Am on vacation this week – a “staycation” in doing errands as well as finally starting to approach the long list of “honey-do’s” (as well as long list of tasks of my own). Both have long laid fallow resulting in, well, “the house suffering from benign neglect from blogging”. A week won’t cut it down substantially, but the habit will be formed (er, I hope, under (long suffering) TMEW’s stern visage).
As I was go thither and fro, TMEW had the news on TV on and I caught a bit of the testimony from some of the TEA Party leaders who had been targeted by the IRS simply for having “TEA Party” in their names. I have transcribed one so far and am doing one more now – of the six people who testified to Congress, I think these are representative of all of the people who felt their country slipping away these last few years and deliberately being transformed from its original ideals at the time of our Founding and simply felt it was time to educate their fellow citizens and roust them from their political slumber. One such lady is Becky Gerritson of the Watumbka (AL) TEA Party:
If you do not have the 7 minutes to watch, at least glance through the transcription (I got “most of it”) to see what was important – the fear that our Government that was meant to be public servants to Citizens is now turning that table to that of a Public Master to a public servitude.
(emphasis mine):
My husband and I had never been involved in politics before 2008. We had always been patriotic and deeply proud of our country.
[ Discussion about the bailouts at the beginning of Obama’s Presidency] That bailout was confirmation that our government was out of control. We knew that government had gone far beyond it habitual deficit spending. Government was mortgaging America’s future and we knew that Washington wasn’t going to stop by itself.
[Described how that did their first April 15 TEA Party rally with a conclusion:] “The only political notion expressed was one that we collectively felt: That our representative government had failed us.
In Watempka, we are patriotic Americans. We peacefully assemble. We petition our Government. We exercise the Right to Free Speech. And we do not understand why the Government tried to stop us. I am not here as a serf or vassal. I am not begging my lords for mercy. I’m a born free American woman, wife, mother and citizen. And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place. It’s not your responsibility to look out for my well-being, and to monitor my speech. It’s not your right to assert an agenda. Your post, the post that you occupy, exists to preserve American liberty. You’ve sworn to perform that duty. And you have faltered.”
[describes her case and the IRS demands including info on donors, info, offices run for, speeches, speakers, communications to any legislators.] The demands for information in the questionaire shocked me as someone who loves Liberty and the First Amendment.
Our application was singled out solely because we had TEA Party in our name. Government agents made invasive and excessive demands for information that they were not entitled to. Congressman Camp and members of this committee, this was not an accident. This is a wilful act of intimidation to discourage a point of view. What the Government did to our little group in Watumbka AL is Un-American. It isn’t a matter of firing or arresting individuals. The individuals who sought to intimidate us were acting as they thought they should in a government culture that has little respect for its citizens. Many of the agents and agencies of the Federal Government do not understand that they are servants of the people. They think they are our Masters and they are mistaken.
I’m not interested in scoring political points. I want to protect and preserve the America that I grew up in; the America that people crossed oceans and risked their lives to become a part of and I am terrified it is slipping away.
Indeed – which is why the Founders knew that unless Government stayed within a limited boundary, this would happen. I have commented on a number of occasions that I have seen this attitude with teachers who overstep their boundaries and believe their educational positions trump the responsibilities of the Parents of their students. Why shouldn’t it exist elsewhere within an overly large Government?
This is a blatant display of not just simple bureaucratic overreach but of Government domination – simply because it can. And when it can, it will until it is stopped. And when those that have a particular ideological bent that sees the diminishment of “the Other” (this case, TEA Party) as a “public good” become established within the management of that bureaucracy, the use of that power is all but irresistible.
Tyranny – at the point of a pen.
