Slaying The Beast, Pen In Hand!

This Peggy Noonan article speaks to me and it speaks to the motivations of the Tea Party movement.  I have no idea how long the link will last as the article is supposed to be behind their firewall.  Here's another that might work.

If you write a column, you get a lot of email. Sometimes, especially in a political season, it's possible to discern from it certain emerging themes; the comeback of old convictions, for instance, or the rise of new concerns. Let me tell you something I'm hearing, in different ways and different words. The coming rebellion in the voting booth is not only about the economic impact of spending, debt and deficits on America's future. It's also to some degree about the feared impact of all those things on the character of the American people. There is a real fear that government, with all its layers, its growth, its size, its imperviousness, is changing, or has changed, who we are. And that if we lose who we are, as Americans, we lose everything.


...


And what I get from my mail is a kind of soft echo of this. America is not Greece and knows it's not Greece, but there is a growing sense,I should say fear, that the weighty, mighty, imposing American government itself, whether it meant to or not, has for years been contributing to American behaviors that are neither culturally helpful nor, as we now all say, sustainable: a growing sense of entitlement, of dependency, of resentment and distrust, and an increasing suspicion that everyone else is gaming the system. "I got mine, you get yours."


...


Because Americans weren't born to be accountants. It's not our DNA! We're supposed to be building the Empire State Building. We were meant, to be romantic about it, and why not, to be a pioneer people, to push on, invent electricity, shoot the bear, bootleg the beer, write the novel, create, reform and modernize great industries. We weren't meant to be neat and tidy record keepers. We weren't meant to wear green eye shades. We looked better in a coonskin cap!


There is I think a powerful rebellion against all this. It isn't a new rebellion - it was part of Goldwaterism, and Reaganism - but it's rising again.

Anyone that has know me for too long understands these simple truths:

• I hate very few things/people.
     
• I hate the IRS.
     
• I do NOT want to be a fucking accountant.
     
• I deeply resent that my government considers it acceptable to compel me to become an accountant.

Accountants are fine people.  The government should hire armies of highly qualified accountants to ensure that our money is being used for legitimate purposes.

You should be able to calculate your taxes on a match book cover and feel no need to retain the match book after payment has been rendered.  Our current methods of taxation mean that every baby should be issued an eye shade at birth rather than being free to pursue their wildest visions and aspirations.  Not only do we lose the value of the money lost to taxation, we lose the value of the money used to confirm our "compliance" with government tax policy.

That is part of the problem.  We have allowed our formerly Constitutionally constrained federal government to grow into an uncontrolled leviathan spouting reams of regulations and fine print.

And farting forms odious in quantity and content.

The beast must be tamed.  The only way that can happen is if we deny it the food it requires; cash, dinars, moolah, dinero!

The only way that is going to happen is to replace any Congress-critter that thinks earmarks, quid pro quo, TARP, "stimulus", government programs as "rights", and similarly flawed thinking are acceptable government policy.  They will not listen when we try to speak to them politely.

They damned well will listen when we speak at the ballot box.

Read Peggy's entire column if you can.  It is worth the effort.