The Electric Chair

If you try, you can look at a situation academically without getting fully tied up in idealism.  Sure it’s almost impossible to get your politics out of the equation, but if you try, you can at least consider the facts and arguments that people make.  At that point, one should at least try to empathize with those arguments before completely dismissing them.

For me, this is such a reasoning, and my hope isn’t that you simply agree with the conclusions I may draw, but understand how those conclusions might be made.  For this “study” we are going to consider a term that’s been thrown around a lot lately — socialism — and a new term that I’m making up called momoism.  We’ll start with a definition.

Socialism is defined as “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.”

There have been a lot of claims that our current administration is moving us toward socialism.  While that’s certainly hyperbole, it has an element of truth.  (This is where you must consider facts, and be logical, not emotional).  To restate the definition, Socialism is the ownership of entities by the government. These entities control production, and distribution of both capital (money and products) and land in the community as a whole (the Country in this case).

Are we socialist?  No.  We are primarily a privately run country.  Almost all our goods and services are produced by private companies.  One could spend hours talking about all of the privately produced and distributed capital, and all of the land owned privately.  We are still a regulated capitalist country in terms of the economy.

But of  course, the element of truth regarding socialism *does* exist.  The Government has owned many entities such as Social Security and Medicare or years.  While these entities are completely owned by the government, the industries they are in are not.  Social Security is a division of financial insurance, a sort of life insurance, and Medicare is a division of Medical insurance.  To some these partial ownerships are “steps” toward socialism.  That’s certainly valid, as the invention of Social Security is certainly closer to Socialism than without it, but it’s a pretty minor leap if one is honest.

Recent events can also be seen moving closer to socialism.  I’m obviously speaking of the health care reform just passed.  But before we get to that obvious piece, there’s *more* socialism in addition on to that bill that was added last minute: Student Loans.  Prior to the passage, student loans were not completely controlled by the government, but now they are.  One could look at this two different ways: Student loans as an entire industry, or student loans as part of the overall loan industry.  Either way, the step towards socialism exists, but once again it’s minor.  The fear, of course, is that each of these minor steps add up.  That’s hard to argue against. And to bring it back to health care, the reform aims to improve coverage by in part adding more people to the government systems.  A very minor step only in terms of numbers.  Otherwise there really isn’t much in it towards the academic definition of socialism.

The definition of socialism also mentioned land ownership. Did you know that as of 2008, the government owned around 30% of all land?  Further, that 30% is primarily land that contains natural resources (oil/gas/mineral).  (http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/federally-owned-land.jpg). Further, the current administration has been making plans (and indeed has been) buying up land.  (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/white-house-land-grab/)

That brings us to Momoism.  Yes, it’s a made up word.  I will define momoism as “a system of government, led by an executive with complete power over industry, and commerce, while suppressing opposition”.  First notice that I don’t mention government ownership, rather control.  In momoism, the government seeks to control and regulate all industries, while leaving them under private ownership.  The executive, of course, is either the leader or the “administration” and has ultimate power.

A fictitious country, let’s call it Momoland, would be under the control of  the “Momo”.  The Momo would regulate industries like Heath Care by controlling who gets what, how much companies can charge.  Even though Momoland might have other branches of government, they would largely be controlled by the Momo.  Such power would inevitably lead to the government controlling other aspects of life, and could end up up with the government controlling speech, religion, and other apsects of everyday social life.

Now obviously Momoism is an extreme situation, and I bring it up to make a point.  While there certainly are people who believe Socialism is a valid government, others think it’s evil. The truth is that all governments have their strengths and weaknesses, and I’m not here to debate that.  Momoism, though, is evil in the way I’ve described it.  Full control over your life, while ceding ownership to citizens is akin to Socialism.  Both systems control industry, though momoism does it through law and regulation, while Socialism is more honest about it and gives the industry to the “people” (government).  Socialism is usually democratic, still giving the people the opportunity to elect it’s officials, who then in turn enact laws.  Momoism pretends to do that, but ultimately cedes power to the Momo and his branch of government.  While the people may elect other Momos, and even sub-Momos, ultimate power still lies at the top because the top controls all of the private companies.

