Tea Party - Taxation and Suburban Protest (cross posted from GD)

[thefool_wa]

Port Orchard, WA

I’m not 100% sure what motivated me to drive 45 miles to attend a protest that I not only didn’t believe in, but had mocked pretty openly as the date approached. I think a part of me didn’t honestly want to believe that the people of my own home town, quiet and proud folk all, could be moved to follow what I considered to be a ludicrously wrong minded protest based on a false metaphor. I had to see the thing for myself and until I pulled up to that intersection I fully expected it to be empty when I arrived. It was not empty.
In fact, there were many more people there than I had expected. I didn’t count heads, but by estimate there were at least 30 but no more than 50 in attendance. Demographic was about what one would expect from a almost wholly Republican protest, though there were a few exceptions, and I was surprised to see a couple of what I suspect were working class families holding signs opposing taxation increases as well.
This being my first journalistic endeavor since High School, I decided to keep it simple. I crafted 8 questions I was going to pose to as many people as would let me interview them. I went back and forth with my wife all day about the questions I was going to ask. This whole “Tea Party” concept was such the subject of my ire recently that I didn’t want to approach anyone as a confrontational “liberal insurgent” bent on making fun of them or showing contempt for their opinions. I composed my questions carefully and even scrapped a couple on the fly because I could feel myself wanting to refute, rebut, and debate with them about their answers, but this was not my purpose. My purpose was to explore and learn, find out what those on the ground thought and felt unfiltered by either side of the media spectrum and find out why they were really there.
The first thing I have to say is that this was no Boston Tea Party, what went on was really just your good old-fashioned Tax Day Protest. The people who came out were just those who felt they deserved to keep what they earned. The vast majority of them said they were there because they listened to Beck, Limbaugh, Savage, or the like, but all admitted to this with a degree of either embarrassment or shame. There were also those who came because they watched Fox news and one lady even went as far as to say that she did so because she liked her news “true and unfiltered”. However one pair, an elderly lady and a woman of such an age I assumed her to be the older lady’s daughter, said that they had heard of it from a friend word of mouth, opposed the stimulus spending President Obama signed into law, believed the only way to pay for that spending was to raise taxes and opposed that vehemently regardless of the targeted group of citizens. If it weren’t for these two I think I would still refer to the people in attendance at these protests as “Tea Baggers”. Now the label seems kind of offensive.
These two were about the only departure from the meme-induced predisposition I had regarding the attitudes and motivations of those in attendance. When asked about the appropriateness of the “Tea Party” metaphor, almost all felt it was apropos, but were want to tell me how it fit other than the subject was taxation. A tall man whose demeanor pegged him, at least to me, as a serving or retired military officer put it best when he said it was a symbol of solidarity that everyone could get behind. Pragmatic and true, a position I have to respect. The most interesting response came from a woman who said “our interests aren’t being represented in Washington”. The connection between her sentiment and the intentions of the original tea party are tenuous at best. Being in the minority is not the same as being denied representation wholesale. It took all of my willpower not to argue that with her.
Along these lines, I also asked a few how they felt about the implication that “Tea Parties” meant that the next step was violent revolution. Not surprisingly, everyone I asked said that played no part in their motivations to attend the protest. This is a point that I wish their media leaders, and even as of today some political leaders, would get. None of us want violent revolution, so please stop bringing it up.
The big question, the one I think everyone wants to know about every protest, is what exactly the protesters hope to accomplish through their actions. The answers were neither diverse nor surprising. Most just felt their presence would help to bring attention to the fact that they think Washington is spending too much money we don’t have. This is really the only true expectable outcome of a protest. I did run across a couple who hoped the protest would stir into action those who were letting this happen, but I am uncertain who exactly she was talking about. The tall gentleman said that he hoped this would bring about electoral change come 2010, then in 2012, a position I could have respected had he not also said “or maybe even later this year”.
This was a most interesting excursion, and I learned a great deal. Foremost among what I learned is that there is an enormous disparity between how the people of the right and left are portrayed to each other through the eyes of the media and the reality of what we are like as individuals, and even groups. I talked to a bunch of friendly people with valid points of view that were more than willing to talk to me and be honest, even suspecting I was a “liberal insurgent”. All were exactly what I would have expected to find on that corner in my home town on any given other day, and I was treated exactly as I would have expected. This makes me think that the division between us, right/left, liberal/conservative, or whatever, is something that is being driven there by those who might want to see us separated to whatever personal ends they may have. I think this should be a stark warning to those of us on both sides that just because something appears one way all cut together on the screen, it may not translate that way when applied to the people in your own home town.

