Thursday, October 22, 2009

Summary of Tea Party Arguments

Summary of Tea Party Arguments Reprinted with permission from the blog "Pure Onsense"

[This concise and thoughtful treatment of the movement and WST-Frederick are partially based upon an interview with Joshua Lyons, a co-Founder of the group.]

Authors note:
I wrote what follows as an e-mail to a friend and former professor who wanted to know why I thought the Tea Partier groups were worth giving a fair hearing to–she admitted having some doubts about their arguments and motives. The summary I provided is pretty brief, but covers all the major points to the best of my memory, and as sympathetically as I could reconstruct them. (The whole thing could stand some revision and cleaning up, but I thought it was worth sharing anyway).

Update: Information Age indeed! The WST folks picked up on this post in no time, so I’ve made some proofreading edits. If there are any substantial shortcomings in my summary, I’m sure I can count on them to mention them in the comments section. For more official information, see We Surround Them Frederick’s
official website and their blog.


I’ll try to summarize their main arguments as succinctly as I can, based on their articles and a discussion I had with Joshua Lyons, one of the co-founders of We Surround Them Frederick (WST):

1. Big Government Is Bad

The federal government, through case law over the last 70 years or so, has expanded far beyond what the Founder’s intended. They cite the Federalist Papers as laying out that the powers of the Fed Gov’t were intended to be numerated and few, and for the States to pick up the rest. They say that health care reform is unconstitutional because such a program is not among the powers enumerated to Congress in Article 1, Section 8. Congress typically argues that the “general welfare clause” is open ended and gives them the authority, but WST denies this based upon the Federalist Paper #45, which was written by Madison, who also wrote the “general welfare” clause in the Constitution. ”The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” That is, WST says, the specific powers listed in Sec. 8 were intended to be exhaustive, not open-ended. Therefore, whenever Congress has done anything not specifically listed there or elsewhere in the Constitution (all amendments included) it has done so illegally. They often refer to a particular article (here) that presents the history of how certain judges and court cases, beginning with the New Deal, began redefining the general welfare clause through case law (that is, circumventing a Constitutional amendment, which would presumably be more difficult).

It’s also worth noting that WST favors a couple aspects of health care reform that they believe would be in keeping with the Constitution. They call for tort reform and opening up health insurance programs to competition with those based in other states, which they believe falls under the commerce clause.

2. Big Government Is Dangerous

One of WST’s biggest concerns–and here I have to agree with them–is the growing budget deficit. Lyons, with whom I spoke in person, had studied a number of economic indicators and claimed to have sources who believe that OPEC is considering dropping the dollar as the standard currency for trading oil. I don’t know enough about economics to confirm or deny most of what he told me, but common sense seems to tell me that allowing a huge deficit to balloon or even just remain for any prolonged period of time is dangerous. On this point, they are truly non-partisan: they hold Bush and Obama equally accountable for the stimulus bill and they claim that they were no friend to Bush even during his presidency on account of the huge expansion of government he spurred. (Lyons said he began studying Constitutional history eight years ago, implying disagreement and disappointment with Bush, who was socially, but not fiscally conservative).

3. What It’s Up To

At the root of everything, they view Big Government, which they say includes basically every president and Congress since Wilson, as following a liberal progressive agenda that seeks to wrest liberty from individual citizens by convincing them to give it up piece by piece. If you come back at them by saying that big government initiatives like the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act were actually efforts to ensure and protect liberty to citizens who were systematically disadvantaged, they fall back to a couple of arguments. First of all, they say that such matters should be left in the hands of the states (one of their fundamental principles is that the level of government that is closest to the people governs best). And second, they lament the plight of…

4. The Forgotten Man.

The Forgotten Man is the citizen who is, without his consent, required to hand his money over to the government in order to address some cause that–while well-intentioned–could have been handled without a law that tread upon his rights. (This leads into their whole argument against “redistribution of wealth”). When I talked to Lyons in person, I managed to drill into this argument a bit and I think what I arrived at is that they are opposed to the government ordering something that should be a moral choice, left to the individual citizen to decide. They claim that Forgotten Men are in fact compassionate and willing to help their fellow downtrodden citizens, but that the government does not have the authority to dictate compassion. (The blog post explaining the whole Forgotten Man thing is
here. FYI, I left my response in the comments section below the post, under the name PureOnsense).

