The Will of the People and the Tea Party Mentality

For a look inside the mentality of the Tea Party crowd, check out this video, apparently made as an advertisement for one:



In some ways its a nice historical tribute to America's opposition of tyranny, be it King George's taxation without representation, or Hitler and Japan threatening the world's freedom, and of course the ultimate cowards, the Islamic terrorists who committed the mass vandalism known as "9/11" and now proudly hide in caves.

But sadly for the Tea Partiers, their effort completely departs from reality when it tries to include the current administration and congress as tyrannies defying the will of the people. In a representative democracy such as ours, the will of the people is measured every 2-6 years, depending on which segment of the government we are discussing. We call these measurements "elections", and the Teapartiers have been losing a lot of them lately. Those now in power were elected to do exactly what they are doing, via the will of the people. When you lose, you don't get your way, no matter how revolting you find the other side's opinions, or how wrong you think they are. That's not tyranny, that's democracy.

Yet losing has turned the supposed party of facts-over-feelings into the party of woulda, shoulda, coulda. We woulda won had ACORN not cheated. The media shoulda been harder on Obama. We coulda won if Sarah Palin had been the candidate. It's a sad day for the GOP that so many have been reduced to this, but then so many haven't tasted minority status in their lifetimes, so in part its understandable. Few people are able to change their paradigm so radically in so little time, regardless of how rational we'd like to think we are.

Some of the Tea Partier's arguments (when they can be wrested from the jingoisms) have validity (such as the goals of having lean, efficient government). It's also entirely possible that the Tea partiers are right about a lot of the issues they have with the direction the President and Democrats are taking us. After all, truth is not determined by popular vote. Time, as always, will tell. But any Tea Partiers clinging to the notion that they represent "the will of the people" are deluding themselves. Right or wrong, you are now the minority, and every demographic indication is that the situation will get worse, not better, as long as you cling to the same old positions and arguments. Those immigrating to this country, those getting a college education, and those under 30, overwhelmingly reject your worldview. All the tea parties and snazzy videos in the world won't change that.