Oh Rochester

An overlooked item in last week’s news is that the tea party, by setting up offices in a state, has become the Tea Party. Now we know to capitalize those two letters. Punctuation aside, I consider April 15, 2009 the real birth of the movement. That was when a bunch of people staged a nationwide protest over taxes due that day. These taxes were, in a way not yet specified, more objectionable than taxes they’d paid at the same rate the previous year when Bush was president.

The organization took its name from Boston Tea Party, a colonist protest against a British tax on tea. The original event required strapping men to throw heavy barrels of tea into Boston Harbor at the risk of being killed by the British. This defiant spirit is being renewed by little old ladies with tea bags tied to their bonnets. Could the original tea baggers have had a Woman’s Auxiliary? 

I can’t begin to describe these people. Ok I can at least begin. My guess is a sizeable portion consists of inveterate Republicans who don’t like losing the presidency and are still fighting the War of 2008. Many of them particularly dislike losing it to someone like him. I’m not sure what they’re for, but one thing they’re all against is government. When one considers that many of them are against legalized abortion, and consequently for government enforcement of its prohibition, the situation gets a bit fuzzy. As I said I can only begin to describe them.

The time has come when they have become less a subject of humor than a source for concern. Advocates from extreme ends of the political spectrum are a legitimate part of democracy. But there are some limits to the extremes which they can be advocate. The prescribing of “Second Amendment remedies” for what we think ails us exceeds those limits. Michael Reagan in a talk radio podcast said that Google and Yahoo are sending 90% of their political contributions to “liberal” groups. He was clearly urging a boycott of these businesses by people who don’t like liberals. Mr. Reagan sir, this is not the ‘50’s and these companies are not subversives talking about overthrowing the government. You folks own that one now. They are successful enterprises in a capitalist nation that isn’t in the habit of blacklisting corporations whose transgression is not agreeing with you.

What the Tea Party may lack in numbers is balanced in part by enthusiasm. Given the usual light turnout for midterm elections its adherents may have an inordinate effect on America’s near future. It remains to be seen how much damage they can do. But in the longer run their influence is bound to diminish considerably. Just one look at participants at Tea Party rally and you know that they are not spring chickens. A major driving force behind their anger comes from their cultural view of people of color, particularly that color, as shiftless, frightened or at best as simple happy servants. Their influence will diminish gradually and inevitably as the influence increases of people who know of Rochester only as a city.