As a tea party protester, I know we are going in a bad direction, it’s just hard sometimes to articulate what feels so wrong today. I’ve thought about this a lot and here are my ideas.
A small minority have immense power in this country. They hold that power, not by their numbers, but by their dollars. They stock the campaign warchests of the elected officials and hence they get their paybacks. They have taken over the blogsphere and inundate readers with questionable facts supported by growing hostility toward those who disagree. They have control of the media, since much of the media is made up of these minorities.
First, you have the environmentalists. Not just folks who care about the environment, but those who want to control every aspect of life today. Their leader, Al Gore, has found this to be very profitable. Others, like GE and T.Boone Pickens see financial opportunity here. Politicians see a pile of discretionary dollars here that are not called taxes. Cap and Tax will create that. Obama uses Spain as an example of a country that has done what he sees us doing. One problem, Spain has the highest unemployment in Europe, much of it brought on by energy costs that made businesses move out and take their jobs with them. The high cost green energy is being highly subsidized, think ethanol, and it is estimated that each new green job cost 2.2. jobs and $400,000 in subsidies. This group has won at this juncture and we are going to get Spain even though the population of the supporters of this group is estimated to be less than 3% of the overall population.
Next, you have the unions. Union membership has been dropping for years in this country. Recent estimates say it is less that a million. Yet unions have given millions to the Democratic party for years. This explains why the UAW will come out the sole winner in the Chrysler and GM bankruptcies. This is why education reform is stalled, since the NEA doesn’t want reform. Again, 1-2% have immense power over the rest of the population.
Another group is the gay and lesbian community. Evidence of the political clout of this group are the states that are allowing gay marriages despite the public preference to do otherwise. This group is extremely hostile to opposition as evidenced by the attack on Miss California. The population of this group is always difficult to pinpoint, but guesses are no more than 3%. Congress this week gave preference to this group in the crime bill over war veterans. I do know there are far more war veterans than there are gay and lesbian activists, but congress bowed to the will of the latter. They cut pedifiles slack over GI’s.
So, if you aren’t on the side of these groups what power do you have to get your government to disregard their wishes? None. How do we stop this leverage small groups buy from your elected officials? Term limits, that’s the only option. If the Republican Party wants to come back they have two big platforms to make that comeback. Term limits and income tax code change.
If we have term limits the elected officials are not there long enough to be owned by these special interest groups. The majority of the population is not represented today. We can only get that back if we make a big push for term limits and tax code simplification. How do we do that? Like they do, we buy it. We find a way to throw money in a pot to support candidates who support these initiatives. Buy what you want, that’s what these groups do.
