This is billed as “the Tea Party” platform, but it should have been the Republican party platform all along. There is NOTHING in here that goes against basic Conservative principles articulated by Reagan (ok, maybe the audit the fed thing, but come on, look at the fed right now, it’s a nightmare). Also, I think the point about Congress voting themselves a raise was taken care of by the 27th Amendment, and when combined with the term limits clause becomes even less germane since there will be turnover of 1/6 of Congress every two years (at a minimum).
Very true. I've been arguing for over a year now that the Tea Parties, in and of themselves, are nothing new. They are just the reawakening of latent conservative activism that went dormant after 2000 once Bush and his GOP COngress started proving to be disappointments.
This, in turn, highlights a difference between conservatives and Leftists - one in which conservatives come out poorly. When the Left is unhappy about something, they get loud and mobilise for action. When we're unhappy about stuff, we tend to grumble and grouse and take our ball and go home, until it reaches a point where things are so bad that we're finally prodded to action.
Here's a question - why did we conservatives let the GOP get so rotten as it did? Why weren't we out hunting RINOs in 2002, after the prescription drug plan fiasco and all the other big government junk Bush did before 9-11? Why weren't we on safari back then? why did we just sit and grouse and blame the GOP when in reality, the fault was our own for not doing anything, so that the RINOs got encouraged to keep it up, and got entrenched?