Now I’m probably leaving off a few other important points, but I thought this would suffice to give you a taste of what these guys are up to. Partly in response to questions I posed to them through their website and other places, they wrote up a nice explanation of why they do not discuss much in the way of specific policies under current debate
here. In short, they think the entire political debate is fundamentally flawed: you can’t debate how to best set up health care reform when the reform itself is unconstitutional from the start.

So what I find interesting in all of this is that their agenda is not what I expected at first when the tea parties started showing up on tv over the summer. They are not subtly rebranded Bush supporters or Republicans, nor are they in any way racist, as the mainstream media very unfairly entertained for weeks on end without substantiation (I’d never before bought into the “mainstream media bias” argument until I started communicating with WST. I can’t help but see that they’ve been pegged as a dumb mob and left at that. It wasn’t until a week ago that I even heard the word “libertarian” mentioned by a pundit on CNN. The media has done a pathetic job covering the content of these groups’ arguments, and it really bothers me, even though I’m not fully on board with them).

When it comes down to it, they are simply concerned that the government is becoming too powerful and too overbearing, and their response has been exactly what the Founder’s would have wanted from concerned citizens. There are some shaky aspects to their views that will put them at a major disadvantage to liberals, and they recognize that they come off as lacking compassion when they oppose well-intended legislation aimed at social justice—they reply that social justice should be achieved socially, however, rather than through laws that strip personal liberties even while claiming to do the opposite.

And that’s about as sympathetically as I can summarize their views at this point. What I came to see after talking with Lyons was that he had a very well realized set of principles from which he was able to draw his arguments effortlessly. As for me, on the other hand, I realized I could not articulate my principles nearly so well, either to him or to myself. I have a feeling that there are things about what he argues don’t sit well with me, but my political views aren’t so well developed that I can put my finger on the problem yet. I will continue to work on that.


Saturday, October 10, 2009

Why we don't take specific policy positions.

Often, we read or hear comments that We Surround the Frederick (WST) is clear about what we are against, but short on what we’re for…a legitimate question. This post seeks to answer this question, though perhaps not as definitively as people or our critics may hope.

To begin, WST was not founded as a think-tank, or to advocate any particular policy objective. Rather, WST was founded to advance an argument that has great relevance to today’s public debate. Namely, that the idea of limited government and a truly free people as advocated by the majority of the Founders in 1776 and 1787 is a superior form of governance when compared to the current case-law based federal government. That’s it, that’s what WST is all about…advancing an argument that until WST and other groups emerged in the last year wasn’t really being discussed.

To be sure, the term “Constitution” or “Constitutional” comes up from time-to-time in relation to government discussions as in; “don’t worry, everything will be ok, after all, what I’m about to vote on is Constitutional.” But that was usually from a politician or other political operative seemingly to soothe the average voter mind on their desire to expand government even further.

Having wandered onto Constitutional territory in this post, rest assured, WST has no disagreement with those who suggest there was not unanimity amongst the Founders; we do not suggest or promote this concept. WST has no disagreement that shortly after the ratification of the Constitution, it almost immediately came under assault by advocates of a larger central government, we agree. Our disagreement is with those who seek to re-write history to suggest that what we have today was spawned from those very Founders who declared independence and codified the principles contained therein in the Constitution.

