A Tea Partiers Assessment

One thing that I respect about the tea party is its above board nature. It is a movement that openly advocates its positions and attempts to achieve its objectives through conventional and lawful means.

It is a movement replete with individuals that understand the importance of the rule of law, the difference between a representative republic and a democracy, and appreciates the role that individuals have in society. It embraces a person's rights of life, freedom, and the unfettered pursuit for a better life.

All of these things are in stark contrast to not only the progressive left, but also to centrist politicians who have adopted a belief that government should provide for individuals and identity groups those things that they fail to provide for themselves (irrespective of any attempt to self provide, and sometimes whether the providees even desire the interjection.)

The tea parties seek change at the ballot box. Most progressives will settle for a ballot box solution if one is readily apparent (particularly if enough illegal or dead voters are able to partake in the effort,) but absent their candidates being elected will just as opportunistically pursue change through judicial fiat or bureaucratic regulation, that is, except for those high called brave statesmen that flee beyond the nearest state border.

An obvious example of this is when climate change legislation ground to a halt in the US Congress, EPA regulators in the Obama administration predictably assumed an unprecedented expansion of regulatory powers they justified through hazy interpretations of the Clean Air Act.

Another recent example of these shenanigans is the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking to block Boeing's attempt to build aircraft in South Carolina rather than producing them in union dominated Washington state. The NLRB is positing that Boeing's attempt to produce aircraft in a right to work state is in direct response to belligerent union activities that interrupted production at their established factory.

Now, mind you, Boeing is not shuttering any Seattle area plant. (In fact, employment in that area is actually increased over the past few years.) And Boeing is not shifting the production of one aircraft from Seattle to South Carolina. (The factory in SC is for the new Dreamliner aircraft.)

And yet, the NLRB is seeking to halt production in South Carolina in direct appeasement of the deep pocketed labor unions in Washington state that helped elevate President Obama to victory.

When President Obama bought himself a couple of car companies he said out loud and on many occasions that he had no desire to run a car company. However, it should be noted, that many of the new products being touted by GM today are ones blessed by government authorities for their harmony with government environmental and energy policy. He also was able to seat a more union friendly board, provide some ownership of the new entities to the unions, kick out a few established industry executives to be replaces with government chosen alternatives, and continued to fund speculative industries whose production would fishtail nicely with government's energy and environmental policy.

Boeing is a different and perhaps even more sinister matter. Here, government regulators are attempting to interject themselves directly into the managerial matters of a private enterprise in order to grant its most favored electoral constituency unprecedented powers over a company they draw their paychecks from.

There is no doubt that businesses are under attack in America. They are seen as greedy corporations with few redeeming qualities. The wealth that they generate for workers are largely ignored because of the wealth that is also generated for stockholders and company officers. As the valued presidential adviser Bill Ayers said recently in an interview "With great wealth comes great theft."

Capitalism is unfair. Boeing, as such, is a thief. And government regulators are today's Robin Hoods setting matters of wealth aright while assisting themselves in perpetuating their continued regulatory status.

Debt and the growth of government (along with the fact that the Republican Party offered up a centrist candidate in the last presidential election) were the primary causes behind the growth of the tea party movement. It is the overreach of government regulators and their unrelenting invasion into the private sector that will provide the incentive to keep the movement vibrant and growing.

This fight is just beginning.