Cowboy Wisdom for the Week In the 2000 Presidential election, Libertarian candidate Harry Browne appeared on ‘Meet the Press’ and was asked if it made any difference to libertarians if either George Bush or Al Gore was elected. He answered that it didn’t matter because four years later America would have bigger government and more debt regardless of who won. Browne explained to then host Tim Russert, “If you vote Republican or Democrat, you are giving up. You’re saying I’m never going to be free. America will never be a free country again. I will never get smaller government. So I’m just going to vote for the one I think will take me to hell at the slowest-possible rate. Judging by the results of the latest cliffhanger budget deal crafted in the dead of night by the two leaders of the House of Lords, better known as the United States Senate, the two parties are in a race to get to hell at the fastest possible rate. When it comes to wasting time and spending taxpayer dollars, the Washington Democrats and Republicans are in a league all their own. At the same time the rollout of Obamacare has become a perfect metaphor for these times. It is one hot mess. The Unaffordable No Care Act was passed before anyone read what was in it and implemented by political hacks and cronies from Obama’s two campaigns for President. While the “defund strategy” of Senator Cruz and the Heritage Foundation was doomed to fail from the start, it came as a result of the Washington Republicans not listening to the people they represent. And who received the lion’s share of the blame for the government shutdown? The Tea Party. Those average Americans who stood up a few years ago and said enough is enough. Their energy and hard work delivered the House of Representatives to the Republicans in 2010. They were then promptly dismissed by the establishment Republicans who then went about doing things the same way they always have. And come 2012, they were expected to fall in line and help elect another squishy ‘moderate’ in the form of Mitt Romney. Now in 2013 they are once again being vilified by the national media and Democrats. That is to be expected. But they are also being vilified by the Washington Republican establishment. And next year Republicans will try to kiss and make up with the Tea Party in hopes they will deliver their votes to help them maintain their House majority and takeover the Senate. But if the establishment and its consultants think it will be easy to bring them back into the fold because the Tea Party has nowhere else to go they might be in for a rude awakening. For their part, the Tea Party has learned some valuable lessons if they take them to heart. They need to tell America what they are ‘for’ and not just what they are ‘against’ and it must go beyond just the themes of limited government, free markets and individual liberty. They need to reach out to the millennial generation by telling them if things don’t change they will become nothing but indentured servants chained to the ship of state as it sinks under the weight of trillions in debt. And they need to stop sending money to groups that only serve to rile them up and use them for their own gain both political and financial. The media and the bipartisan Washington establishment can barely hide their glee as they write the obituary for the Tea Party. Senator Chuck Schumer said the Tea Party has peaked and others say it is a spent force. Peaked Senator Schumer? This was just one battle. And while the Democrats laugh at the bumpkins and crow that they ‘won’, the bumpkins won’t soon forget this battle and be better prepared for the next one. So here is your Cowboy Wisdom for the Week and it is for the Tea Party. It was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite quotes. “Lay me down and let me bleed awhile for I am wounded but not yet slain. And I shall rise and fight again.” Bind up your wounds Tea Party members. Remember when you lose that you don’t lose the lesson. Regroup and prepare to fight again. And keep the tar barrels full, keep gathering the chicken feathers and find some rails to run the professional political class out of the nation’s capital in 2014.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 18:48:44 +0000
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