A Boston Tea Party ... (Why The Heading?)

Often in this blog, you will see the heading “A Boston Tea Party …”. This heading will be used whenever a subject involving politics is discussed. Why did I choose such a heading? Because as a true conservative what I feel has to be done to take our country back from the power vacuum of Washington D.C. is a Boston tea party. Republicans are no longer conservatives, they have decided that power is much more important than conservative principles. To make my point, I offer you two books that give you the inside truth about how our children’s future is being mortgaged by elected officials from both parties. Both "Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders into Insiders" written by former Republican representative Tom Coburn and "Rome Wasn’t Burnt In A Day" written by former Republican representative Joe Scarborough, detail how revolutionary new congressmen went to Washington D.C. in 1994 with the Contract for America as their mantra. What happens during there short time in Washington will surprise most kool-aid drinking Republicans.

Tom Coburn is a doctor from rural Oklahoma that gets elected as the first Republican representative from his district in 100 years. Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, was also the first Republican representative elected from his district in Florida in 100 years. Two men writing such similar books are much more than just coincidence. Their vision after leaving Washington was very much different than there vision was arriving in Washington. What they learned was that political leaders from both parties are fixated on holding power than serving the public good. They were both told not to have ideas or principles of their own but rather to tow the party line. Remember that the party leadership never EVER forgets. They were both instructed that since the Republican Party had now gained power (1994), leadership would do whatever necessary to stay in power. It became abundantly clear to each man that staying in power meant adopting a spend now, pay later philosophy. Reelection was assured by continuing to bring pork home to each congressman’s district. After reading each book, it is easy to understand that after just a few terms (by Washington standards) each man became disgusted with the entire process of spending equals reelection vs. the conservative principle of shrinking government and decided to get out of politics.

We see even more evidence of this type of leadership from our politicians today. Republican President George Bush has yet to veto any spending bill. He has allowed the addition of a new prescription drug bill and a new federal department in homeland security without cutting any spending from other areas of the federal government. I can only name one man in Washington that has enough grass roots support to get away with speaking out against his own party. His name is John McCain. Everyday it becomes clearer to me why the Republican machine did not want him to win the 2000 nomination. He would not have followed this new Republican philosophy of spending like a Democrat in the name of being reelected. He would have brought attention to the gross amount of pork being suggested by Republican leaders and like Coburn and Scarborough say being called out in public by a member of the same party does not help in reelection bids.

After you read these books you will agree that what the citizens of America need to do is the same thing that happened around 1776. A Boston Tea Party is what will be required to get our future back. We need politicians that have the will to tell us that we can’t have everything for free. We need someone to tell each grandparent that asks for a prescription drug bill to sit his/her grandchild on their knee and tell him/her that he doesn’t care about their future bills as long as he/she gets help to pay for the drugs they need. We need a leader that will tell us that in order to pay for homeland security other programs are going to have to be cut. We don’t have those leaders today, so I say lets throw all of them in the harbor like they did 200 years ago, and lets put people in Washington that have a stomach for the truth. In this election we have a choice between a Republican and a liberal, not a conservative and a liberal. I still choose a Republican, but I am not happy about the lack of fiscal conservatism. Maybe Bush will shock me and veto a bill in his second term when reelection is not an issue. But I doubt it, as Joe Scarborough says in his book, "the Republicans doctrine has morphed from the government that governs least governs best to the government that's run by Republicans governs best". For this reason I say we throw a Tea Party.