TEA Party vs Occupy Wall Street - Granite Grok

TEA Party vs Occupy Wall Street

I ran across this at The Lonely Conservative – a perfect info-graphic showing the issue that binds the TEA Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements together…

(larger version here)

…and where they rapidly diverge on both the cause and the cure.  Sure, the problem is that of crony capitalism / corporatism:

The unholy alliance where politically connected biz people exploit politicians AND bureaucrats for both profit and advantages over their competitors, as well as the converse of politicians AND bureaucrats exploit the marketplace to both extend their political power as well as to attempt to achieve their ideological ends.

I have one more video to post from two weeks ago that aptly demonstrates this point:  The TEA Party believes that Government is too big; so big that there are too many "points of entry" for lobbyists (both for profit AND non-profits) to gain advantages that normal folks cannot.  By reducing the size of government, the number of points disappear and Government is easier to keep accountable (less "dark corners" have to be patrolled). Constitution?  The TEA Party believes that with its Checks and Balances, it is the most magnificent document ever created to protect the most radical idea ever conceived: that government exists to protect Individual Liberty and Freedom.

In essence, pushing government back into the bottle and lessening its reach – and thus making it less attractive for influence as Society re-exerts its traditional role of determining how Society will function (instead of being ruled from DC and its phalanx of bureaucrats).  Self-reliance is not an abstract idea.

OWS, while agreeing there is a problem, totally disagrees with the


…remedy.  Sure, there are some well meaning folks involved in the movement that seem to be fairly well balanced, when I see Socialists and Communists involved, there’s a problem (and as we have seen, many calls from these n’er-do-wells for "taking down capitalism" altogether and replacing it with "democratically run" business – a not so veiled threat to subvert the Right to Private Property).   Instead of decreasing government and enlarging the role and reach of Society (re: outside of Government, and empowering individual Citizens), they want to go all "body builder" on the size and power of Government with more rules and more restrictions on Society (and not understanding that they would create even more "dark corners" where the Greedy would take refuge and exploit).  They dutifully reject the notion that Government can partisan and their core says only government can safe society.  Constitution? Simply an old piece of paper that no longer provides guidance to "today".  Government exists to "guide" people on the best choices they should be making.  Self-reliance doesn’t even exist as a credible solution.

Given how things seem to be going at the Occupy occupations, they are also proving how badly their ideals can actually be put into governing as their slapdash tent set ups have now turned into communes.  They are having problems with the basics of where governing meets base human nature – thefst, assaults, ignoring regulations and ordinances, filth, and the infighting – the present results taken across a number of the "occupied" cities does not bode well for if /when they actually "occupy" the nation.

Of course, they have yet to accept that their ideals of a nationwide commune living by socialistic / communistic philosophy have never worked before – anywhere.  Of course, they believe it to be true that "well, the right people have never been in charge to do it right".

God help us all if these folks, or the real leaders lurking behind them, actually get the chance to try.

>