Yes Momoism is an extreme, and certainly no modern government participates in full-on Momoism.  Yet, there are some similarities between Momoism and Socialism.  I already alluded that whether the government controls or owns an industry, the end is similar in that the industry must act according to the governments rules.  Socialism takes a lot of control away from the people beyond elections, but Momoism takes it to the extreme.

Now let’s say everyone was arguing about our government heading towards Momoism instead of Socialism.  I, of course, would say the same thing: It’s a hyperbolic argument that only has elements of truth.  The recent Health care bill, of course, adds more regulation to an industry going so far as to tell private companies that they must cover people regardless of condition.  In the insurance industry, that’s difficult to overcome.  I don’t wish to get into that argument here, so it should be sufficient to say that each step taken towards telling an industry what to do, leads us closer to momoism.  Further, each time the Legislative branch gives the Executive branch more power, as was given countless times under the Bush Administration (eg. the Patriot Act which was recently extended under the Obama Administration) leads us closer to Momoism.  Even more of a step towards Momoism was the recent bailouts of multiple industries.  The bailout of GM, for example, led to the government getting more of a say what a private company can do. Once GM took the bailout they were obligated to fire their CEO (regardless of what the company and it’s investors wanted), cut entire lines of cars (again regardless of whether they were moneymakers or not).

And of course, recent talks and attempts by the government to regulate the internet (Net Neutrality) and the airwaves (The Fairness Doctrine — Renamed to include the use of “diversity” and “local”) which essentially tells us that even though we can say what we want, we have to make sure someone else will say the opposite, in equal time, before we say it.  But there I go again, getting dangerously close to idealism.

The point of all this is that we have taken steps toward both of these “isms”, and there are those of us who think both “isms” are not good for a lot of legitimate reasons.  It’s much too simplistic to simply say “Obama is a Socialist” or a “Obama is a Momoist”.  Neither are true, but the actions taken by this government, over a long period of time (decades) have moved us closer towards both and further away from our roots.  One can argue that it’s a good thing, but certainly one can argue the opposite, and have good reasons for doing so.  Pure forms of both are not good for America.

Now, one final thing.  Perhaps you were smart enough to make the connection.  While I said “Momoism” is made up… it actually is not.  Please replace the word “Momo” with “Dictator”, “Momoland” with any number of countries in the WWII era, and “Momoism” with Fascism.  Do *NOT* replace Obama with Hitler, as that’s a non-starter for me, but do recognize that the term “Natzi” is a the shortened verson of “National Socialism”.

Of course when we bring any of those terms up one immediately conjures up “Hitler”.  It’s a false immediate comparison, and in Academic terms, should not be tied to each other exclusively.  If suddenly you are offended, and think that I’m part of the crazy “Obama is Hitler” wacko fringe group, you don’t know me, and never will.  I would ask you to not read my blog, and sever any ties to me… we have nothing more to discuss.  Seriously, I feel that strongly about it.  Otherwise, I simply ask you to consider why *some* people bring up fascism and socialism, as it’s a legitimate concern to them.  History has not been kind to either form of government.  Let’s leave the hyperbole out of it, and recognize the arguments for what they are: Legitimate debate.

Whether you’re a tea party lover, hater, or curious party, I think you might find the thoughts below somewhat interesting.

I’m going to the Tea Party today in Atlanta. I went last year, and wrote all about it (and re-posted in my last blog post). You can witness my excitement and reasoning there. This year I go in with the same reasoning and excitement, but with some added curiosity, encouragement, and some trepidation.

Reasoning, a year later…

Since last year, our government has done more to take away our freedoms, spend our money, and mortgage our children’s futures. We’ve seen “stimulus”, “jobs bills”, “health care reform”, and so many executive orders and decisions it makes our head spin. In a time when the economy is still trashed, we passed a massive bill which will tax us almost immediately, give us almost no benefits for 4 years, and start to dismantle 1/6th of our economy. Instead of working to improve the system by strengthening private industry (which produces jobs), while eliminating waste and corruption, we just piled on a new system which does almost nothing to help the overall problem. All this was done while the general public wanted some reform, but did not want it in the form it was given to us. It was done using backdoor politics, obscure rules, and closed door meetings. The level of distrust our elected officials showed us is only matched by the distrust we now have for them.

