Of Tea Parties and Straw Men

Here's a question for you: Why is the public being told by Democrat politicians and the media that tea partiers only want their taxes lowered? Though they would surely embrace this outcome if it came to pass, it's far from being the only – or even the most important – objection they have to federal governance today.

Look at the tea party Contract From America. You'll see that just two of their ten recommendations touch on the subject of taxation. In striking contrast to what the media and the White House claim, the contract does not mention high taxes as a basis for protest. Instead, the contract says the U.S. government should:  

Implement a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the existing internal revenue code ... and repeal all tax hikes permanently, including those to income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently set to start in 2011.

Isn't it obvious that rather than focusing on tax rates, the Tea Party calls for a thorough revision of the tax code? The distinction is meaningful; the fact that the Obama administration can't or won't see it is worrisome.

This untruth about Tea Party views is widespread. The most prominent carrier of it, strikingly, is President Obama.

"In all, we passed 25 different tax cuts last year," he's been quoted as saying. "And one thing we haven't done is raise income taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year ... so I've been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies about taxes. You would think they would be saying thank you."

No-one picks more fights with straw men than President Obama – but Bill Maher comes close. On his cable show he has opined that tea partiers are "venting their anger, their rage, at taxes. Which of course, in most cases, for them went down."

But if even the most cursory glance at the tea party contract shows the faultiness of Maher's charge -- that tax rates aren't the issue -- why the misconception?

Simple. There is no misconception. Bill Maher and people like him are engaged in a willful, intentional distortion of their opponents' goals.

All of which leads us to the dismal conclusion that those who pursue what they know are red herrings (instead of facts) have no interest in solving the problems which so preoccupy the tea partiers. Unless the chasers of the red herrings don't consider the problems to be problems at all.

Let us provisionally agree, then, that this administration's most outspoken and genuine conservative opponents are routinely and intentionally mislabeled (though their goals are well-documented). The question then becomes:

Why? And to what end?

It's a matter of elementary logic that if one fails or refuses to identify a problem, the likelihood of finding a solution to it will fall rapidly to zero. When you consider that all the intellectual gifts and ivy-league training of the governing elite seem to count for nothing with regard to their comprehending the concerns of the tea partiers, one must confront some unsettling possibilities.

The public, it would appear, is being lied to. The Obama administration will never engage in an honest dialog with the tea party movement. It wishes to deflect public attention away from a clear understanding of the nature of the political philosophy it seeks to impose – a collectivist social system.

With its passionate call for personal and economic liberty, tea partiers show that they understand that the redistribution of wealth advocated by Washington, liberals, and the media, is best preserved by continuing the status quo -- a tax code correctly seen by its critics as perpetuating a flagrant injustice via the coercive and confiscatory income tax, to affect the attainment of ends to which those coerced have not given their consent.

There is peril for the Obama White House in responding truthfully to tea party criticism: It would vividly highlight the disastrous consequences of their collectivist policies. Poll after poll has shown that an enlightened and energized electorate would reject those policies.

While tea partiers openly give recommendations and state their objections, Obama and his media allies conceal their agenda to the extent possible and deceitfully misclassify the ideas and intents of their critics.

Barack Obama was a deceiver and trickster on the campaign trail. He sold a public hungry for something new an alluring if implausible bill of goods: the dream that our country might at last transcend the rancor of partisan politics and debate the issues of the day in a peaceful and civil manner. Now that he is ensconced in Washington, the rancor and partisanship are more bitter than ever.

Obama the candidate once said, "Let's debate our genuine differences on the issues that matter." If only Obama the President were of a mind to follow through with that promise.