Tea Party: noisy but careless

The USA’s so-called “founding fathers” are the subject of much reverence, often uncritical, and often confused supporters of the US Constitution in 1787. These founding fathers are an amorphous, undefined large group, and let us concentrate on just two: Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson – all of whom are quoted repeatedly in many a Tea Party publication. The quotations are often less sagacious sayings and more convenient concoctions, shown by the fact that apart from the supposed author, citations are usually missing.

The libertarian regulation of free enterprise

Free enterprise: An economic system of business governed by the laws of supply and demand with minimal government interference, regulation, or subsidy.
Enterprises range from, for example, Lehman Brothers to a soup kitchen to Occupy Wall Street. Some enterprises are highly structured and highly organized; most enterprises have some structure and some organization; other enterprises are little more than collections of individuals, having no structure and no organization. It is worth noting that realist anarchist enterprises have some structure and some organization even though there are those who believe that idealist anarchist enterprises have no structure and no organization.

Monuments of deficient wisdom

James Madison in Federalist 62 (http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa62.htm) thought the House of Representatives was likely to be composed of people who were too fickle, too ignorant, and who needed to be counterbalanced by the sensible Senate:

Using tax revenues to lobby for more tax revenues (and other things)

US taxpayers are going to pay the Boeing Company at least $30B to supply the US military with air tankers, after extensive lobbying by the company. In 2010, US taxpayers paid Boeing $19.5B (3.7% of total US vendor expenditures) for many different things, the same year that Boeing paid lobbyists almost $18M to influence US lawmakers, plus $2.8M in direct contributions to political candidates and PACs.

Conservative movements defend established privilege by government power

The push to take away the common people’s ability to bargain collectively by some temporary conservative majorities in state governments – by any means possible, the use of power for the sake of power – is reminiscent of other excesses.

The right to decide

An astute observer noted that of those supporting the proposed US constitution “many of them are possessed of high aristocratic ideas, and the most sovereign contempt of the common people” (Brutus Junior, The New York Journal, 8 November 1787, available as Antifederalist 38).
As if to prove Brutus Junior correct, a member of the Southern gentry (an aristocrat without a title) was explaining the purpose of the Senate and, after flattering his readers in The Independent Journal as being of superior vision, the writer had little respect for the ability of the common people (“We, the People”?) to make appropriate decisions:

Trusting other Americans

Stories:

• On a cruise to Scandinavia, an acquaintance was impressed by those countries’ affluence, and even more impressed by their welfare systems. A conservative, he noted that the welfare systems were paid from taxation, a high level of taxation which, he was surprised to find, seemed to be accepted by most people. As a US conservative, he could not understand this acceptance of high taxes until an American guide had suggested that, in general, Scandinavians trusted the government, whereas “Americans don’t trust the government”.

Originalist sin

Antonin Scala was interviewed by Calvin Massey with the main topic being Scalia’s originalist belief in an enduring constitution rather than an evolving constitution in that “the Constitution tells the current society that it cannot do [whatever] it wants to do” (“The Orginalist”,California Lawyer, January 2011) – however not everybody agreed with the original constitution (and Thomas Jefferson thought it would be short-lived). Massey wondered whether, when the 39th Congress was proposing the 14th Amendment, anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or to sexual orientation, and Scalia replied that “the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't.”