What we’re up against

I just wanted to share a bit of my conversation with my cousin Rick yesterday:

Rick: The TEA Party will take over the Republican party, which has become a socialist party.

playnotwork: Hate to break it to you; you can't legislate through refusal to compromise.

R: Since when is standing up for the Constitution a compromise?

P: There is this ill-conceived notion with the Tea Party that they are the only ones capable of running the Country and it's crap, and completely in the face of everything the Founding Fathers stood for. Last time I checked, a democracy was set up so that the people voted and the MAJORITY ruled. Since the Tea Party has come to “power”, no one has ruled…

R: The less legislation, the better off for America. Besides, Obama is ruling by fiat through his unprecedented use of Executive Orders.

P: [Obama] has had to…Congress has been made completely inept since they decided that their time would be better spent re-litigating (over and over ad nauseum) legislation which has already been made law, instead of actually DOING something.

R: One man's ineptness is another man's perfection. What is this reliance on Congress to do something? Why [is it that] you think that conservatives are hell-bent on dissolving the system? Our rallying cry is to preserve the Constitution and it's meaning: the right to pursue Liberty, Happiness and Prosperty with malice towards none. Period. I maintain that your faction is committed to equal outcomes for all even if that means restricting liberties for some.

Rick then went on to tell me why it was a good thing that the House rejected the Senate-passed “Middle Class Tax Cut Act” (which extended cuts for everyone under $200K), and why we need to further cut taxes on the wealthy, because they pay too much and the poor don't pay enough. But I highlight this conversation, because this is what we're up against. Rick, for all intents and purposes, is an intelligent man. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Long Beach State in California, and was previously an English teacher. However, he has got himself convinced that Obama is a socialist, poor people are only out to steal from the rich, and Reagan was the greatest President this Country has ever seen. He believes that his views are righteous, and that the Tea Party will prevail, because they are right.

And he's not alone. This morning on Morning Joe, Sen. Coburn (R-OK) “scolded” the panel's conception of the Tea Party, saying “I don't think you all get it”. He continued “The tea party is every person in America who is really fed up with Washington and recognizes the way we got there was abandoning the core principles of our country, but also abandoning the Constitution”.

Wait…what?

What “core principles” are you talking about Senator? If by “core principles” you mean of the Biblical persuasion (anti-choice, the “biblical” definition of marriage, wife-stoning) then yes, you are correct…we as a Country have abandoned those “core principles”. If however, you mean the actual amendments, and what they represent (I'm looking specifically at the first, fourth, and ninth amendments), then it is YOU that has abandoned the “core principles”.

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We are at a precipice of history, where half of the Country looks forward and is determining the best way to scale the monolith, while the other half looks back and yearns for a history that was never there. In my opinion, we aren't always right, and we won't always know the way; but we are willing to work together to meet our goals…and that is something that our friends in the opposition steadfastly refuse to do. They meet challenges with the confidence of their righteousness, the rest of the Country be damned. We'll never change them, but we can beat them. They won't stop until they've won, and the rest of us will pay the price. Instead, we need to cure ignorance with knowledge. We need to discipline greed with the need for humanity. We must fight the hate with love.

Now more than ever, we must vote.

If you aren't registered, go do it.

If you don't have an ID, go get one.

They will try and keep you from using your voice. Don't let them.

And don't complain about the outcome if you refuse to participate.