten percent; some analysts say the true number may now be half again that, or even double.
Oh, and by the way, shocking and damning though this graph is, it’s a little long in the tooth. The fact is, this President and Congress have been waging a year-long war against business and the evil, evil wealthy, who, needless to say, have decided to keep their heads down, produce less, and pay less in taxes.
Here’s a graphic that better illustrates the real effect of the decreased revenues as a result of this war on the private sector:
That’s why there’s a tea Party.
So what’s ahead? Well, no one knows, least of all me. But I do have a very strong sense of what should be ahead.
Despite the authentic and wholly justified sense of betrayal that many conservatives feel at the hands of the GOP, I think that talks of a third party are suicide: not only permanent minority status, but also handing the store over to the people most intent on robbing it — forever.
The Tea Party Movement is really the conservative movement. It’s like a soul that has somehow been cut off from its physical body, and now both wander the landscape, trying to decide what to do. Because if the Tea Party movement is the grass-roots, common-man philosophical soul of small government and personal liberty and responsibility, then the Republican party is the skeletal structure — the bones and arteries and sinews needed to live in the real world.
The only road to success and recovery from this rocket-sled of ruin is to re-unite these two elements. We tried that, actually: Tea Party passion and internet fundraising, plus GOP ground operations, call centers, networks and so forth, and this was the result:
Pretty damn impressive!
Now, was Scott Brown the perfect conservative candidate? To many — even many who supported him — he was not. That’s not the question we should be asking. The question we should be asking — and did ask, it seems — is not whether Scott Brown is more conservative than Ronald Reagan. The question is whether or not Scott Brown is more conservative than Ted Kennedy or Martha Coakley.
He is, and by a very wide margin. That’s a win!
Victory is a ratchet. To retake this country we need every gain we can get — no matter how small — and to give up as little as possible. If Scott Brown — Republican senator from Massachusetts — turns out to be the most liberal man in the Senate then we’re living in paradise. That’s why there’s a Tea Party. And that’s why being a part of the Tea Party movement is, when it is all said and done, just plain fun.
And a final note: do you know who we owe the remarkable success of the Tea Party movement to? We owe it to Rachel Maddow, and Keith Olberman, and Chris Matthews. We owe it to Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, and Barack Obama — not just for the political motivation, but because they decided to make it personal.
By calling us Tea Baggers, and racists, and Nazis, and rubes, and hicks… by pretending we’re just a fringe group of dangerous radicals, or saying — as the President did, twice, and apparently with a straight face — that he was unaware that tens or hundreds of thousands of hard-working American patriots were clogging the streets of the city he lives in — well all of these geniuses poured can after can of lighter fluid on to what might have been some old, wet charcoal — nearly impossible to light — and turned it into a wildfire that will likely remake the landscape of this country. That’s why there’s a Tea Party.
So thanks, you big-brain, sneering, socialist ninnies! We couldn’t have done it without you.
| Bill Whittle is a writer, pilot and TV editor who lives and works in Los Angeles. With history on his side, Bill Whittle challenges widely held misconceptions about politics and society. Frequently asking the difficult ethical questions, Whittle attempts to underscore conservative values and philosophy through logical reasoning. |
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Bill Whittle is on Facebook Bill's site: http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/ Bill's book: Silent America: Essays from a Democracy at War Bill's video essays: PJTV - Afterburner with Bill Whittle (requires free registration) Bill Whittle also produces TRIFECTA with "Vodkapundit” Stephen Green and Washington Examiner columnist Scott Ott (Scrappleface.com). They go head-to-head on today’s hot-button issues. No matter what topic they’re tackling, this trio is always a winning bet |
My selection of Bill Whittle's best (lately):
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| The Islamic Infiltration, Part 2: From Influence to Insurrection Jan 12 / Sharia and Jihad | |
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10min |
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| The Islamic Infiltration: Inside Our Government, Armed With Our Secrets Jan 8 / Bill Whittle Investigates | |
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14 min |
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| They Stole Our Future, But They Cannot Break Our Will Jan 4 / Afterburner with Bill Whittle | |
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10min |
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| The Kudzu Curse: A Fight for Free Enterprise Dec 14 / Afterburner with Bill Whittle | |
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25min |
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| Warmongers or Peacemakers: Who Will Be Responsible for Scorching the Earth? Oct 19 / Afterburner with Bill Whittle | |
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10min |
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| Throw The Bums Out Oct 12 / Afterburner with Bill Whittle | |
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9min |
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| A Tale of Two Revolutions: The War of Ideas & the Tragedy of the Unconstrained Vision Sep 10 / Afterburner with Bill Whittle | |
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10min |
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| 2009 Favorite: Bill Maher, Barack Obama and the Truth About American Exceptionalism Aug 31 / Afterburner with Bill Whittle | |
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15min |
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| Reagan Lives: A Voice from the Past On the Threat of Socialized Healthcare Jul 17 / Afterburner with Bill Whittle | |
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7min |
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| Jon Stewart, War Criminals & The True Story of the Atomic Bombs May 7 / Afterburner with Bill Whittle | |
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17min |
Nailed It! I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of the good stuff that is worthy of attention.
You are welcome to browse the list of truly exceptional articles I pinged to lately. Updated on January 13, 2010. on my page.
You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me (and note which PING list you are talking about).
Besides this one, I keep 2 separate PING lists for my favorite authors Victor Davis Hanson and Orson Scott Card.
FreeRepublic discussion of Bill’s essays: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/billwhittle/index
You might like it - PING
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Thanks!
I knew I should have copyrighted “TEApublican” when I used it in a post.
Great job by Whittle.
Amen!
ping
The RINO Medved types will tell you that we must work with the Republican Party. Wrong. We must purge it of incumbents. These guys did nothing to curb spending when in power. Boehner is a corrupt BIG GOVT RINO. Their recent conversion to fiscal responsibility is a fraud. They will say anything to get re-elected and go on with their corruption. Boot them all.
mark
The question is whether or not Scott Brown will kill as many babies as Ted Kennedy or Martha Coakley, both of whom are "pro-choice" like Scott, but who have "personal distaste for abortion and especially for partial birth abortion, also like Scott.
He will. Their KIA count will be 200 times just this year the entire total killed in Iraq since the WOT began. (Osama bin Roevwade)
So, it's a loss. It's a loss for the nation.
And, it's another life taken without due process of law.
But...it's OK....he bares his chest on Cosmo and any politician who likes balanced budgets, and who's also that liberal can't be anything other than an acceptable media darling. And he's got cute daughters with perky breasts.
What could possibly be wrong with that?
God save us.
bttt
LOL, love this talk. I like Peter Schiff’s speech where he says our Social Security FICA taxes was spent on bridges to no-where, failed auto-companies, bank bailouts, welfare(to illegals yet) , new entitlements and in Iraq and it's long gone.
Sorry suckers(taxpayers) , it really wasn't free like they promised!
Before they cut one dime of Social Security or medicare they need to cut retired government benefits including congress.
You have done us all a great service! You should go have a brewskie with Rick Santelli.
The Tea Party Movement is really the conservative movement.
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Yes it is and BTTT
My concern, and I’ve expressed this many times, is that people would decide that Scott Brown is the candidate “model” to be used around the country and this will ultimately destroy the GOP if it happens.
Someone on a thread yesterday was telling me that he wants to get a lot more people just like Scott Brown elected and that is insane! The ONLY thing Brown really promised was that he would vote against ObamaCare, but his vote for RomneyCare indicates that he would be happy to vote for a GOP-sponsored socialized medicine program.
What is this “wide margin” by which he is more conservative than Ted Kennedy or Martha Coakley?
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