I speculated last year that the tea party movement was not a flash in the pan moment, that it would persist, and I was certainly right. The latest report says that 25% of voters identify themselves as “Tea Party Supporters”. That’s a huge movement. I’ve watched a lot of progressive Democrats and Republicans decide that their career is over, while watching a lot of moderate Democrats and Republicans get the message and start returning to their roots. I’ve seen many Republicans be challenged by more fiscally and governmental conservative folks who come from nowhere to take victory. And I’ve seen a lot of regular people put themselves out there to challenge the corrupt career politicians. I think anyone who doubts that the tea party had a hand in these changes is out of their mind.

I’m going to the Tea Party this year not as a protester, but as someone who wishes to demonstrate his right to free speech and assembly, and as someone who wants to let our politicians (all of them) know that we hold you accountable. The American people will remove the corrupt from power when tyranny affects them. We still have a form of government that allows and encourages this. We wanted some of the “change” Barack Obama promised (not all, but some)… and we’ve got none of that brand. We want an end to dirty politics, an end to endless spending, and an end to the erosion of our liberties under the guise of compassion and the shadow of fears.

Trepidation

There’s been a lot of talk lately about infiltrators who will show up with misspelled and racist signs in order to make us look bad. Since the news has been out there, I think it’s likely that we might not see as much of that as originally thought. I go in this time knowing that there will probably be some of those people, and there will be some legitimate crazies (birthers etc). I’m going to watch carefully and probably note them, take pictures, and document it all. If the tea party has been taken over by the crazies or if it’s obvious that it’s being infiltrated, I’ll document and report it.

I was also asked recently if I was afraid to go because we’ve automatically been branded as racists? I’m not worried, because I know the truth. I am not a racist, but the notion that people are dismissing us as such is very upsetting to me. Are there racists that go to Tea Parties? Sadly, I’m sure there are… but I know that we’re talking about a very tiny number, and that crazies unfortunately exist in any large gathering.

Preparation

I decided to take the entire day off, as there were other things I wanted to get done today as well. I started this morning by spending time with my baby boy, then heading outside to mow the lawn. (Surely the sign of an evil bigoted protester). I plan on taking Georgia’s public transportation system (MARTA) in to the gathering. It’s been pointed out to me that it’s “ironic” that I use a public system that apparently I’m protesting. For the record, it’s not ironic, and as I said before I’m not protesting.. I’m “demonstrating”. I fully support public transportation systems that serve a purpose. I regret that most of them are not as self sufficient as they should be, and would lobby to reform them so that they are, but I would point out that MARTA is both privately and publicly funded, and all in all a pretty decent system.

I plan on getting there early, and really check things out. I’m going in with an open mind regarding everything. If I see things I hate, I will probably “tweet” them. I will try to live-tweet most of the events today (GemZombie on twitter if you care).

I plan on meeting up with the same group of people I went with last year. They are a good group of people, and we enjoyed each others company last year. I will likely arrive before most of them.

I’ll be summing up the event in another post either later today or tomorrow. I’m looking forward to contrasting it with last years event, and will be looking closely for any ugliness on either side of the coin.

(Update: corrected numerous misspellings)

The second Atlanta Tax-Day Tea Party is approaching, and I’m once again planning on going. Last year I wrote a summary of my experience on facebook. I’m re-posting it here so it can be quickly contrasted with the write up I will do this year after the event. A long discussion occurred afterward, but that would be too difficult to re-post… if you’re curious, you can view the whole discussion on facebook.

From Thurday, April 16th, 2009 @ 4:41pm

I had wanted to go to the previous tea-party in Atlanta, but circumstances did not allow. If you don’t know what a tea party is, then you probably get your news from CNN who chose to mostly ignore it and marginalize it. I am not one for hyperbole, but let me assure you that this was a major event, it is not some fleeting thing, and those of us who attended are by no means radical extremists.

What is a tea party and why did we go?

