To which Alice replied, "I've had nothing yet, so I can't take more."
An obviously proud member of the local Tea Party recently wrote, offended at my characterization of the group as "a pageant of village idiots."
The writer, anonymous of course, accused me of "making an uninformed slur."
Now I take umbrage at such a suggestion, for I am very careful to make only informed slurs.
But I was truly taken by the writer's assertion, while clearly possessed of great faith, that, henceforth, they would only cast their precious vote for candidates who "will uphold the US constitution."
I am reminded of the late great political movement that marginalized the Republican Party, the religious right, with political illusions of biblical proportion. Which illusions spawned the neo-cons and their foreign policy rooted in Revelations and some obscure prophecy of the Rapture.
Well, I suppose substituting the Constitution for the bible is a step in the right direction. But in response to my critics recommendation I "check my facts", I can only suggest that they and their fellow travelers check reality.
The first step in such a reality check might be to consider history. While the Tea Partiers may think the constitution is a simple read, and that Dick Armey and Sarah Palin are some sort of oracles, whose reading of the constitutional tea leaves is sacrosanct, in fact, the document was only produced after years of wrangling.
In the end the outlook was adopted by people on all sides that this was to be a living document, to be amended, and to be interpreted by a court of men above politics. Crafting the document was so arduous that it took several years more to agree on the Bill of Rights, the meaning of which still largely eludes us.
So whence comes this simplistic notion that we return to a better time, and re-commit ourselves to the beliefs of the founders. Which founders would that be? Hamilton? Jefferson and Madison? John Adams? Franklin? These fellows were hardly in agreement. Like today, opinion was all over the board.
They were however united in the realization that this new nation required a national government. And they were similarly realistic that government needed to collect taxes in some form to preserve the union and pay its debts.
Given their recent experience fighting the British, the Continental Congress was fresh in their minds; as was the memory of Washington's Continental Army.
And the most fractious dispute in Philadelphia was the issue of a central bank. No, it was not about taxation, or even taxation without representation. It was about who would print the money! Private interests or the national government.
And in this, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin prevailed over Hamilton and his Whigs. The creation and management of the currency would be reserved to Congress. At the heart of the struggle, starting with the drafting of the constitution and continuing now for some two centuries, has been a philosophical disagreement on the supremacy of government over private interests in the economy of the country.
Unfortuneately, we currently have lost control of this most vital tool to private interests who enjoy largely unregulated sway over the economic lives of Americans.
So this is why I find the call by these ingenues to check the power of our national government to so beg the historical question. There never was much of a consensus, isn't now, and will never be.
The best that can be said of the Tea Party is their many voices, and conflicting positions, has produced an incoherent dissonance.
Like so many blind men and the elephant, they fumble around in the dark unaware of their lack of agreement. And their cohesion around some notion of constitutionalism is a fantasy.
How can these tea partiers miss the Alice in Wonderland illogic of their opposition to attempts, any, even trivial, to reform a health care system that is bleeding them like medieval medical charlatans?
And what a deal it is for the beneficiaries of the status quo! The way they play our two noble political parties off against each other is splendidly Machiavellian. Heads I win; tails you lose.
If the Democrats feeble effort stands, the insurers rake it in from 35 million more victims and reach into tax payers pockets to subsidize those too poor to bleed in their own right. If the Republicans, and their foot soldiers in the Tea Party prevail, it’s business as usual; no change.
I can’t wait to see them in the streets defending the fat cats from reform of the financial system. Wall Street will be laughing up their sleeves, grinning like so many Cheshire cats.
And as for the illusion they will cast a vote for the defenders of the constitution; the fact is their choice will be between two evils the monied interests present them. Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum.
The unfortunate fact is the Tea Party movement, or whatever it is, is really a distraction from real reform of our political institutions, frustrates the opportunity to seize our economy back from the corporatocrcy, and delays a return of governance to the people.
We can only hope that some day enough of them will wander out of the fog and realize that these are very old issues, fights that have been fought by great people in the past, and that real reform requires more reason and less faith.
In the end, regards the Tea Party as a political movement, I will agree with Alice (you remember Alice?), "If it had grown up, it would have made a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think."
