OPINION:
Ten years ago today, a new American political movement announced its presence by hosting “Tax Day Tea Parties” all over the country. 1.2 million activists participated, many of whom were attending the first political event they had ever been to. It was the birth of a new crusade for liberty, and it had serious consequences for the politics of our nation – just ask Barack Obama, whose legislative agenda was stymied for the last three-quarters of his presidency by the opposition of the Tea Party and the men and women it helped elect to the Congress.
Today, in honor of those rallies from a decade ago, and – importantly – in recognition that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and there arises on the horizon a new threat to freedom in America, Tea Party Patriots and its members and supporters all over the nation will host public events to drive a revised message, appropriate for the times in which we now live: “Stop Socialism. Choose Freedom.”
We have watched in amazement as liberal Democrats have read the results of the 2016 election – an election they believed was theirs by right, but which they lost to a candidate who was more in tune with the nation’s needs – not as a call to move back to the political center, but as a demand for them to move further to the left.
We see it in the demands their presidential candidates divine from their grassroots activists: sponsorship of a free speech-destroying, welfare-for-politicians-establishing campaign finance/lobbying/ethics “reform” bill that seeks to enshrine Democratic Party control at the federal level for decades to come; support for a budget-busting, choice-depriving single-payer socialist healthcare scheme that will end the doctor-patient relationship now enjoyed by more than 150 million Americans with their private sector healthcare insurance, which will, of necessity, be outlawed; and backing for a budget-busting, job-killing “Green New Deal” government-centric “response” to a faux “climate crisis” that its supporters believe will destroy the planet in a decade if not addressed, and which will, if addressed the way they want, instead destroy all liberty in the Home of the Free and the Land of the Brave.
We see it in polls that show more support for socialism than for capitalism among Democrats and among young people.
Socialism is the wrong prescription for the United States. It has never worked anywhere it’s been implemented – ask the refugees from the Soviet Union, or Cuba, or Venezuela.
Socialism’s goal, its proponents claim, is equality. But, as Winston Churchill famously said, socialism’s “inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
At Tea Party Patriots, we oppose socialism not just because it is economically inefficient, and leads to worse economic outcomes than its supporters say they intend, but because it is inherently evil. By its very nature, it requires the use of force or threat of violence to get people to behave in ways they would not, absent that threat of force or violence. It forces people to violate their own consciences in the service of “the collective good,” and, as such, violates the core precepts of our founding documents, which were created to explain our rights to and sustain individual liberty.
Using the coercive power of the state to force anyone to violate those core precepts is wrong. That is immoral. That is evil.
And Tea Party Patriots will do what it can to oppose it. We’re starting this week, with rallies or other events all over the country.
In some places, these events will be large rallies. In Atlanta, for instance, Sen. David Perdue will join me and others at Liberty Plaza at the Georgia state capitol. In Gilbert, Arizona, Congressman Andy Biggs will join Foster Friess and local Tea Party Patriots activists. In other places, these will be simple sign-waving events, where local patriots gather at a busy intersection to hold signs visible to passing traffic.
Ten years ago, we rallied on Tax Day to send a message to Washington. A decade later, we’ll do it again, to send a new message: Stop socialism. Choose freedom!
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
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