The tea party phenomenon caught on because there are three groups of people who have been alienated. The conservatives, like myself have been sick of the ever expanding government attempting to solve problems with our money (and our childrens money with debt). We feel these problems have only gotten worse with these “solutions”. We are of the crowd that believes George Bush let us down fiscally and politically while we praise him for keeping America safe. The second group are the many moderates, who may have voted for Obama have joined us in our fears that government officials are not acting in our best interest as they have been surprised by the actions this congress and administration have taken. The third, albeit smaller, crowd are the democrats who have had a wake up call. They, like the moderates, have been surprised just how quickly this administration and congress has latched on to the economic crisis in the biggest power grab we have seen in our lives. They know that this trumps or at least equates with the power grab of the right after the 9/11 attacks.

The wake up call has come in a short period of time (less than a decade), during which we have seen our supposed representatives use serious problems and the fear they create to expand government and their control over it.

Us tea party goers have turned to the constitution and the founding principles which state that government needs to be controlled rather than the government controlling us. To us Liberty (which is _the_ theme) is only limited by government, but also requires government to preserve. Therefore we both respect government, but are wary of it.

The list of specific grievances is large, but here are just a few:

We’re sick of companies and people who make mad decisions receiving our money involuntarily. We are a compassionate country yet we believe we know how to distribute and spend our money better than government. Especially at a time when we are all hurting, why should my tax money go to someone who should have known better than to get into an adjustable mortgage. I looked into them too, and common sense told me it was a bad idea.

We’re tired of words not having original meaning any more. Many of us are frustrated with the loss of language. Specifically we are told that we are not engaging terrorists anymore. Instead they are insurgents, freedom fighters, engaging in man-made disasters. Yet, the day of the tea party Americans are warned of right wing extremists becoming “domestic terrorists”. Amazing how only Americans can be terrorists now. This only proves that our current administration is not the “change” we expected, just same of the same old marginalizing of the opposing viewpoint, and intellectual dishonesty that plagues almost all of our career politicians.

We are tired of politicians seeking more and more power and control over all aspects of our lives all the while taking our money. As one speaker said “When our children come home with report cards and A letter grades, we don’t turn to them and say ‘that’s great, now give me 5 dollars’… instead we reward our children. The government punishes you for being successful by taking more of your money. People should be rewarded for doing well and contributing to society”.

We understand that the original constitution allowed for taxes, but not an income tax. It took an amendment to add that bad boy in. We also understand that this was to be temporary, yet know that when it comes to government control, nothing is ever temporary. We understand the math behind taxes, and know that first our income is taxed, then the usage on the rest of the money is taxed (gas taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, social security taxes, medicare taxes, phone taxes, internet taxes, alcohol taxes, car taxes), and when all added together the math means that roughly 50% of our money ends up going to a government agency at some point, even if we get *some* of that money back after it sat with the government over the course of a year.

We’re sick of government telling us we’re extremists, we’re sick of politicians spitting in our face when they say that “Americans don’t care” (Chuck Schumer). We’re sick of people like Paul Begala saying we’re “Whiners” who should support Obama, pay our taxes and shut up (Yes, he really did… on Imus’ show). We’re sick of people like Barney Frank who refuse to take any responsibility for mishandling entities like Fannie Mae, and calling us Right-Wing haters when we merely ask him about it (what would he say if we applied labels to him when referring to him in the general sense. If you know who Barney Frank is, then I’m sure you know what I’m talking about). We’re tired of being told “We won, you lost, shut up”. None of this is the America we know and love.

Despite all that, it’s hard to fully explain the culture behind the tea-parties. I suppose if you don’t feel how we do, or even didn’t attend, you just can’t get it….

The Event itself:

I planned to meet a small group of people at a Marta station (local Atlanta public transportation). Once we boarded the train immediately it was obvious that this was going to be a big event. The train was loaded with people who had signs in their hands, American flags on their clothes, and a smile on their face. The amount of red was unbelievable. Getting off the train was a site to behold… literally hundreds of people streaming into the capital.

Our group stopped briefly before getting in line to get into the fenced off area. As we sat, a 10 year old kid walks by and asks us if we’d like a sign. He handed two of them two us: One a Fairtax.org sign, and the other a witty “Welcome to Sweden” sign (complete with Swedish Flag), both handmade. We gladly took the signs and held them proudly, all the while getting a kick out of how friendly and happy these folks were.

