Sunday, February 14, 2010

Mark Steyn Puts the Weight of the Nation, Perhaps the Western World on the Tea Party Movement's Shoulders

Mark Steyn may have it exactly right that, barring any mass pro-liberty uprisings in Europe, the fate of Western Civilization as a fount of capitalism, freedom, and individualism may indeed be on the tea party movement's shoulders. The movement must neither be co-opted by statists or populists and must stay as broad and focused a coalition as possible. Enforcing fiscal sanity and limited Constitutional government are sufficient tasks in the short-term to occupy all citizens' attention

From NRO Online:

[...]The Washington Post ran a remarkable headline this week: “Europe Could Use Its Own Tea Party.” Underneath, David Ignatius went through the obligatory metropolitan condescension toward America’s swampdwelling knuckledraggers before acknowledging that the Continent’s problem was that there was no similar populist movement demanding fiscal sanity from the governing class.

He’s right. I’ve been saying for months that the difference between America and Europe is that, when the global economy nosedived, everywhere from Iceland to Bulgaria mobs took to the streets and besieged Parliament demanding to know why government didn’t do more for them. This is the only country in the developed world where a mass movement took to the streets to say we can do just fine if you control-freak statists would just stay the hell out of our lives, and our pockets. You can shove your non-stimulating stimulus, your jobless jobs bill, and your multi-trillion-dollar porkathons. This isn’t karaoke. These guys are singing “I’ll do it my way” for real.

But it’s awfully late in the day. The end is near, we face the final curtain, and it’s an open question whether the spirit of the tea parties can triumph over the soporific, sophomoric, self-flattering conformism of that [aforementioned "Green Police"] Audi ad: Groupthink compliance has never felt so right! [End.]

The consequences of losing America as a beacon of liberty and hope in the world would be unimaginable.  Reversing the crash course of Western Civilization requires more than lashing out at transient issues and political figures; it requires no less than a revolution of ideas along objectivist lines.

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