Talking to a Tea Partier: A Primer

I thought the topic for this would be “How to talk to a Tea Partier?” Who knows, maybe I’d be able to write something humorous and light hearted, causing readers to smile and say things like - how entertaining and witty! Then while attending the Claremont Fall Festival, I bumped into a local guy who shall remain nameless. While I don’t know for sure if he is a card carrying tea party member – he always sounds very über libertarian and mistrustful of government and personal motives! In the course of our brief chat, he said that if this was back in the days of the American Revolution – I’d be a Tory and he (and his ilk) would be Patriots! WOW! Now I would not normally recommend this as a preferred icebreaker and way to start a conversation – but it did stimulate an interesting exchange. When asked why such a clear delineation, his response was I’m for government therefore anyone who supports government would be a Tory! I came back with – for me government is all of us – you know “of the people, by the people, for the people”, versus a selfish “me” attitude. Needless to say, the conversation went downhill from there with each of us saying a lot, but neither listening very much. This exchange got me to thinking – does any common ground exist and is it possible, for people who are so opposite, to have substantive conversations? Or are we destined to follow two separate paths – the Tea Party version that only watches Fox News, has rallies in Broad Street Park and listens to Limbaugh, and my side that interchanges MS-NBC, Wall Street Protests and Lawrence O’Donnell? Being a pro-active, inquisitive, modern 21st Century globalista – I immediately turned to the internet and googled the question: How does one talk to a Free State tea bag anarchist libertarian extremist? Needless to say, the computer suggested that I should re-frame the query (too inflammatory)! Interestingly, I did learn that tea partiers do not like being called tea baggers, which is odd since I have seen many pictures of them at political rallies with bunches of tea bags dangling from their hats! In reality my search effectively did away with any presupposition that such a topic could be humorous, light or entertaining! I quickly learned that these people mean serious business and their basic core beliefs are that you Don’t trust government, Taxes are bad and Everyone’s on their own! Regarding their mantra to not trust any government, there is this real disconnect and failure to realize that they/we are the government. Furthermore, government regulations exist to protect us (the citizens) by establishing basic fundamental operating standards – that means licensing things like barbers and banks. Also whenever we dismantle or de-regulate we end up with things like the recent banking crisis and the BP Oil spill in the Gulf. Next – Taxes are bad – which leads me to ask how we will pay for our roads, schools, police and fire departments. Bottom line is tea partiers think that the country will get along just fine if we abolish taxes; unfortunately, I believe government has a responsibility to provide good roads, good schools and help the least among us which brings me to their final belief that puts individual freedoms ahead of collective responsibility. Quite frankly, can people really be this self serving? It seems they really prefer to dismiss the need for things like health care reform and are content to just label it as socialized medicine or Obama-care. Also forget trying to have a discussion about tax parity which will quickly dissolve into charges of class warfare! Somehow our running two wars on a credit card were fiscally acceptable! An excellent example of this communication disconnect is just look at the presidential campaign which Thomas Friedman describes as “two separate universes – with no overlap between the election regarding the economy and world situation and the race for president.” I can attest that at the state level, there is little discussion of problems, merely political posturing and the situation appears worse in Washington. Among the more alarming findings from my query was again by Thomas Friedman who stated that the “Tea Party is so lacking in any aspiration for American greatness, so dominated by the narrowest visions for our country and so ignorant of the fact that it was not tax cuts that made America great but our unique public-private partnerships across the generations. If sane Republicans do not stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst, the Tea Party will take the GOP on a suicide mission.” As a student of history who appreciates the American system this is upsetting, I suppose I could take a partisan stand, however if I really believe in a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” we need two sides talking and working together. Otherwise – last one out of town shut off the lights!” So much for comic relief and an attempt at writing a column that is light, humorous and witty!