“There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing.”
Henry David Thoreau
In the summer of 1776, when our Founders committed treason against England and King George, they righteously justified their actions by citing the moral purpose of government: To secure our rights. While we have expanded immensely the scope and purpose of government over the past 238 years, the only moral purpose of government remains the same.
If I were to point to the most important achievement of the Tea Party movement, it would be the success in exposing the damage that our government has done to the ends for which it was created. The US government has lost its legitimacy as the protector of individual rights.
A Rasmussen Poll released on Friday found:
- 54% of Americans think that their government is a threat to individual liberty, rather than a protector
- 67% believe that the government is a special interest group that looks out for its own interests rather than those of citizens
These are startling numbers
After 5 years, a majority of the American public have sided with the Tea Party on its primary message. To say that our government is a threat to our rights would be an understatement. It has destroyed those rights.
Last week’s standoff at the Bundy Ranch wasn’t only about cattle and land, it was about a militarized police force threatening private citizens.
The NSA spying story wasn’t about national security. It was about a government that treats its citizens as suspects.
The ACA is not a law that guarantees us health care. It codifies the denial of an individual’s free choice.
The stimulus and bailouts that sparked our movement were not just more government waste and corruption.
They were acts all of aggression against our right to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
When the Tea Party movement started five years ago, we knew we needed to get the American people on our side first. It took five years, and we have suffered defeats, but we can take heart at the new attitude of the American people. Their eyes are open to the evil of big government. This is a major victory for our cause. Now, let’s hold onto this victory and destroy the ideology that sets the state above the individual.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The Declaration of Independence
