Now that my Father is in his sunset years he likes to watch nothing but Westerns. Westerns are always pretty simplistic and easy to understand. Justice is often found when the guy in the white hat shoots the bad guy in the black hat. The Tea Party with its arm chair quarterback critiques and simplistic solutions sound attractive. Unfortunately as H. L. Mencken said, "For every complex problem there is a-solution-that is simple neat and wrong".
Sometimes like in High Noon, the entire town abandons Gary Cooper and he is left all alone to defend justice. We have a new sheriff in town and he has lots of problems to solve and it would be nice if all the townspeople would pull together to help him, but most of the time it seems like half the country is working for the bad guys.
There were often "Lynching Parties" when the loudmouths in town stirred up the town drunks and decided to take the law in their own hands. The good guy would always defend the rule of law. Sometimes the mob would catch an actual horse thief but more often than not they hung an innocent person. Whenever mob rule took over they were wrong because they broke the law. It is always better to leave the law to the courts, to find out who the real bad guys are.
When our founding fathers formed this nation they tried to eliminate the need for mob rule by putting in place the means to bring about meaningful change. The Law came to town if you will.
In 2008 the people used their constitutionally mandated rights and voted for change. The losers of that election never got behind the new sheriff. These poor losers are the ones that are still resisting any change, and now they are calling for his lynching.
Some members of the Tea Party are calling for "Second Amendment Remedies" if they
lose again at the ballot box. The leaders are the loudmouths that are inciting the excitable and impressionable to abandon law and return to mob rule.
Over time the leaders of this great nation could see the endless bloody coups and military takeovers that occurred all over the rest of the world. We had our own bloody civil war and it was so horrendous that our leaders vowed to never allow that to happen again. They insured that would not happen here by having civilian control of the military and by having the military take an oath to support the Commander in Chief. But the major way that our founders insured that the nation would not be torn apart is by allowing change to happen at the ballot box.
In almost every election the losers vow to work with the winners and cooperate for the good of the country. After this past election that did not happen. The Republicans acted like spoiled schoolboys who if they lost, would take their ball and go home. They decided that politics was war, and that if they lost on the battlefield that they would continue a guerilla war. Never before at least in my memory has the opposition been so adversarial.
Their very effective propaganda machine which took the country to an unnecessary and illegal war, shifted to attack our president and the Democratic party. Instead of compromising and helping solve the countries problems, the Republicans decided that they would do everything they could to make Obama and the nation fail. They abused little known procedural rules to force a supermajority vote to get anything done, and did everything they could to bring our country to a stop. If they couldn't have things their way they would make it impossible for anyone else to play the game.
When the right wing thinks of change they think of armed insurrection because they own all of the guns. When you own a hammer every problem looks like a nail. All of these wannabe weekend warriors have bought a dozen weapons and tons of ammunition and it is just sitting there doing nothing. They like to get dressed in Camo and play soldier on the weekend to show off their nifty weapons, and a 50 caliber isn't too good for rabbits. but wouldn't it be fun to go out and shoot some liberals or gays or minorities?
Of course most of the volunteer army and the rest of the military is conservative and they also think that force is the answer to many of the world's problems. But the difference is these soldiers have seen the real horror of a real shooting war and would never want that to happen at home. Besides they have all sworn allegiance to their Commander in Chief.
When the left thinks of change they think of collective bargaining and using the non violent protests of the majority of the people, to overcome the totalitarian authoritarianism of the minority.
The right has the American revolution as inspiration but unfortunately there are thousands of other examples where violent revolution resulted in more violence, genocide, and oppression. Few revolutions result in Democracies. The strong men who lead the revolution generally turn into dictators. What makes the United States different than hundreds of other nations that suffer one revolution after another, is the Constitution. The Constitution protects the rights of the minority and provides for a mechanism for change without violence.
When the left thinks of change they also have historical success stories they can look to for inspiration. They have Gandhi who brought about the end of British colonialism in India and Pakistan through non violence. They have the example of Mandela who ended Apartheid and the formation of Africa through non violence, they have the example of Lech Walesa and the freedom of Poland through non violence, they have the example of Mother Jones and the suffragettes that allowed women equality through non violence, there is the example of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and many others who won civil rights victories and ended segregation through non violence.
Why is it that the left relies on the majority: Democracy, Majority Rule, Non Violence, and Collective bargaining to make life better for all, but the Right relies on the use of force by the minority to make life worse for the majority so a few can live in luxury?
There is no possible way that a bunch of weekend warriors can take on the most powerful military in the world, no matter how many weapons they acquire. That is just plain crazy talk, and it should not be encouraged or tolerated. The most they can hope to do is blow some people up, as Timothy McVeigh and his co conspirators did in Oklahoma City.
Let me be clear. This is not just some western on TV where conflicts are settled with a gun fight at high noon. If Americans take up arms with the intent of overthrowing the government, they are not patriots, they are not modern revolutionaries. They are terrorists, and they will be treated as terrorists.
A recent Washington Post report indicated that there are 1,271 government entities and 1,931 private companies engaged in intelligence-gathering work. If you are hoarding weapons and advocating the overthrow of the government, how many of them do you think are reading your posts and listening to your phone right now?
Most of the members of the Tea Party are rational and good people but some on the extreme right are just plain crazy and only need a little encouragement to harm others. Those who encourage "Second Amendment Remedies" are legitimizing the real right wing Whackoes, and they are enabling unstable armed and dangerous elements to take the law in their own hands and blow up government buildings and harm innocent civilians. They are encouraging domestic terrorism and the return to mob rule.
I applaud the Tea party for energizing people who were unwilling to participate in the political process before. If they are successful and they do "Take their Country Back" , what happens then? Do they have any solutions to the nation's many problems?
This is the first in a series exploring solutions. The first step is to realize that in this country, the majority rules.