Tea Party Protest Not Political Party Rally

No Politicians Should Be on Tea Party Guest List

The majority in America is not a political party's position in Congress or a division along racial, ethnic, or socio-economic lines. The most important majority is this country is the collective people, the citizens of these United States. The political class has forgotten that they represent the majority; they are not ruler over it. Politicians need to stay home next week and listen to the people. No Tea Party guest list should have a single politician's name on it.

Unfortunately the first Tea Party in Fayetteville, NC was a mostly partisan remonstration of political activists who, without the benefit of an ideology having any particular origin of authority, had little unity of effort. Authority perceived from a political party is only as legitimate as the legitimacy of its members.

The political parties in America do not hold enough of the citizenry's trust to fuel a sustained people's movement. When President Bush claimed conservatism on the social front, only to act liberally on fiscal issues and to grow the size of government, the Republican Party lost legitimacy. When President Obama runs on transparency and bipartisanship and then pushes through a stimulus bill that not a single person who voted for it had time to read, the Democratic Party loses legitimacy.

A tax reform movement, like any social movement, will need an ideological statement that appears general and able to address broad issues if there is any hope of attracting the large numbers of adherents necessary to institute change. If Party politics remain divisive enough, the people will never mass and the power will remain comfortably in the hands of those able to focus special interest groups to targeted efforts. Special actions of a political class, not a political party, have eroded the power of an American people to impose its will on government.