The Tea Party to Restore Sanity

Over the weekend, I made my way down to our nation’s capital to attend The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The rally was an attempt to move beyond the “animus” that is dividing our country into the Two Americas—Red and Blue, Conservative and Liberal, Christian and…Atheist, Secular Progressive, Agnostic, “Enlightened,” Apathetic, etc. The message was not so much that we have nothing to be mad about and that it is irrational to be so, but, rather, that it is counter-productive to be so to the degree that we have been seeing recently; and that it is not so much the American citizens themselves who are being unreasonable, but the ones that supposedly represent us—in Washington and on the Cable News channels, the ones responsible for defining the national conversation.

I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time reviewing the show itself—because, to be perfectly honest, it kind of sucked: the jokes fell flat and the interplay of the various personalities was kind of boring and forced—but, rather, the message behind the show, which I thought Jon did an excellent job of conveying during his last monologue. I think, more than anyone else on television right now, that Jon Stewart is one of the clearest and most reasonable voices that we have, and it is a shame/pathetic that the only voice of Reason is coming from a comedian, with a negligible sized viewership, that is more than reluctant to play the role that he has created for himself. Although Jon is obviously a committed Lefty, he never shies away from calling out the Democrats/MSNBC on their lies, anymore than the Republicans/Fox News and performs a valuable function that I wish the mainstream media would take more notice of and imitate.

Over the last couple months, I have attended various rallies/protests from a variety of different groups and have tried to talk to the attendees to find out what exactly their concerns are and the reasons they felt it necessary to come out and make their voices heard. I’ve been to a Tea Party event featuring Sarah Palin, a self-proclaimed Socialist march, an anti-BP protest, and now, I guess what you could consider, a more Centrist (ok, slightly left of Center) type of event and have been able to make some comparisons and contrasts that I would like to share with you.

First off, at each one of these events, the majority of people that I have talked to have been calm, rational people, with legitimate gripes and justified reasons for their discontent. This is, of course, not how they are portrayed by their political opponents, who only focus on the fringe radicals—the Racists and Homophobes, and the Anarchists and “Peace-niks.” The meek voice of compromise always seems to be drowned out by the angry shouts of Commitment and Moral Indignation because Passion speaks louder thanReason—and has an actual agenda and game-plan for implementing its goals. Most Americans don’t really know what to do about the Financial Crisis, or Healthcare, or Social Security, or Immigration, or the two wars, or a Living Constitution versus a Fixed one, and so on; but, they do know that they are unhappy with those in power and feel betrayed by the apparent lack of competency and moral fortitude to meet the demands with which we are now faced.

And that was the ultimate message of the rally this weekend: how can we make this voice of Reason heard over the din and dint of our "country's 24 Hour/politico/pundit/perpetual/panic conflictonator" who make a living by purposefully dividing us? Jon used the metaphor of Americans driving down the highway, on their way to work, merging from an eight-lane toll plaza into a two-lane tunnel. “You go, then I’ll go, you go, then I’ll go.” A common purpose and goal enabled compromise and, despite a driver’s possible distaste for the “Values and Principles” of their fellow drivers, they were still able to civilly proceed to allow everyone to arrive at the necessary destination.

This is a nice metaphor; a working model of civility and rationality in action, but, unfortunately, an extreme over-simplification of America’s problems. Whereas, it is not in our Self-Interest to run someone off the road and pick a fight with them just because we happen to disagree with their politically charged bumper-sticker, the real-world political realm allows for a bit less room for compromise with those of opposing Principles. Although we do need some sort of compromise between the two opposing Ideologies doing battle right now in America if we are going to be able to move forward as a country, we can’t really do that until we understand where the other one is coming from. And right now, the two sides are at such polar opposites that to think that we could achieve such a compromise is chimerical, wishful thinking.

