Can I Join the Party If I Don't Drink Tea?

Tea Party. Visions of barrels of English tea floating and staining Boston Harbor a nice shade of brown dance through my head.

But this has nothing to do with the drink so much as the sentiment. Taxation without representation has always been a hotbutton issue in our nation's history. Today the sentiment is echoed as we see the continued parade of tax bills and fines levied without the consent of the governed for the benefit and welfare of those who are both deserving and undeserving.

The line in the sand has been drawn and redrawn so many times that the issue is becoming a 'revolutionary' idea. Thomas Jefferson, one of the old time Tea Partiers, said it best: "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty."

The Tea Party movement is, in part, a response to a government that has become so full of its own self-important divine right to tell us what to do, that someone needs to remind them all of the roots from which they have sprung. We are not, any of us, too many generations removed from those righteous American patriots who were willing to nourish the tree of freedom with the blood of kings and tyrants who would be willing to subject us to unjust treatment for their own benefit.

The current version of the tea party uses tea bags to make a point once in a while, but the sentiment is less "Lipton tea with a sprig of mint" and more "bag the administration and all others who obstruct freedom in the name of oppression and taxation" which isn't sustainable.

Today,  I was reading the online news trying to glean something sensible from the offerings of the media outlets that seem to be more interested in liberal policy than in real news. I ran across an article which certainly caught my attention.

The Tea Party movement, which to this point is just that - a movement, is now under fire from those who support Obama simply because they are the same race. Those who are also self-identified as African-American that have the audacity to join with the Tea Party are being treated callously and shamefully by those who claim to support freedom and choice.

Apparently, if you are African-American, you are NOT allowed to make your own choices. You are to walk lock-step with your president because he is also African-American. It has nothing to do with policy anymore, rather, it's all about 'supporting a brother'.

Talk about racial motivation!

If you don't support his policy stand, you are a racist. If you are African-American and don't support his policies, you are, to quote the article, "Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms" undeserving of respect because you don't fall into blind obedience based solely upon race.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/06/black-tea-party-activists-called-traitors/

Being called a traitor or a Benedict Arnold is a shameful stripe with which to be painted. It means that you have turned your back on your core beliefs and sacrificed all that you hold dear to achieve fame within the other camp. To do so actively means that you are not truly welcome on either side of the aisle because the folks whom you betrayed for your own ends are certainly not going to trust you anymore, and those to whom you turned traitor for don't have any respect for you now that they know you can be bought.

But living up to the core beliefs you have even though they stand in opposition to all who are in power isn't being a traitor. It's being an American. We fought a bloody, painful and harsh war to have the right to say "I don't share your views!".

Years later, we fought another war for the same reasons. We called it 'civil', however, it was anything but civil. Brother fought against brother to protect what they believed in. We called it 'states rights'.

Now, we are saying if you don't support your 'brother', then you are a traitor.

Not true.

We are all God's children, which makes every person in the Beltway my family under God. But some of those family members spend a lot of time, money and breath espousing ideas that I can't get behind and which I most certainly do not support.

That doesn't make me a racist any more than it makes African-Americans who don't like certain policies racists. It makes us consciencious objectors to policies that don't represent our views, our lifestyle and our choices. It makes us participants in our republic and joint heirs in the democratic process that we fought to create. It makes us actively engaged in choosing what we believe to be best for us as individuals, for our family and their future and for our nation as we see fit.

The most troubling aspect of this idea that we don't have the right to protest is that in every nation in the world which seeks to subject its citizenry to wholesale abuse of power and corruption, the first right to go is the right to protest governmental actions whether verbally or through visible, organized rally.

When the right to say "NO" is removed, we have forgotten that our nation was founded solely on the belief that WE THE PEOPLE have the right to seek a redress of wrongs, even if that wrong is advocated by a king.

