"It's amazing how much you can learn when you shut your mouth and open your eyes." - Wilburt LanghorstMany Americans are coming to realize that we are in the midst of a culture war. There is Liberal, and there is Conservative, and there doesn't seem to be much middle ground. We are locked in a struggle for the heart and soul of America.
One side thinks more government is the answer. The other side thinks too much government is the problem.
In 2008, America elected Barack Obama as President. He is arguably the most left-wing politician ever to reside in the White House. And since Democrats were also solidly in control of the House and Senate from 2008 to 2010, we finally have witnessed what happens when unrestrained Liberalism rules the country.
Not wanting to "waste a crisis," Mr. Obama quickly set about implementing his liberal agenda by pushing massive government spending bills, taking over huge chunks of the private sector (i.e. GM and Chrysler), creating new entitlements, and ramming nationalized health care through Congress.
This unprecedented national spending spree has inflated our annual budget deficits and our total national debt to catastrophic heights.
In 2009, a grassroots movement of concerned Americans rose up in response to this situation. Almost overnight, "Tea Party" rallies sprang up. Working class Americans, many of whom had never before been politically active, thronged to the hastily-organized protest rallies all across America.
Tea Party activists have been slandered by Democrats and the liberal media since day one. They've been derided and stereotyped as right-wing extremists, racists, and bigoted back-woods fanatics desperately clinging to their guns and Bibles.
But what have the Tea Party folks really done? They have peacefully protested the bankrupting of their country. They took to the streets, lawfully, out of concern for the impact of reckless government debt on the next generation. They exercised their First Amendment rights.
If you go to a Tea Party rally, you will observe young couples with their children. You'll see elderly grandmothers attending the first political rally of their lives. You'll meet college students who understand that their future liberty is threatened by the ever-encroaching power of government.
I met a young Chinese woman at a Tea Party rally who held up a sign that read: "I left Communist China for this?"
At a Tea Party rally, you find peaceful protesters listening to speakers who discuss conservative political ideas. There is no vandalism. There is no trash strewn across the rally site. No one is injured, no one is threatened, no property is damaged. Talk to a cop who has worked security at a Tea Party rally, and he'll tell you it was the easiest money he's ever made.
You will also notice that Tea Party rallies are scheduled for early evenings and weekends. That is because most Tea Party people have jobs. They are too busy working to protest during a weekday.
In the 2010 elections, there was a conservative push-back to the policies of Barack Obama. Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives, and also lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
At the state level, the Democrats' losses were even more pronounced. The most notable example of this was in Wisconsin, a bastion of liberalism for decades. Wisconsin voters were finally so fed up with the fiscal shenanigans of the ruling Democratic elites that they elected a conservative Republican named Scott Walker as their new governor. They also put Republicans in control of both houses of the Wisconsin legislature.
Governor Walker quickly moved to fulfill his campaign promises. He pushed through cost-cutting measures that trimmed back state spending. One of his most controversial measures involved forcing the state's teachers to forgo pay raises and to contribute a percentage of their compensation to their health insurance and pension plans.
For years, Wisconsin's teachers enjoyed some of the most generous insurance and pension benefits in the country, and those benefits were part of what was bankrupting the state. With the election of Scott Walker, Wisconsin voters had sent a clear message that they wanted that to change.
So how did the unionized teachers of Wisconsin decide to express their opposition to the new status quo?
Teachers unlawfully shut down the schools in protest. Massive rallies were staged at the Wisconsin Capital Building. Thousands of "rent-a-mob" union protesters were bussed in from out of state. Angry mobs illegally occupied the state Capital Building for several weeks.
Death threats were made against Governor Walker and some of the Republican legislators who supported him. The state Capital Building was vandalized. (Damage estimates afterwards ran into the millions of dollars.) The scene in downtown Madison after the protests ended resembled a war zone. The city was trashed by the unruly mob.
With this image of liberal mayhem and anarchy fresh in our minds, let's reflect again on the behavior of the Tea Party folks when they were upset and protesting.
On the right hand, you have a group of people who peacefully exercised their rights to protest government policies for the purpose of getting the government to leave them alone and desist from bankrupting their children's futures. No vandalism. No violence. No rent-a-mobs.
On the left hand, you have a group of people who destroyed public property, issued death threats, and bussed in thugs from out of state to help them intimidate elected officials. Their goal was to coerce the taxpayers into maintaining the "Cadillac benefits" package they had become accustomed to, regardless of what it did to the state's budget.
So the question begs to be asked: Which group, and which philosophy, will you support in America's culture war?