What we have right now doing battle are two completely opposing world-views and views of Man and his Nature. There is no room for compromise on any issue because they are built upon two completely different foundations. How can you compromise on the extent and purpose of a law, if you are not even talking about the same type of person for which it is meant to control? How can you find a reasonable middle-ground, if you are not even talking about the same world, let alone country? This divide goes back to the modern dichotomy of Locke vs. Rousseau, that I have mentioned before, although the way that these opposing world-views has been divided up in the American mind is quite an odd combination and may account for much of the dissonance of our current debates.

Politically and economically Conservatives would be considered to be Lockeans: Limited Government, Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, and a Free Market; Liberals, in this realm, are much more Rousseauean: Government should help to restrain Inequality—especially of wealth—and play an active role in limiting and regulating the Economy. But, in an odd turn of events—and the link that connects Classical Liberalism with today’s brand of it—when it comes to the Cultural realm, the roles are reversed and the Liberals become Lockean and the Conservatives side with Rousseau.

The very word “Liberalism,” of course, is derived from the root word “Liberty” or “Freedom.” In the tradition of the Enlightenment, Liberals today believe that everyone has the Right to say, think or do whatever they want—of course restrained from doing any sort of physical or mental harm to an Individual—unbound by any religious or “natural” restraint upon behavior, speech or attitude. It is still the idea of Reciprocation of Rights, or some sort of idea of Enlightened Self-Interest, that they believe in, but you would be hard pressed to find a Liberal today who would claim any sort of Classical Liberal defense for their Right to do so.

And this is where you see the Rousseau-side of Modern Liberalism begin to creep in. Classical Liberalism may have made a whole lot of sense on paper, but it was not nearly doctrinaire enough to compensate for the historical reality of Inequality that had proceeded it. It may have allowed for some people to move up the ladder—The American Dream—but it usually did so at the expense of Others and in general would result in the extreme Inequalities in wealth and opportunity that we have today. Therefore, they say, the government needs to take a more active role in the maintenance and distribution of wealth and power and even regulate access to certain products it deems bad for us.

The Conservatives are an even stranger and even more confusing combination of tendencies and doctrines that, as we can see, have resulted in an equal amount of dissonance in their theory and practice. Although they ostensibly follow in the Enlightenment tradition and the beliefs of our Founding Fathers—annunciated in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights—they do not believe that these ideas can be divorced from our religious tradition (i.e. Christianity) and that the lack of government—or limitation of government within a narrowly defined sphere—can be and must be made up for in the Civic realm by shared Cultural Values and Beliefs. This is where the Rousseau-side of their thought comes in: Freedom constrained within a homogeneous and binding set of Cultural constraints that provides continuity and unity within a State.

But for some reason, Conservatives are unwilling to admit—or are simply blind to the fact—that this continuity and unity is completely undermined by their unequivocal support of Free Market, Globalized Capitalism. This may provide a high level of prosperity for our country, but I can’t think of any force more destructive to any sort of national unity or possibility of real Culture. A merchant has no loyalty beyond the ground upon which he stands, and to think differently is a naive folly. Why else would Fox rail against the Left—its anti-family Values and lack of restraint and morality—and then have a Sunday night line-up of The Simpsons,The Cleveland Show, Family Guy, and American Dad: all of which are unapologetic about their ridicule and distaste for the very Values that the Fox News Channel promotes?



When it comes right down to it, though, I would say that the biggest delineating factor between Cons and Libs is what you value more: Freedom or Equality—which always seem to be at an uneasy tension with one another.

