A recent poll examined the 18 percent of Americans who identify as “Tea Baggers,” whose numbers dropped from 1,000 to 500 at the state Capitol since last year. Their views seem to mirror the quotes we had from them last week in our local media. They want less government, and they want government “out of their lives.” Yet the identified organizer in Montevideo, and another one of them quoted in Montevideo, along with most of them seen in the photographs in Montevideo and Willmar, are retirees. What are the chances that they are refusing their Social Security checks and Medicare coverage? On the day of their April 15 media splash, they used government provided sewer, water, roads and traffic systems. Most of them likely once used the public education system.
I really wonder where these tea baggers were when the Bush-Cheney regime began and conducted two wars completely on borrowed money. Not one of them have identified a single freedom they claim to be losing. I don’t believe one of them protested our National Guard members being taken from their jobs, homes and families to fight wars overseas – a real loss of freedom.
The reality is that they don’t really want government out of their lives; they just don’t want government helping people other than them. It’s about the selfishness. And selfishness is one of the hallmarks of their current, most visible leader – Sarah Palin. Instead of finishing the job of governor that she was elected to do in Alaska, she quit only halfway through it. Why? Clearly for the money. Why spend time at the difficult job of governing when you can make $100,000 per speaking engagement, along with millions on a book that someone writes for you, spewing out extremist talking points? Last week her key talking point was spouting how many days the average American has to work to pay off the tax bills. She didn’t mention that the number has gone down for 95 percent of Americans with the tax cut that Obama and the Democratic Congress passed. But of course, facts and reality have never mattered to the likes of Palin, Limbaugh, Riley, Beck and their ilk.
