What Next for the Tea Party Movement?

FROM JULY 4 TO SEPTEMBER 12

The Independence Day Tea Party protest rallies held throughout the nation and throughout Washington State on the Fourth of July were a important and powerful expression of the growing dissastisfaction of the American people with rising unemployment, reduced value of savings and property, and wasteful spending by the Obama adminstration and congress.

My Seattle Tea Party Speech

Next week, on Friday morning July 17, there will be simultaneous Tea Party Healthcare Freedom events throughout the nation outside the offices of every member of congress – protesting against socialized medicine – and (where applicable) thanking those congressmen who have already gone on record against government-run healthcare.

But what next for the Tea Party movement? What strategy should we follow? What issues should we prioritize?

I have been deeply involved in the Tea Party protest movement, which is a new but growing taxpayers’ revolt against the Obama economic agenda. I have been involved from the beginning because, after all, we have liberty to protect, we have a nation to save, we have a constitution to defend!

My support for the Tea Party movement goes hand in hand with my effort to promote conservative policies right in the heart of liberal Seattle. And that’s why I have endorsed, and plan to attend, the September 12 National Tea Party Taxpayers March on Washington, D.C.

GRASSROOTS, NON-PARTISAN, NON-EXCLUSIONARY

The Tea party movement is an ad hoc, grassroots citizens movement. It is a non-partisan movement – young and old, men and women, rural and urban. It is a coalition of conservatives, libertarians, and independents; of Democrats and Republicans. Tea Party activists include students, farmers, businessmen, retirees, union members, homeowners, and veterans.

We are taxpayers, we are citizens, we are individuals, we are Americans!

I’m glad to see more Republican elected officials and candidates supporting the Tea Party movement, and in fact I would like to see more Democratic elected officials and candidates do so as well. The Tea Party movement derives it strength from its character as an ad hoc, grassroots, non-partisan, non-exclusionary coalition. No party, group, or individual can claim to control this growing taxpayer revolt. But the Tea Party movement welcomes all who sincerely support its aims and goals.

Those aims and goals are clear: no more bailouts, no second “stimulus,” no socialized medicine, no cap and trade, cut taxes, cut spending, hold congress (both parites!) and the president accountable. And the Tea Party movement is most powerful and effective in defending liberty, the constitution, and limited government when we maintain our clear focus on the above goals.

NO CAP AND TRADE! NO TO SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!

The recent vote in the House of Representatives, approving cap and trade by a vote of 219 to 212, shows that we cannot take this challenge lightly, and we can not take for granted the support of our congressman. Cap and trade passed the House by seven votes, exactly the number of Washington State congressmen who voted “yes.”

Congressman Doc Hastings (R – 4th CD) and Congresswoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R – 5th CD) deserve our thanks for voting against cap and trade. But this state’s other seven congressmen – Jim McDermott, Dave Reichert, Jay Inslee, Brian Baird, Adam Smith, Norm Dicks, and Rick Larsen – voted in favor of cap and trade. Cap and trade, if enacted into law, would raise energy prices, block economic growth, increase unemployment, prevent advances in energy technology, and create a massive burden on the taxpayers.

Therefore, we now must battle to make sure that cap and trade is killed in the Senate. In 2007, a massive outcry from the American people killed the McCain-Kennedy illegal immigration amnesty bill. We need a similar effort now – another massive outcry from the American people – to defeat “cap-and-trade” once and for all.

That’s also the type of taxpayer power and citizen activism that will be needed to defeat government-run socialized medicine. The Obama energy administration is using deceptive language – “public option” instead of “government control,” and “evidence-based guidelines” instead of “rationing” – and we need to mount a powerful effort to cut through the rhetoric and clarify the real issues in the healthcare debate.

That’s why I have endorsed, and plan to attend, the September 12 National Tea Party Taxpayers March on Washington, D.C. And that’s why I have been deeply involved in the Tea Party protest movement, which is a new but growing taxpayers’ revolt against the Obama economic agenda.

LIBERTY VS. SOCIALISM

President Barack Obama is restricting liberty, destroying the economy, and raising taxes. Obama’s goal is not to improve the economy, but to make people feel pessimistic and dependent on government. Without constitutional authority, Obama is seeking to establish government control of industries – banking, auto, financial, medical, energy.

The elites in media and academia want you to believe that socialism is “historically inevitable,” that socialist policies are “irreversible” once implemented, and that socialism is “beneficial” to the great majority of people. They are wrong on all three counts. The world’s history – the experience of socialism in governmental power – has shown that socialism is absolutely not “beneficial.”

And the path to socialism is neither “inevitable” nor “irreversible” – least of all in the United States of America. The American people won independence and defeated British colonialism, destroyed slavery, defeated fascism in World War II, and won the Cold War against the Soviet empire. We can certainly defeat the Obama economic agenda! And, thanks to the Tea Party movement, the battle is already underway!

The Tea Party protest movement is a grassroots, ad hoc coalition movement with a clear focus: cut taxes and spending, no socialized medicine, no cap and trade, repeal the pork, no more bailouts, no second “stimulus,” no government control of industry – and hold congress and the President accountable. What we do now will affect the cap and trade debate, it will affect the healthcare debate, and it will affect the 2010 and 2012 elections!

Please join me in marching on our nation’s capitol on September 12!

For more information, go to:
Tea Party Express
National Taxpayer Protest
Tea Party Patriots

Tags: cap and trade, constitution, economy, Healthcare, liberty, McDermott, Obama, Reichert, spending, taxes, teaparty

Steve Beren

Steve Beren is a speaker, writer, blogger, and activist on the issues of international terrorism, the Iran nuclear threat, and the relationship between politics and morality. A Seattle-based conservative activist, Beren is deeply involved in the new, but growing "tea party" taxpayer movement in opposition to the Obama administration's far left economic agenda. Beren was the 2008 Republican candidate for Congress against far left Democrat incumbent Jim McDermott.

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