The Cons, obviously, value Freedom more, especially Freedom from government or, at least, more Freedom to participate in the government, which serves as the present basis for their discontent—especially for the Tea Party. Because, the more that things are getting done in Washington, rather than in the State legislature, the more removed the average citizen is from the political process and the less say they have in the decision-making process. Freedom of choice and diversity of choice are reduced and you become stuck with one monolithic, federal bureaucracy in which you have no say and no other option. Although, for some reason, they fail to see, or don’t care to see, how the same thing can be said about overgrown Corporations and the enormous power and influence they exert over the political process, take for example the recent court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The Libs tend to take the side of Equality more, which is the reason that they feel it necessary to expand Federal power and its ability to interfere in the daily lives of citizens. Despite our so-called “Civil Religion” annunciated in the Declaration of Independence—as has been the case for Humans with every other religious doctrine—we have failed to live up to the ideals embodied in it. This Liberals or “Progressives” feel justifies and warrants the expansion of Federal power—in order to make up for the disparity between our stated goals and the reality that has followed them. Plus, the only body powerful enough to counteract the influence of corporations is the government, so the more corporations grow and expand their sphere of influence, the more the government is forced to grow to try and counter-balance it (although this is a bit of a chicken and an egg type scenario and I have had discussions with Cons where they claim it to be the other way around, but I completely disagree with that).

Jon Stewart very clearly, yet inadvertently, summed up the basis for the division in our country in a recent interview on his show with Senator Ted Kaufman, when he closed the interview with the insight: “So if I may sum up: the system is corrupt and broken, exactly how it was designed to be.” To which Kaufman, the Democratic Senator from Delaware, replied, “Exactly.” Whereas, Cons are fundamentally distrustful of, not only, Human Nature, but of concentrated power in the hands of any Individual, or a small cabal of Individuals (regardless of their stated aim), Libs/Progressives believe in the ability to use Instrumental Reason to overcome our problems and the ability of a small group of “Experts” to scientifically come up with solutions to conquer the Human Condition, or of some sort of Human Perfectibility.

This is a huge, huge, huge topic, and this post is all ready much longer than I would like it to be, so let me kind of cut it off and sum up what I see as a basic solution to our problem. The first and foremost factor destroying the ability of our political system to function is the fact that it is designed as a means for running a Republic, and, over the last century, we have grown from our humble beginnings into a mighty Empire. Hence, the rules and regulations set up by the Founders are no longer workable on this massive of a scale, therefore, Jon is right to complain about the inefficiency and inability of our Federal government to pass meaningful and timely legislation—it is purposefully designed to do just that. But, I would say that there is not a Liberal alive today—in theory, at least—who does not see the American Empire as a bad thing, especially not Stewart, so I think that his criticism is uninformed and miss placed. And this is really the crux of the whole thing. The general setup is just fine—with the exception of some fine-tuning here or there—it is just being misapplied and is causing massive frustration.

Most Americans agree on exactly what the problems are, but our world-views and the justifications for our beliefs dictate such differing solutions that it is hard to create a national consensus and the means of implementing them against the wishes of the minority out of power amounts to Tyranny (hence the Tea Party position). The Constitution, however, provides a very easy compromise to this problem. The reason it is so hard to pass Federal legislation is because America is built on the idea of Self-governance, the Right of a People to decide what is right for them. The Founding of America was completely un-Ideological; there were no ideas of Positive Right that were dogmatically unquestionable (as in Communism or Fascism), simply Negative Rights that the Federal Government was meant to protect. The States then had the legislative power to experiment with the enacting of any sort of Bill of Positive Rights that they thought necessary and sustainable, thus giving the citizen 50 different options for what type of government they wished to live under.

Today, whereas, the Liberal position may be morally justifiable as far as Human Rights go, it unwittingly leads to voter apathy, the Individual’s feeling of a disconnect from the political process, the shrinking of the Individual inside the selfishness of their own heart, and—as of now, the still distant possibility—of Universal Tyranny (not necessarily because of its ends, but because of its means). If we—the average citizens—want to once again feel like we have a say in our government and the decisions that most effect our daily lives, then our goal should be the reduction of the Federal Government within the smallest sphere possible—which could be the source of compromise that Stewart is looking for—and the reduction of US interests—economic and political—throughout the world. I realize that this is not an immediate possibility and a lot of work would be required to enable this, but we are obviously by-partisanly dissatisfied with our current situation. And, if we do not want to see this “experiment in self-government” be dissolved, then it is our obligation as Citizens to stand up and make the necessary changes to once again take control over our lives.