TEA Parties: The Heart of the Matter

Do not be entangled again in a yoke of bondage. (Galatians 5:1b)

Those of us who support the grassroots efforts known as TEA Parties need to be careful not to allow those who disagree with us to redefine us. We are hearing now that assemblies are the tool of the Republican Party, right wing billionaires, Fox News, and single-issue fringe groups. The buzz today is to characterize these efforts as being all about taxes and hard-hearted greed of those who refuse to help those who are less fortunate. If we allow them to define us, we will lose.

We need to remember what the demonstrations are all about because in spite of the acronym (Taxed Enough Already), these efforts are about more than taxes. In fact I would argue that the tax concern would be no concern at if the root issues were solved.

We can talk in terms of unprecedented overreach on the part of government, of excessive regulation, of demonization of those of us who are more traditional in our approach to life, and of systematic dismantling of our culture and our heritage. All of these reflect the force behind the TEA Party mentality, and indeed they should.

But there is more, and it would serve us well to go back to the original Tea Party in Boston Harbor and the patriots behind it. The real motivation behind the Founders is for the most part ignored, which should be no surprise given the revisionism afflicting the teaching of history.

I have on my bookshelf an old book, published in 1911 that is a part of a series entitled Merrill’s English Texts. These were used to assist in teaching history in American high schools of the day. The volume in question contains Edmund Burke’s “Speech on Conciliation with America”. Burke was an English parliamentarian at the time of the Revolution who supported the Colonist’s cause. What is fascinating is the volume’s introduction.

The Colonists, it points out, initially had no intention of rebelling against the king. They were simply taking the position that they, as Englishmen and subjects of the king, had certain basic rights and that one of those rights is to establish their own parliaments and governing authorities while still remaining loyal to the king. As the text frames it:

“[T]he colonies held that the territory the Cabots discovered in America belonged to the king, rather than to the kingdom of England. Englishmen who came to this country to found colonies were entitled to all the privileges enjoyed by those who remained at home: such as trial by jury, habeas corpus, and exemption from taxes which their representatives had not voted. The British Empire was made up of a number of separate dominions, each of which was entitled to elect its own legislature which should enact laws for its local government.”

But Parliament saw things differently.

“[T]he British theory held that Englishmen must always remain Englishmen, even though they should emigrate to foreign lands, and that the power of Parliament, to which they were subject in the old home, followed them to the new one.”

Does this not get to the heart of the matter, that the Colonists were doing nothing more than demanding liberty to have a say in their own affairs, and that such say would reside in the political bodies that reflected themselves? While they were initially loyal to the king (just as we remain loyal to the Constitution), they were asking for no more than what they perceived as their rights as Englishmen.

Is it any wonder that the states demanded a Bill of Rights before ratifying the Constitution and that the 10th of those first amendments addressed this very topic?

Taxes are convenient whipping boy, but there is more at stake than a few extra dollars in people’s pockets, as important as property rights are. It is a matter of the right to self-determination. It is the right to make my own decisions without impinging the rights of others. When the nation of Israel demanded a king, they were warned that the king would do more than pile on burdensome taxes. He would conscript the young men into his service. He would confiscate land, he would take the best people and force them to work for him. God was not happy with their willingness to give up liberty. In short they would become where some want to take us today, which is a loss of liberty and a shift of autonomy to a central authority.

So, folks, don’t let the media redefine us, our motives, and our love for the liberty our forefathers intended us to have. The stakes are too high for that.

Lenny C.