Our current political structure isn't based on the divine right of kings. But I believe that there are those in the Beltway and some who'd like to be in the Beltway who seek exactly that... a right to tell us they are divinely appointed to tell us what to do, how to do it, and how to shut up in case we may feel differently.

In the Book of Mormon, we are given the sad tale of woe pronounced upon an entire nation when they allowed 'kingmen' to take over and make decisions that affected the lives of the whole.

No different than asking a person to openly state for whom they are voting, these kingmen actively sought out any and all opposition to their plans and removed them from society through prison and death.

Are we heading in that direction? I'm certain we are.

We have a nation in crisis. Those people elected to office have got the mindset that WE THE PEOPLE are incapable of doing, thinking and deciding for ourselves what is best. They have determined that only those 'intellectuals' in the Beltway can possibly acertain what is the correct course for our form of government and our way of life.

I want to join the Tea Party. Although I don't drink tea, I certainly have imbibed the message that was given to the heads of state in Boston Harbor all those years ago. Then and now, we have the sacred responsiblity of taking back our freedom to choose from the hands of powerbrokers who don't have our interests at heart at all.

I want to stand up and be counted and I want to pledge my life and my sacred honor to support and defend those principles which made our nation great.

I believe those emotions have more to do with the spirit of God that is resident in every living soul that comes to this earth than in a beverage representative of a greater purpose.

We have the right, the power and the obligation to stamp out tyranny wherever it exists even if the results of doing so will be personally uncomfortable.

I don't believe the men and women in the first Revolution felt that they were especially protected from hardships that resulted from choosing to be a Patriot rather than a Tory. In fact, many deliberately embraced those hardships and taught their offspring from the words of the Declaration of Independence that WE THE PEOPLE have rights and privileges granted to us by God Almighty.

Those same rights are still here. And we cannot allow the voices of dissent to tell us what we can believe and what we are allowed to do when it conflicts with the will of the powerful few.

Power doesn't mean right.

And being in office doesn't make someone infallible or render them incapable of recognizing that they have made a stupid decision.

Taxation without representation is still a valid argument for change in our society.

King George made that discovery when he and the British Parliament decided to make a few pounds sterling on the backs of the colonists.

But colonists made angry turned Boston Harbor into the world's largest teapot. Believe me when I tell you that King George got a bellyfull of a drink he didn't expect or want.

When the last shot was fired and the celebrations began, we had a new nation. To borrow the words of Abraham Lincoln, it was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal.

It's past time to restore equality to our national government. It's time for term limits for ALL government office. It's time to let the Patriot in us shine. Time to show the people in the Beltway that we still humbly remember and are thankful for our roots in freedom. And, it is past time to tell them that they aren't in charge any more - WE THE PEOPLE are!

Sanity isn't measured in positions of elected or appointed power, but rather in actions that help everyone without crippling the lives of the few to accomplish them. The Preamble to the Constitution states:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

No powers are granted to the government nor are any powers given outside of what WE THE PEOPLE grant unto our elected representatives. We allowed them to forget that principle by worrying more about what would happen if we threw them out of office instead of the harm they cause by staying IN office.

The Tea Party movement is a small grassroots effort to create change.

Though some say it lacks power to do any 'real damage', I hastily remind them that a grassroots effort of just a few colonists created enough impetus for change that an entire nation was born from the ashes of a colony burned by unjust and tyrannical edicts from those far removed from the circumstances of the daily life of its citizenry.

It happened once before... and I am certain that it can happen again.

I believe it's time that the Tea Party movement becomes more than just a movement and instead becomes a real alternative to the two-party system that pits us as Republicans and Democrats in an ideological warfare. Instead, we need a party that reminds us that, first and foremost, WE THE PEOPLE ARE AMERICANS! We can rally around the flag, remember the constitutional principles by which we are goverened and set aside differences to "promote the common welfare" once again.

