Defense of Liberty

“I would remind you that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” Many of us recognize these words as spoken by Barry Goldwater in his 1964 acceptance speech at the Republican Convention. It played a big part in the size of his defeat by Lyndon Johnson in the general election. Yet about two out of five Americans voted for him. Their ideological descendants comprise what is now called the Tea Party. However one regards these people, it’s quite a stretch to call them moderate, they have taken control of the Republican Party by the legitimate process of voting heavily in party primaries.
 
Goldwater’s statement, with which they evidently concur, sounds alright on paper. The problem is in agreeing on what constitutes defense of liberty. Many of us applauded, as we still do, the non violent civil disobedience inspired by Martin Luther King. The meaning, if not the words of the Goldwater dictum fit. These words could also have been used by the most violent Black Panther during the ghetto riots later in the decade, with an opposite historical verdict.
 
The Tea Party began making news in the days preceding tax filing on April 15, 2009. The taxes due then were at a slightly lower rate than those of the previous year, during the administration of a Caucasian Republican president. Somehow paying taxes under a Democratic president of color became un-American.
 
Most of us, including and particularly Tea Partiers, agree that the actions of the colonists leading to the War of Independence, while extreme, were taken in defense of liberty. “Taxation without Representation” was the valid battle cry of the instigators of the Boston Tea Party from which today’s enthusiasts have taken their name. But unlike the taxes imposed by the British that the colonists found so objectionable, today’s taxes have been set by the will of a majority of our own democratically elected representatives.
 
The folks appearing publicly in colonial garb carrying signs reading “Don’t Tread on Me” provide evidence of at least one major failure of our public education, specifically adult knowledge of American history.