MSNBC: Tea Party movement lights fuse for right

Looks like what was once just a meme on MSNBC has gotten some momentum (and thankfully have since dropped the “I’m a Tea Bagger” slogan.) Don’t remember this thing? It was started by Republicans as a gimmicky “We’re not going to take this – we’ll rise up like we did in Boston!” during the Revolution and then quickly dropped out of sight. Now it’s back, but it’s not a Republican thing anymore… people that are now part of the “Tea Party” are pissed at both sides of the political game, Democrat and Republican alike. They want a smaller Federal government, something we haven’t had since the days of FDR in the mid-1930’s.

Simply put, our Federal government has never been as powerful as it’s been for the last 70 years and while America has only ever had two powerful parties in government, we haven’t always had the two we have now. The parties have ebbed and flowed over the years… these people are looking to return to a simpler time of smaller federal government (and likely more powerful state governments) and a change in political parties – which was the main cause of the US Civil War and one of the sticking points of the original Congressional Congress.

Should be interesting to watch where this goes. One thing is certain: these people are not part of the current party system and they are not going to stand for either current party aligning itself to them. Their goal is to hold true to the exact working of the Constitution, which makes no provision for bailout packages or even Social Security. The Constitution is truly a Capitalist Manifesto: if you can’t hack it, that’s your problem – very different than how our Federal government behaves today… After all, Thomas Jefferson believed that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” much in response to both American and French Revolutions; he was also a firm believer in a restrained central government, to the chagrin of Alexander Hamilton.

History repeating itself? It looks like it so far.