Ramblings

There's a certain disconnect I feel from U.S. domestic affairs, now that I've been in Iraq for a while. I still haven't done my taxes (I don't have to do them while I'm in Iraq, and the IRS pays interest on any refund that I'm entitled to, so I'm not going to worry about them until I get back to the U.S.). I left when gasoline prices were ridiculously high, and there was disagreement as to whether there was a recession or not.

So I'm out of touch with ordinary Americans at this time. That's sorta to be expected. As a result, I have had to rely on the internet to fill me in on what these tea party events have been about.

My friend Evan has some thoughts on the tea parties saying that it should really been seen as being against irresponsible government spending rather than being against taxation. He mentions that the April 15 date is inconvenient for pushing this view, since April 15 has an obvious relationship to taxation. While I agree that this is a tactical error, I don't really see a way this particular event could have been organized around being primarily against spending.

For one, the "tea party" theme is affiliated with a rather significant event in American history that WAS about the taxation. Of course, the original tea parties also involved trespass and vandalism - and I'm not sure what kind of message for liberty it sent, what with all the "it's not sufficient to boycott the tea we need to make sure it isn't sold to ANYONE." The recovering libertarian in me frowns upon this elimination of consumer choice. Anyway, I had always figured that "No taxation without representation" was more a slogan for less taxation rather than for more representation.

Along the same lines of what Evan said, though - the current conservative movement is not exactly about small government. The idea of $3 trillion for Iraq doesn't faze most conservatives, but a quarter of that being spent at home riles them up. And then there's the stimulus "compromise" from a few months back where the centrists manage to increase the stimulus amount in the name of fiscal discipline, and the media let them get away with it. So it's correct to say that neither party stands for actually cutting the budget, reducing the deficit, or repaying some of that immense debt held by China.

All this comes down to, though, is that organized protest is not an effective tactic for political change. The only times I can think of where mass protests effected political change is where nonviolent resistance meets brutal injustice in a society where the powerful have a sense of morals.

If anything, ordinary partisans should avoid these media spectacles - ordinary people lend credibility to the protests, where the crazies will hog all the attention. This goes for the right and the left.