Brown: TEA time for pols

“Blow s**t up in the name of patriotism,” one friend text messaged me on the Fourth of July. That seemed like a perfect way to spend our country’s 233rd birthday.

But some other people had a better idea, drawing allusions to a certain insurrection at Boston Harbor more than 200 years ago.

Across the country, about 600 Taxed Enough Already (TEA — get it?) parties took place to protest the federal deficit and various state tax-increase proposals, including a rally in Oakland’s Schenley Park that drew upward of 1,000 protesters, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Organized in part by the FreedomWorks group after the tax deadline in April, demonstrators held the first of these national TEA parties to protest the additional stimulus bills under the Obama administration.

Liberal politicians soon cried foul. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the rallies as “AstroTurf” initiatives, as she thought a conservative protest obviously couldn’t be anything more than a facade for the angered and affluent to bellyache against Democrats en masse.

For years, left-leaning organizations like MoveOn.org have staged rallies and protests to lobby political representatives. Yet, when a conservative group came along with enough oomph to rally people fed up with the Democrat-controlled government, many were skeptical as to whether it could last.

Hopefully, Saturday proved it could.

For some reason, Pelosi and other Democratic members of Congress think those in favor of little taxation and less government involvement must be wealthy, conservative bourgeoisie.

After the April rallies, Pelosi said the protests stemmed from “those who liked the status quo under George [W.] Bush, the failed economic policies that got us where we got today.”

Rather than acknowledging that people of all walks of life were upset, Pelosi continued to blame Bush instead of addressing people’s concerns.

Those TEA partygoers have every right to be concerned.

Between the government’s ownership of private sector businesses and the proposals to socialize matters of personal choice such as the health care industry, Washington lawmakers have begun expanding federal power further than ever.

Bush didn’t do much to help mitigate the increasing size of government, but he didn’t encroach upon private industry, with the exception of bailouts in the last months of his lame-duck presidency to keep the sinking economy afloat and salvage what little legacy he had intact.

Bush and other extremists, such as Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh, have become figureheads of a bygone neo-conservative movement — a movement formed in favor of antiquated Reagan policies and “compassionate conservatism” instead of sound reason. They’ve all become scapegoats for Democratic politicians to tarnish what it means to be a true conservative.

In the same way Hollywood celebrities aren’t a fair representation of real people, much of the Washington ilk isn’t representative of the American people. It’s a shame that the 300 million U.S. residents are generally defined by two rather like-minded ideologies anymore.

Both Republicans and Democrats run on platforms of civil interference, and both have recently helped create greater roles for themselves in what should be matters defined by private citizens — whether it’s how to run one’s family or checkbook.

A true conservative presence hasn’t existed in a predominant role since Gerald Ford’s tenure. While President Barack Obama hands out stimulus money to anyone with a pulse, Ford believed the key to fixing the recession he faced was through better personal management.

When the mayor of New York, with his city facing bankruptcy, asked for a federal bailout in 1975, Ford scoffed at the idea.

“Responsibility for New York City’s financial problems is being left on the front doorstep of the federal government — unwanted and abandoned by its real parents,” Ford said.

Ford showed courage that most of today’s politicians don’t have. The United States was established on the principles of personal accountability and self-rule, and Ford stuck by them.

As the United States strays from this philosophy, patriots emerge to extend their First Amendment rights — notably “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

And those people seem to be increasing in numbers and strength.

While naysayers keep disregarding these protests as a fad, I hope the protests compound into a grass-roots resurgence of a real conservative party, as the Republicans are too disheveled both ideologically and structurally within their ranks.

In 1776, dissidents from the large and overbearing Britain spurred the colonies to cast themselves from the motherland. People fought for a philosophy that they could govern their lives better than any government could.

They were right.

Now, as government becomes meddling and cumbersome, it’s about time to go back to basics. What better time is there to start than our nation’s birthday with a little tea party?

E-mail Jacob at jeb110@pitt.edu.