While certain aspects of the right-wing political yowling in this country have made perfect sense to me, other aspects didn't--until I realized something, that is. What I realized is that social studies, or civics [as opposed to straight "history"--Ed.] education seems to have disappeared from our educational system.
When the Tea Partiers, for example, yammer about their rights and freedoms being taken away by an oppressive government, and when idiots like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich pontificate about the current administration being "the most radical" secular, socialist government in US history, and people take them seriously, what other conclusion can be drawn?
The Tea Partiers have taken the name for their movement in honor of the Boston Tea Party, which I hope even people with virtually no knowledge of American history recognize was a protest against a British imperial tax on tea imposed upon its then-colonies in North America. Fair enough. Empires, almost by definition, are despotic and largely opposed to the will of their subjects. But the Tea Partiers in fact are more like the governments in southern states before and during the US Civil War
The distinction the Tea Partiers have failed to recognize or even acknowledge is that the British government imposed its taxes on its American colonies without the colonials [more precisely, the colonials' representatives--Ed.] being able to vote on the imposition of those taxes in Parliament. The secessionists, on the other hand, were (as they well knew) a minority population in the country as a whole. They HAD representation in the national government. They HAD legal recourse and access to get their opinions known and their voices heard. They HAD a place within that very government they railed against. They just didn't like being on the losing end of the votes.
I remember social studies in junior high and high school. One of its most fundamental teachings was that when people come together to form a government and participate in an attempt to form "a more perfect Union," their obligation under that social contract or social compact is that everyone agrees to accept, peacefully, the outcomes of the votes that go against them, and that their recourse is to work within the system to win enough votes to change the outcome in the future--and unless and until they regain that majority, that they abide by the results they do not like, and peacefully comply with the law. WE all ARE the government. It is not some alien thing being imposed upon us by some distant, evil, nefarious "them" which wants to destroy us and take away "our freedom."
This teaching seems largely to have been lost on members of the Tea Parties and the GOP toadies who further incite them. This teaching is so basic, so fundamental to what being a responsible American citizen is all about, that its failing to have taken hold in the minds and hearts of the Tea Partiers mystifies me. I conclude, therefore, that this teaching is no longer offered in our school systems, and I for one mourn its passing. In the long run, it means the end of what the American dream really constitutes.
And I know that rhetoric often gets heated in the course of the discussion. But I'm not talking about heated rhetoric. I'm talking about people threatening to "take back" what they feel has been "taken away" from them by force of arms or even revolution. I'd have said "or secession," given the proclivity of numbskulls like Texas Governor Rick Perry to resort to that language, but anyone who knows the outcome of the US Civil War should know that secession as an idea is dead. The Confederacy lost. Get over it, already.
What scares me at this point is the increasingly violent stridency with which these allegedly disenfranchised people are pushing their agenda. America, it seems, is for everyone--only so long as everyone is just exactly like them [which is the unstated but essential linchpin of their equation--Ed.]. And they are willing to say they'll shoot people who disagree. Watch very carefully all the pro-gun, pro-Tea Party rallies that have been scheduled to take place near Washington, D.C., on April 19th. The tone of our political discourse is changing in some fundamental--and I use that term deliberately--way. Threats of violence should not be a part of everyday politics, but of late, such threats have become all too common. Two quick examples: I remember a sign at one of the Tea Party rallies. It said "We left our guns at home. This time." Second, a recent political cartoon in the Washington Post may be about to come more literally true than anyone with even half a brain should want. The cartoon depicts the exterior of the US Supreme Court building, with bullets whizzing everywhere all around it, and a speech balloon coming from inside the building [probably from Justice Scalia--Ed.] saying in a self-satisfied tone, "Ah, a robust Second Amendment in action!"
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
4 comments:
You write: "The distinction the Tea Partiers have failed to recognize or even acknowledge is that the British government imposed its taxes on its American colonies without the colonials... being able to vote on the imposition of those taxes."
I've talked to Tea Partiers about this, and they acknowledge that yes, they are technically represented. But, they claim, the politicians--whether Republican or Democrat--break their promises so often that they are not effectively representing the people.
Now, I've tried to explain that the reason politicians break their promises to them is that their demands of lower taxes and balanced budgets are not, as such, possible.
The results are not encouraging.
Which is exactly why I say we need to rejuvenate basic education especially in civics or social studies, call it what you will, in this country. The answer NEVER is to threaten violence.
And I hate to say this, but I really do believe, based on conversations with Tea Partiers that I've had, that most of them at heart cannot stand the fact that the president is black.
If you look at Obama's policies on their merits, in many ways he is to the right of where Nixon was in the early 70s, and indeed are full of proposals that Reagan endorsed in the 80s. So it cannot be that they feel they are not truly being represented. Their resentment springs from something else.
The Tea Party seems to be composed of the following groups:
1.Libertarians
2.Closet Republicans
3.Racists
4.People who know little about politics or civics, but have been cynically whipped into a frenzy by conspiracy-theory peddling news outlets.
I think that group 4 has by far the most people in the movement. Group 2 is trying to win back power. Group 3 is using it as an excuse. Group 1 is allowing their ideas to be hijacked to serve other powers, and doesn't seem to realize it yet.
I can't quarrel with that evaluation. In some ways, I have great sympathy for the stands of Libertarians on certain issues. The problem I have with Libertarianism in general is a matter of practicality.
In this day and age, with every entity (real or artificial) in the world being intertwined, it is simply folly to think that the correct course is to go it alone. It is literally impossible for any single individual to watch out for, let alone test for or otherwise evaluate, every single possible threat to our existence and our safety.
"To provide for the common defense" means more than simply military might in this day and age; it means ensuring safe and wholesome goods and foods and medicines and who knows what else. We no longer inhabit a world wherein everything we have and/or consume comes from people we know, and thus can trust. We need agents to represent our best interests. And that means government. And government costs money. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was 100% correct when he observed that "taxes are the price we pay for civilization." And that's what the Libertarians deny, the Tea Partiers oppose, and the Republicans and racists want us to forget, so that they can regain the upper hand in our polity.
As much as many Libertarians, Republicans, and Tea Partiers and racists would like to believe it, we are not living in the 17th century, and there's no going back. They can dislike it all they want--heck, I dislike specific aspects of modern technology--but to threaten violence to stop the future from coming is as futile as the Grinch's efforts to stop Christmas.
I just wish those whose incendiary proclivities are ratcheting up the possibilities of violence would stop. The good of the country vastly outweighs any short-term perceived partisan advantage to be gained. And so I'm back to my premise. We need to restore sound education in civics in our elementary, junior high, and high schools . . . before it's too late and America becomes as violently Balkanized as religious fundamentalists (of whatever flavor of faith) are trying to make the rest of thw world.
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