For indeed the federal government, from 1787 to roughly 1861 was nothing more than a smallish entity often failing at its efforts to expand. The federal government’s effort to tax personal production (The Whiskey Rebellion)…eventually withdrawn forcing the federal government, up through the Civil War, to rely almost exclusively on tariffs for revenue. Its effort to curtail the Bill of Rights (The Alien and Sedition Acts)…mostly expired or repealed. And finally, the US Government’s assertion, via the sword, that States would bend to the expansion of its powers. After the Civil War, the ground work was laid to have a robust and central government that would eventually swallow the sovereignty of the State.

Before any attempt to squelch WST before the conclusion of this post, please be assured that though we believe the Civil War began on legitimate Constitutional grounds; the right of a sovereign State to withdraw from the union, the slavery issue doomed them to defeat. No man has the right to own another and from the very formation of our Constitution, its greatest weakness was its failure to be true to the essential principle of the Declaration of Independence…that ALL men are created equal and are endowed with certain unalienable rights. WST concedes that this unholy concession to the South during the Constitutional Convention inevitably would lead to a national conflict, though in reality, this issue was not a primary reason for the War. That stated, one fortunate by-product of the War was the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would put a nail in the coffin of legal slavery. Sadly though, the attitudes would take much longer to disappear until a group in the South decided to stand up against the prevailing civil rights deficiencies that still lingered, even with the 13th Amendment.

However, acknowledging that one basis for the Civil War was wildly wrong, nevertheless, since the War, America has been on a trajectory that has culminated in a HUGE and bloated government that can

1. Tax any form of income, at any rate it likes, at any time it wants;
2. Create programs that are unsustainable such as Medicare and Social Security;
3. Create federal agencies that infringe on State Sovereignty and rob economic activity such as the IRS, Department of Education, NEA, FEC, and a myriad of other agencies;
4. Infringe on 1st Amendment Rights via the Fairness Doctrine;
5. Involved the United States in undeclared wars;
6. Take private property whenever is can justify a perceived need;
7. Ultimately, run up an un-payable $99 TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT (

Thus, WST seeks to advance discussion about the principles so eloquently laid out in the Declaration of Independence; LIFE, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT of Happiness.

WST asserts that both parties have abandoned any pretense to holding to this vision. Therefore as part of an ever growing movement taking shape across the country, WST is by-passing the two-party process and instead speaking directly to the people with our appeal. We call it the We the People message for the 21st Century.

Simply put;

- We believe America was established with a set of Rights, not handed down by a King or legislature, but by our Creator and/or Natural Law;
- We believe the ultimate power rests in the people, not the government;
- We believe and human history supports that the closest form of government to the people (town, local, state) is far superior to an all-powerful centralized government distant from the people.
- We believe the only Constitutional responsibilities the federal government possesses are to secure the liberties of a free people and not grow its power.

Thus, at this point in the movement’s evolution, we do not believe it necessary to make policy statements or take policy positions. Not because of any weakness on our part, but rather, we’d be making statements on a less than Constitutional playing field. We believe that much of what occurs in the sausage making process called the legislative process in Washington DC is not in keeping with the original meaning of the words contained in Article 1. Section 8. Therefore, until there is two-party agreement on the original meaning of the “Big 3,” the general Welfare Clause, the Commerce Clause, and the Necessary and Proper Clause, there really is no reason to expound on specific policies. This merely leads to multiple nuanced debates, open to emotion and subject to propaganda as we’ve seen for decades. Again, this has led to an un-payable $99 TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT and a continuing degradation of civil liberties.

So, in a word, our “solution” to America’s problems lie not in the pro’s and con’s of a particular piece of legislation. Our solution is to resurrect a discussion and promote an argument that must be dealt with; are we a people governed by the original meaning of the words written in the Constitution and the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence or are we not? If we are not, then our future truly is bleak and our liberties are in peril. If we decide to resurrect the original meanings of the Constitution and the Principles of the Declaration of Independence, then we have some heavy lifting ahead of us. As for those of us involved in WST, we believe We the People can do it.

As it began, this post has not stated specifically which policies WST is “for.” If we did, it would entirely miss the point of WST and relegate us to the status of just another special interest group. We resist that effort.