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[quote="Guest"][quote="Guest"]Here' is what I would like to see from a “current” (many people were interested in the movement before it was so clearly taken over by extremists) Tea Party supporter who claims not to be about religious extremism and to truly be against big government and for truly smaller spending.

- Admit that both national parties, including the Republicans, are about big government and high spending and that, as a point of fact, a majority of our current national debt was created during Republican administrations.  Acknowledge the facts that our national debt started to skyrocket during the Reagan administration and that it is a matter of public record that when Democrats at the time protested the mushrooming debt, Reagan and key members of his economic team publically stated that “debt is good for the economy.”  Acknowledge the fact that while the Democrats have correctly been portrayed as covering government expenses with taxes that Republicans have simply transferred the burden to the national debt, not actually reducing and in fact increasing overall spending.

- Accordingly indicate that you are equally opposed to re-electing Republican incumbents to office and Democrats since, with only a few exceptions, almost every incumbent in national office has supported entitlements and other measures that assert federal government control over our lives.  For example, banning stem cell research is a form of big government.  If you are for small government and it has no religious base to it, you would agree that, regardless of your personal views, regulating stem cell research is not the purview of the federal government.  This is but one example.  If the Tea Party wants to credibly be about small government then it should not be a branch of the Republican Party with virtually every candidate running as a Republican.  This completely undermines its credibility since the Republicans have no history of small government or spending reductions when actually in power.  At least Bill Clinton actually did reduce spending, the only modern president to do so, which is not to say the Democrat party as a whole has any more credibility on the issue than Republicans.  Neither do.

- Disavow the religious extremists among the Tea Party candidates and public figures, such as Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell.  Similarly, disavow any social and non-economic issues being part of the Tea Party platform.  Gun control, illegal immigration, abortion, religion in schools, anti-Muslim baiting should have nothing to do with the party.  You can’t control what the media says but you can go on the record right here as being against all those things as part of the platform.  That’s not to say you are taking a personal stand for or against them, just that you agree they have nothing to do with a party that supposedly should be about collecting everyone who is for small government.

- Go on the record with what Tea Party candidates should do to reduce spending, in detail.  Would they truly be for ending entitlements, or just those they don’t like?  So far virtually no Republican or Democrat has supported this.  And it is impossible to have a credible discussion about major cost reduction without taking a stand on social security which is the 800-pound gorilla of our federal budget, dwarfing even defense spending.  Don’t be coy.  Let’s get it on the record.  Would you touch social security?  The millions of baby boomer the tea party is courting deserve to hear this.  To say you wouldn’t is to admit there would be no meaningful effort to reduce national spending.  Which combined with tax cuts would mean, dare we say it, more debt.

The reality is that associating the Tea Party with extremism is not a media invention.  It’s not the media that writes the speeches for the conventions or invites people like Sarah Palin to headline them.  If the party really wasn’t about extremism, why even invite someone like Palin to “Tea Party” events, let alone have candidates welcome her endorsements?

The other reality is that there already is a long-standing party that is about small government.  It’s called the Libertarian party.  It’s been around for a long time.  The problems are that it’s never gotten any mass traction and it takes the idea of small government seriously, supporting not just less spending but less government influence, regulation and laws in general.  Which makes it abhorrent to the real bases that the Tea Party is feeding off of who actually want government to restrict people’s lives in various ways and to assure that those social security checks keep rolling.  As a statistical fact a vast majority of those who call themselves tea Party supporters (which is not hard since it’s also true of a majority of US citizens in general) are currently beneficiaries of government aid in some way.  Even before “ObamaCare” 50% of us were already benefitting from government healthcare, including many Tea Party supporters.  Are all those supporters willing to give up their benefits when they throw ObamaCare out, or is it all about a new social-economic version of NIMBY – the government benefits I get are good and appropriate, just none of the rest?  A true Libertarian would say cut it all, I will take personal responsibility for my finances, my health care, my retirement, etc.  I don’t care what religion someone else belongs to our how they live their life or where they build their houses of worship.  None of my business.  Government should build and maintain our roads, provide for a basic defense (as opposed to exist to support the military industrial complex that even General and President Eisenhower warned us not to support) and public safety, lock up people who steal from or hurt other people and maybe, just maybe, help educate our kids.  Otherwise stay out of everything else.  That is small government.

I would personally support lower taxes and smaller government spending.  But I wouldn’t support a BS version that doesn’t touch social security or medicare and that comes with the baggage of reactionary social extremism.[/quote]

Welcome to the Social Darwinism Party of Cranbury!!!

http://cranburyconservative.blogtownhall.com/2009/04/15/tax_day_tea_party_2009_at_the_cranbury_inn.thtml[/quote]

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