A Warning to The Tea Party Nation

By Chuck Baldwin
February 12, 2010
NewsWithViews.com

As far as grassroots activism goes, the surge in Tea Parties across America is one of the more encouraging developments to recently take place. It reminds me of the “Conservative Revolution” of 1994, when the GOP reclaimed both the US Senate and House of Representatives. At that time, it had been over 40 years since the Republican Party controlled both the US House and Senate. And, between the two, the House victories were the most significant.

Spurred mostly by the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, a host of young, energetic freshman Republicans marched into Washington, D.C., determined to return a burgeoning and out-of-control federal leviathan to the constitutional precepts of limited government. I’m talking about then-freshman House members such as Helen Chenoweth, Steve Largent, Bob Barr, Joe Scarborough, Sonny Bono, John Shadegg, J.C. Watts, etc. These young conservatives went to Washington, D.C., determined to reduce the growth and size of the federal government.

The vehicle used to transport these young conservatives from grassroots activism to US House and Senate seats was the highly touted “Contract with America” (CWA), which was orchestrated by House Speaker-to-be, Newt Gingrich. The CWA included a promise to the American people that if they would give the GOP a majority in Congress, they would eliminate up to 5 federal departments–such as the Departments of Energy and Education–and many federal agencies.

Obviously, not only did the GOP-controlled Congress not eliminate a single federal department or agency–or even shrink the size of the federal government at all–it expanded the size and scope of the federal government at every level. And there is one reason for it: Big Government neocons posing as champions of conservatism co-opted and destroyed the Conservative Revolution of 1994.

If one wants to put names to these treasonous wretches (and I do), I’m talking about charlatans such as Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. Anyone who thinks that Newt Gingrich is a real conservative or that he will do anything to reduce the size and scope of the federal government needs to speak with any of those Republican members of the freshman class of 1994. (Sadly, too, some of the members of that great freshman class went on to become Big Government toadies themselves. Such is the power of that Putrid Province by the Potomac.)

The Tea Parties of 2010 remind me very much of the Conservative Revolution of 1994. And if the Tea Party Nation is not very careful, they will succumb to the same fate. The signs of a silent takeover of the movement are already appearing.

First of all, the Tea Parties were actually born during the Presidential campaign of Congressman Ron Paul of Texas in 2007 and 2008. For all intents and purposes, the Tea Parties and the Ron Paul Revolution were one and the same. These were (mostly) young people, who were sick and tired of the same old establishment Republican Party. They were tired of establishment Republicans selling out the principles of limited government; they were tired of the US Constitution being ignored and trampled by both Republicans and Democrats; they were tired of an incessant interventionist US foreign policy that keeps sending US forces overseas to advance a burgeoning New World Order (NWO); they were tired of perpetual war; they were tired of the bank bailouts; they were tired of the Federal Reserve; etc.

I know this because I met–and spoke before–the Tea Party Nation in State after State as I campaigned for Dr. Paul during the Republican primaries back in 2008. And I met them again all over America, as I was running as an Independent candidate for President–with Ron Paul’s endorsement, no less. I was with them in scores of meetings (big and small) from Washington, D.C., to Spokane, Washington, and all points in between.

But now many of the Tea Parties are distancing themselves from Dr. Paul and embracing establishment players such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. Even Newt Gingrich is being courted. Watch out, Tea Party Nation: you’re in danger of losing your soul! Newt Gingrich is not one of you. He is not your friend. He is an imposter. He will destroy you just like he almost single-handedly destroyed the Conservative Revolution of 1994.

Plus, be careful about Sarah Palin and other establishment Republicans. Palin is currently playing both sides. She is promoting Big Government neocons such as John McCain on the one hand, and sincere conservative-libertarians such as Rand Paul on the other hand. But if one wants a real barometer of Palin’s true colors, look no further than her endorsement of Rick Perry in Texas.

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An Hypocrisy of Terms: Liberal and Conservative

by Jake Towne of towneforcongress.com

Back in early 2008, I began writing a column “Yet Another Champion of the Constitution” and my second piece addressed two terms that I sometimes read in newspapers but due to my political apathy up through 2007, I did not really fully understand – the “liberals” of the Left, and the “conservatives” of the Right.  With a few minor edits from the original post, please take a read:

As basically a beginner in politics, one of the many things that are confusing to me is the very definition of liberal and conservative. Why, what can stump the walnut-sized brain of your author? Am I just being silly? Well, first some of the definitions from Google search that I most commonly associated with these terms -

Liberal

1) Tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition

2) Liberalism refers to a broad array of related doctrines, ideologies, philosophical views, and political traditions which hold that individual liberty is the primary political value

3) People who generally like to reform current conditions. Liberals are often referred to as the left wing.

