re: tea party

Hi, Glenn - How things are evolving now is that the Tea Party is about No Compromise, end of story. Unfortunately democratic government can't work without compromise; hence the current stalemate at the State, and I suspect soon at the national level as well.

I see it as the secular equivalent of the Christian Right (and with considerable overlap in membership, sympathies, and demographics), holding unshakably to a doctrinal position that cannot be compromised without losing your moral integrity and indeed very soul & identity. At this point it has simplified down to "No New Taxes," period, not even to something as relatively sophisticated as cutting taxes as a means to cutting back government. In the same way some hold to a 6-day creation is the token of all truth, even to the point that one doesn't worry about any other point of doctrine. If you're sound on the literal truth of a 6 day creation that's all that matters; they simply assume that therefore "you believe what the Bible says" and can be trusted to be sound on all the rest.

As of today, 38% of Minnesota's beer supply has been cut off, due to the expiration of the Miller/Coors license to sell in Minnesota, which cannot be renewed as long as the appropriate state office is closed. This does not win you many friends among the general populace. Nor does the fact that c. 3/4th of the legislators are continuing to draw their pay checks, even though they are not doing their job, again something that everyone can relate to and be disgusted with -- you don't even have to be one of the 40,000 state employees who have been laid off. Lists of names are now being published in the papers, so you can tell who is still paying themselves and who (including the Governor) has foregone their salaries.

And yes, it does have a demographic element. In some ways it's all about people who were so uptight when they were in their 20's that they missed the 60's (the civil rights & anti-war movements, pot & free love, Haight-Ashbury, the Beetles, etc.), so now that they're in their 60's they want to have their retroactive counter-cultural fling, only given the rest of their context they come at it from the political right rather than from the left, as in the 60's. In many ways one feels that pity is the appropriate response -- having failed to live life when young, they are trying to make up for it now, when it is at best faintly ridiculous, and at worst politically suicidal, as I think public opinion is turning against them.

Apparently there is real pain in Washington within the mainline Republican leadership, who realize that the Tea Party is likely to sink their ship, but can't divorce them either because they are a main source of support, and largely control who gets killed in the primaries.

In other words, you may be in for exciting times when you come. And at least no one is throwing bombs, as in Mumbai, but I do wonder at what point the frustration here may spill over into violence.

Love, Dad