This is about far more than just seeking change. We are seeking a change that will bring back the strength and unity we saw for a short time after 9-11. We are seeking a change that will unite us under God as a nation that believes our best days are still AHEAD of us, not in dusty textbooks of the past. And we need a change that humbly acknowleges the greatness of our nation's history and the glory of our blessings that are provided by God.

No other nation in the world can claim the blessings given to America.

The only way they get them is when we willingly give them away through our own inaction and lack of concern and care for our birthright.

It is high time we stopped eating the pottage of complacency and started seeking for and demanding the birthright inheritance of a child of the Revolution.

Naked Air

Forget all that you ever thought you knew about the airline industry. They have jumped the shark and gone back for seconds. A brilliant move in some board room somewhere in our vast nation of think tank mentalities has produced what has to be the most dumbass policy of all time.

Flyers will now have to PAY for carry-on luggage.

That's right happy campers... your carry on will now cost you on Spirit Airlines. It is a regional airliner with a limited service, but the stupidity they have just enacted will most certainly ripple its way through the fetid pond of greedy commerce that already charges passengers for checked luggage.

The entire rest of the shark infested pool of airliners are watching the proceeding to see if they, too, can follow suit and start charging for the use of those pesky and annoying overhead bins. Afterall, they inconvenience so many people who have to wait while some poor drone collects their bag and besides, the wait can totally prevent sprinters from setting Olympic qualifying times while leaving a flight.

Since airlines started charging for checked bags several years ago and lemming-like, we all paid for the privilege of carrying our undies with us on a flight, I guess they assume the gravy train is good for another round with this latest stunt.

Considering all that we are subjected to with new restrictions and searches with body scanners that are going online everywhere, is there to be no end to the continued layers of hoops we are expected to obediently jump through? I have to ask myself if these people have been breathing or drinking something the rest of us aren't.

So, in the interest of idiocy, why not just get rid of the entire parade and spectacle of baggage hell once and for all? Hmmmm. I wonder how that might play out?

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Naked Air, with non-stop service to no place you'd ever want to travel anyway and no-frills flying on a skimpy, shoestring budget. First class passengers will please fasten your velcro straps on your plastic lawn chair and prepare for takeoff."

"For those of you in our economy section, in-floor handles have been provided for your convenience in lieu of chairs or seatbelts as we take off. Those of you who are taking advantage of our student tickets who are traveling in the area formerly designated as cargo are free to simply float about as our pilot for this flight performs a series of perabolas for your entertainment."

"If this is your first flight with Naked Air, rest assured that truly we care about your flight experience. Those who mailed packages of your clothing and toiletry items to their arrival destination will be pleased to know that the USPS has guaranteed package delivery in 3 to 5 working days from the time of shipement under their newly structured work week. For our new passengers who only mailed their items today before flight time, please do not concern yourself with how you appear to the crew or other passengers who are frequent fliers of Naked Air in your embarrassed nudity." 

"Whatever you have, we've already seen and if we see something new, we won't know what it is anyway, so relax."

"Due to sanitary and disease policies of Naked Air, all onboard equipment is upholstery free and can be santized with a pressure washer and disinfectant between flights. We are totally compliant with current CDC policy regarding the prevention of transmission of contagious diseases."

"Should there be an emergency requiring an unexpected landing at an airport not on our route plans, Naked Air has made arrangements for every contingency and has aboard a selection of handiwipe smocks for any unforseen public appearance. These will only be distributed in case of dire emergency. Also, due to CDC policy, there are no airline blankets due to risk of cross contamination, so we hope no one has thyroid issues and trouble regulating their body temperature."

"Again, we thank you for choosing Naked Air to be your carrier and hope you will enjoy the spacious overhead room and the freedom you feel as you fly with the knowlege that you have saved hundreds of dollars without the cumbersome and expensive additional fees charged by other airlines to carry silly baggage."

I hope it doesn't come to that.

But on the off chance that it does, be prepared to give advance notice of every event and expect it to take a week to go somewhere in the US by car in my clothing and with my luggage...