We got in line, where we made jokes with strangers about being “right wing” extremists while dads held their kids on their shoulders and danced along to the music being played on the main stage. My favorite sign was held by a young teenager which read “Don’t Tax me, Bro”. In line we were all handed pocket constitutions, and random fliers. Expectedly, there were a few folks selling things (water, fliers to buy shirts online), but I actually expected a lot more (after all, we are the capitalists and tax-earners of the country). Another of my favorite signs was “I paid for this sign with my stimulus money”. There was a lot of wit in the signs… none that I felt really went too far, though I suppose comparing the Obama Administration to the Mafia comes close, and only one sign that mentioned “Teabagging” (A term I found offensive) in the same sentence as Chuck Schumer.

We got into the main area and we were blown away by the number of people and signs. The party was supposed to start at 7pm, and we arrived at around 6:30 where the crowd was probably already close to 10,000 with hundreds of people still streaming in. The estimates we heard when all was done came in between 15,000 and 20,000 people.

There were a lot of speakers and a few prepared videos that were all very well coordinated. Most of the speakers spoke for less than 5 minutes which we all welcomed. There were very few politicians present (and the ones that were present were pretty small-time local politicians with the only exception being Dick Armey). As was heard said more than once, this day was for the people; the politicians were to shut up and listen to us for a change.

There were repeated themes of Liberty, respect for the constitution, an expectation that our politicians should listen to us, and that we need to vote almost all of them out. Repeatedly we heard “this isn’t about Obama, we were fed up with George Bush too” (yes I know, why didn’t we complain loudly when he screwed up – I’m first to admit that many of us were willing to let it slide a bit too willingly). Lower taxes… especially support for the Fair Tax, was of course a main theme seeing as this was “tax-day”.

Only a few of the speakers had real charisma, so I was a bit disappointed there, but everyone was articulate and respectful. We heard from local radio personalities, local event organizers, local businessmen/women, and just a few national names such as Dick Armey, and that 14 year old super-conservative kid (his was the longest speech, and admittedly a bit predictably boring, but still neat to see). There were two speakers who I felt were outstanding, one was a woman, the head of some action committee, and the other a local Radio guy (One of the “regular guys”) Of course the Atlanta party was headlined by Sean Hannity doing his show there to close things out. Many people left before and during his show (we left during to get a jump start on getting home). This to me proved that this wasn’t just about having a name like Hannity show up. Many of us were so far back that we couldn’t see him anyway, and we weren’t star struck enough to try to rush up and get a glimpse, or get on TV. That’s not why we were there.

Everyone I saw was in a good mood. I saw no “Pick-up truck Republicans” like my wife likes to call them… these were primarily folks with families, businesses, etc. There was an equal mix of age groups, including young children with parents, college age folks, and a smattering of older Americans. A small group of Obama Supporters showed up. The crowd of course made jokes and laughed in their direction, but there was no confrontation, no animosity, and certainly no hurtful comments. In fact many people said “good for them”. I commented that I bet they felt pretty safe, and made a joke that perhaps I wouldn’t feel as safe at one of their rallies. This got a pretty good chuckle. There were no “right-wing” extremists, despite the guy who had a sign which had an arrow pointing down at him proclaiming he was (obviously a joke referencing the recent DHS report). We saw one person (only one) holding a Confederate Flag. It was the consensus that this guy was probably an infiltrator hoping to get some media time to show how the group was ugly, or just a moron. Either way, he was ignored and didn’t seem to garner any attention at all other than our early notice.

I have never been part of a more polite, nice group of people in my life. I had my own worries going into this since I know that a crowd can easily turn ugly, but no such thing happened. The trip back (once again a packed Marta train) was fun too. There was the 60 year old women saying things like “I’ve never been to a protest before” followed by a murmur from the most of the passengers agreeing with her. Many people couldn’t wait until the next tea party. The news reports that marginalized this event as small and fleeting could not have possibly been honest.

It was amazing to be part of a group of people who respectfully demonstrated their views. There was a lot of excitement and happiness in the air. I was proud to be a part of it, and never once did I regret going… I only regret not going to the first one.