[braindon]

1. Anti Taxes

Hello,

I'm not sure what your name is, but I greatly appreciated your response. I've lived in Washington for a quite a while now and although I've been a Republican all this time, I have never quite understood why we spend more of our time fighting each other and less time just coming up with better ideas. I'm becoming a Libertarian more and more each passing day, because the Republican party (I do not say Republicans) are in someways becoming just as much a hinderance to our economic prosperity as the Democratic Party (I do not say Democrats). The reason for this is that for some reason Republicans are so much in support of war and maintaining our defense budget. Bob Barr made an excellent point, that we could save billions of dollars by reducing, leasing, closing, and transforming the hundreds of bases located all over the world, without reducing a single homeland missile system at all. Certainly, some bases over seas serve some economic and military strategic advantage, but why aren't we utilizing our military advantage in an economic by offering bases in countries that help pay for them, pay for protection, or give something to the American people to justify our expense there.

It's not like I've ever been against all the ideals of the Democrat party (i.e. health care, the environment, the poor, education, etc.), I'm just devoutly opposed to their methodologies. I believe in health problem prevention not health care plans. I believe in helping students teach themselves, not throw money at schools. I believe in getting the most out of our environment in a cyclical healthy way, not by limiting our use of our environment. I believe in taking the slums out of the poor not by taking the poor out of the slums. I believe in making our labor more valuable not by increasing minimum wage. I believe in providing ways the rich can give to the poor, not stealing from the rich and forcing them to give to the poor. I believe in equal opportunity, not giving people a handicap because of their race. There is a lot I believe in but it requires all of us together to make it happen.

With the AIG scandal with contributions given to both Republicans and Democrats, I'm becoming increasinly suspicious of both parties. It's almost like both parties are playing a little game, pretending to fight each other, but all the while receiving large benefits for doing things that look good to the public eye, but in reality are sadly devastating to us all. Please understand that above Democrat, Republican, and even Libertarian; I am, most of all, an American citizen of the United States of America. In the land of liberty, we used to be so free that anybody could succeed if they wanted to. There was no man or woman who couldn't start a successful business if they really put their mind to it. I would rejoice to see the day, when every family owned their own business and every family could fight their own battles and they didn't need the government to do it for them. Nonetheless, the government can do much to help (build power plants, create high speed trains, increase speed limits, expand our roads (not just repair them)), but assuredly, I can declare relinquishing power and tax dollars is not one of them.

Sincerely,
Brandon

[eridani]

2. Why do you live here instead of in Somalia? No government, no taxes, no public goods at all

If you think businesses can function without a strong publicly funded infrastructure, you are delusional.

[CynicalPatriot]

3. The 2 Major Political Parties have betrayed the average voter

I speak for no other Tea Partiers except myself and a loosely a few of my friends and associates who also attended various Tea Party rallies.

Long before any tea party existed I was disgruntled by either of the 2 major political parties. I was a democrat until the mid 90's and Republican since. Please visit the following Squidoo site which thought recently updated, was clearly written before last years election.http://www.squidoo.com/USA_VOTERS_VOTE_NO_TO_GOVERNMENT_CORRUPTION_THIS_ELECTION ">USA Voters - Vote no to Government Corruption this election Since the TEA Party movement did not crystallize until well after the election, clearly my criticism of either of the 2 major political parties is not based on the Tea Party, regardless of whether somehow it is a fraud perpetrated by the Republicans.(which I doubt)

It comes as is no surprise to me that you would find a common them of "Tax Cuts" and "too much government spending" at a event named after (T)axed (E)nough (A)lready. To cite this as some evidence of Republican skulduggery is like finding farmers at a Country Music concert and saying the farmers organized and coordinated the event with some evil intention.

The truth is that the people at the TEA parties ranged from being patriots, to people simply bewildered at what is happening to our country, to persons disenfranchised from any of the existing major political parties. Common themes besides taxes included outrage over no accounting for the bank bail out money, AIG bonuses, broken campaign promises of no lobbyist in the White House and earmarks in the budget. Tax Cheats nominated for Cabinet Positions did not help the Democrats.

Both the Republican and the Democratic Presidential candidates promised to clean up the corruption in Washington DC. Regardless of whether it had been McCain or Obama breaking campaign promises, I would have be out there being vocal about it.http://donmashakschallengetouspoliticalparty.blogspot.com/ ">Don Mashak's Challenge to all USA Political Parties

I respectfully ask you to consider putting your country before your political party and start viewing events and asking questions from a perspective of "absolute morality" and "absolute truth" This as opposed to the situational/conditional morality and truth the political parties would have us subscribe to. If tax cheating and adultery are wrong then they are equally wrong regardless of the political affiliation of the accused. If a politician breaks the law, the amount of outrage and evidence to convict should not vary depending on political affiliation.

I leave you with the contention that elections should not be republican vs democrat, nor conservative vs liberal, nor rich vs poor and middle class but rather elections should be viewed as "Average Voters" vs. "corrupt politicians" http://www.examiner.com/x-11172-Minneapolis-Independent-Examiner~y2009m5d18-Is-it-treason-for-a-Republican-to-cover-up-treason-Committed-by-a-Democrat ">Is it treason for a Republican to cover up treason Committed by a Democrat?

Respectfully yours,

Don Mashak
The Cynical Patriot

[eridani]

4. It's certainly true that both parties are in hock to big money

However, that does not mean we don't need public goods. It just means we are a lot less likely to get them owing to spending on cronyism instead of real public goods.