Conservative

1) Resistant to change

2) Conservatism is a relativistic term used to describe political philosophies that favor traditional values, where “tradition” refers to religious, cultural, or nationally defined beliefs and customs. The term derives from the Latin, conservare, to conserve together; “to keep, guard, observe”.

3) People who generally like to uphold current conditions and oppose changes. Conservatives are often referred to as the right wing.

Soooooo…. if I live under a liberal government/society where liberty is the primary value, but I don’t want to change it, am I then a conservative? Why do the terms mix definitions of change/reform attitude with political values? Shouldn’t for one particular value, no matter what it is, have a choice between maintaining that value, changing the value in one direction, or changing it in yet another? Why do we have to insinuate that political Conservatives are stubborn-minded and resistant to change? Why do we have to insinuate that political Liberals are fickle-minded? Maybe these are just terms meant to confuse, divide and conquer.

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Obama to indefinitely imprison detainees without charges

By Glenn Greenwald

One of the most intense controversies of the Bush years was the administration’s indefinite imprisoning of “War on Terror” detainees without charges of any kind. So absolute was the consensus among progressives and Democrats against this policy that a well-worn slogan was invented to object: a “legal black hole.” Liberal editorial pages routinely cited the refusal to charge the detainees — not the interrogation practices there — in order to brand the camp a “dungeon,” a “gulag,” a “tropical purgatory,” and a “black-hole embarrassment.” As late as 2007, Democratic Senators like Pat Leahy, on the floor of the Senate, cited the due-process-free imprisonments to rail against Guantanamo as “a national disgrace, an international embarrassment to us and to our ideals, and a festering threat to our security,” as well as “a legal black hole that dishonors our principles.” Leahy echoed the Democratic consensus when he said:

The Administration consistently insists that these detainees pose a threat to the safety of Americans. Vice President Cheney said that the other day. If that is true, there must be credible evidence to support it. If there is such evidence, then they should prosecute these people.

Leahy also insisted that the Constitution assigns the power to regulate detentions to Congress, not the President, and thus cited Bush’s refusal to seek Congressional authorization for these detentions as a prime example of Bush’s abuse of executive power and shredding of the Constitution.

But all year along, Barack Obama — even as he called for the closing of Guantanamo — has been strongly implying that he will retain George Bush’s due-process-free system by continuing to imprison detainees without charges of any kind. In his May “civil liberties” speech cynically delivered at the National Archives in front of the U.S. Constitution, Obama announced that he would seek from Congress a law authorizing and governing the President’s power to imprison detainees indefinitely and without charges. But in September, the administration announced he changed his mind: rather than seek a law authorizing these detentions, he would instead simply claim that Congress already “implicitly” authorized these powers when it enacted the 2001 AUMF against Al Qaeda — thereby, as The New York Times put it, “adopting one of the arguments advanced by the Bush administration in years of debates about detention policies.”

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Obama Seeks Massive Increase in Nuke Spending

by Jason Ditz, January 30, 2010

In a move he insists is somehow consistent with his call for disarmament, President Obama is seeking more than $5 billion in increased funding for America’s nuclear weapons program, aimed chiefly at modernization and building new facilities.

Vice President Joe Biden detailed what he thought was the case for the investment, perplexingly arguing simultaneously for a world without nuclear weapons and for America to make “long overdue” investments in strengthening its own nuclear stockpile.

Though this funding will not actually be used to produce additional nuclear weapons, opponents caution that it will give the administration, and future administrations, the capacity to greatly increase the number of warheads in America’s arsenal, at a time when the administration claims to be trying to complete comprehensive warhead reduction agreements.

Though Vice President Biden portrayed the investment as crucial for creating a “safe, secure and effective” collection of weapons capable of murder on an unprecedented scale, he also pointed to Iran’s illusory nuclear weapons program as one reason for America to shore up its own, already enormous arsenal.

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