Why I Got T.E.A. ...

Yes, I am a Tea Partier. I have been so in spirit since I saw Rick Santelli's rant from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Feb. 19, 2009 in reaction to Obama's proposed "Housing Stimulus Plan":

I watched with mildly piqued interest as the Tea Party tried to figure out what it was and what it stood for. It didn't even seem to take itself seriously at first, with people mailing tea bags to their Congressmen and Senators. While I was rather terrified at the direction in which I saw our country lurching with crazy bailouts and spending and schemes like health care, I didn't get involved until January of this year (2010) when it was looking like Obama's health care reform bill was going to pass. As one of the ostensibly voluntary uninsured, I knew that I was facing jail time - a loss of my constitutionally-guaranteed right of liberty - for not purchasing an insurance product. Could this really be my America?

I attended a meeting of the Rockford Tea Party (IL) just to see what it was about and found a well-organized meeting led by the most passionate and capable David Hale. They were planning a rally in April, as Rockford had been chosen as a stop by the Tea Party Express bus tour across the country to Washington, DC. Before I knew it, I was volunteering to be a gatewatcher at the event, and my dog, Piglet, had been chosen as the official Rockford Tea Party mascot. As such, I actually had a couple minutes on the platform to speak.

As a former newspaper reporter, what has struck me from the very beginning is the mainstream media's utter failure to understand what the Tea Party movement is, and what it is not. Even Fox News, which so many non-watchers assume is one of the progenitors/string-pullers for the Tea Party, doesn't seem to get it. Its detractors get even more crazy than Fox, led by slanderous statements from people like Nancy Pelosi and organizations like the NAACP, whose motives I can only presume are nefarious. So here it is - from the hip - from a real grass-roots participant in what may pan out to be the most historically significant non-organization in our lifetimes, if not ever in our country since the Revolutionary War.

What It Is...

First, who we are: Basically, the Tea Party is a philosophy - a frame of mind, a set of basic, core principles. We are your mom or dad, your neighbor, your great aunt or uncle. We are your local shopkeeper, your grocer, your car dealer, your Chamber of Commerce member. We have generally been gainfully employed or own a business or have been trying to provide for ourselves as we put away money for our retirement. We're usually mind-your-own-business kind of people, live-and-let-live. We're not rabble-rousers, and we'd much rather go to a family picnic than a political protest. We're polite, and we've been told that two things never to discuss are religion and politics. And for years we've been watching the news with increasing frustration, throwing things at the TV and coming out to vote once or twice a year. We were pretty much still doing that late in 2008 when our economy came to a screeching halt. When Bush and the gang on Capitol Hill succumbed to the Chicken-Little-sky-is-falling alarms of Hank Paulson and Ben Bernacke and shoved TARP down our collective throats without giving Congress a chance to review the bill (oh, what a surprise!), we felt the earth move. Suddenly, we were in a parallel universe where things looked the same but everything was different. The question on our minds was "Where are we, how did we get here, and how do we get back home?" That got us off our couches and into the streets, making signs and seeking out like-minded people. Hence the Tea Party was born.

What we are: The Tea Party, the real Tea Party, is a philosophical view of government and its role in our lives. It is a gathering more than it is an organization. There are several "organizations" out there, most of which evolved out of convenience rather than planning, but the associations are loose and cash flow channels are nebulous and usually locally-based. We don't have "leaders," per se, we have organizers who find meeting places and speakers and scour the Internet for educational material to share. Technically, we don't even have members. I put myself on a mailing list when I began participating, but it's not really a membership roster. There are no dues to pay - we toss money into a hat when funding is needed. Our organizers don't tell us what to think or how to vote. We are independent and respected for our individual views.

What we stand for: With some slight variations, the Tea Party believes in four basic principles:

• Fiscal Responsibility - the idea that government spending should be constrained, targeted and should not exceed our ability as a nation to repay our debt without destroying the dollar.
• Free Markets - We believe that the government must get its "boot off the necks" of free enterprise, businesses and individuals. We hold that market manipulation was largely responsible for the downfall of our financial institutions, and that high taxation and over-regulation has stifled our economy.
• Lower Taxes - Taxed Enough Already. See the first two principles. Government should work within its means and not saddle us with burdensome, immoral and confiscatory taxation.
• Constitutional Integrity/Limited Government - The Constitution minces no words about the responsibilities of the Federal government, the separation of powers and the rights of states and the rights of individuals. We are not in favor of an abolition of government, as many have proposed, but it should be scaled back to within the bounds as set by our Founding Fathers. The Constitution was designed to be our safeguard against tyranny and should not be abridged.

That's it. No more, no less. No talk of social issues, no talk of race, no talk of national defense or any of the other straw men put up by those who would marginalize us to achieve their political goals of power and control.

What It Is Not:

The Tea Party is not an easily defined organization. It is not a branch of the Republican Party. It is not a political party, and for the most part, participants do not desire for it to become one. We don't have a strong infrastructure. While we do have some political operatives and commentators who support us, they do not lead us. I find it despicable and insulting when the Tea Party is depicted as "easy to manipulate" or "led by" this or that political figure. In my experience, the Tea Party is the most "free" organization I've been involved in. Free to choose, free to express, free to think, free to discuss, free from mandates from above. I'm free to participate or not, and free to decide who to vote for or not, free to prefer one party or candidate over another, even if I'm not in agreement with the majority. The greatest shame upon the media is that the spirit of freedom among us is lost upon them.