Tomorrow is Tax Day and also a day when at least a few Americans want to engage in the Constitutional right of protest. Despite winning an election all week there has been on all out effort by the left including the Huffington Post, New York Times, The Boston Globe, and of course MSNBC to portray in nothing less than paranoid terms a dangerous right wing conspiracy. Their obvious uncomfortable appearance usually consisting of an apprehensive smirk while delivering their message of misinformation reminds one of famous old movie scenes where a criminal gets found out by the lie detector test.
The left sees Boston as the deciding factor that will allow them to declare a victory in the culture war. This has brought back some memories and personal reflections I have about a city that taught me a lot about America.
When I was a young man growing up in South Texas I was simply fascinated by the stories I read about the history of the early American colonists and the events that lead to the American Revolution. Historical characters like Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams where not peasants with nothing to lose fighting a revolution just to get something to eat, they were educated and accomplished men of significant means whose decision to oppose government action was based on moral righteousness not self-interest.
Colonial Americans did not come from aristocracy or even the newer powerful merchant classes of Britain or Europe. Many of the Founding Fathers were self-made men who came from modest backgrounds but by achievement and hard work gained not only material wealth but the respect of their communities.
In 1698 when the British government created a monopoly for the supply of tea to the empire instead of allowing various companies to compete there was a die cast which resulted in a system recognizable to us today of progressive government waste and ineptitude. This was the beginning but not the sole cause of events that lead to famous Boston Tea Party of 1773. Perhaps it is not a strange coincidence that both the Tea Party of 1773 and the April 15th Tea Party Protests are misunderstood as simple protests against taxation. It was not true then and it is not true now.
All week, the liberal press has been yelling at the top their lungs that the Tea Party Protest is a Republican plot of rich folks complaining about their fair share. They have absolutely ignored that people organizing this events are not party regulars or even Republicans. The Democrats make the point that the Republicans lost the election and therefore have no right to stage a protest. Reading Paul Krugman’s opinion piece in the New York Times today is like reading the paranoid delusions of Mussolini in Fascist Italy. It’s okay Paul, there is no big bad Republican bogey man out to get you. Not yet anyway. Why is the left so scared?
I agree the Republicans lost the election because they lost their way from the Conservative path. The grass roots movement organizing the Tea Parties has no centralized control or official leader. There is some communication via Twitter, blogging, and emails but what the Democrats and the media fail to understand is that it is a protest against government waste and inefficiency, against government that promises one thing and delivers another, against government that is run by professional politicians supported by slimy news media types whose primary concern is their own career not the American destiny, and against a leadership that professes demogoguery but obscures more malevolent intent. If you think its just about taxes or just for Republicans that you don’t understand America.
As a graduate student at Harvard almost thirty years ago I had the opportunity to finally explore New England. Walking the piers of Boston and the streets of Concord I was honestly overcome with a sense of being on hallowed ground. New Englanders have a certain brash sense of self-reliance and confidence which I have always admired. One truth I found that had not changed from the Boston Tea Party was that New Englanders would always accept a person’s right to complain about the government even if their opinion was not the majority. Go to a small school board meeting or city commission meeting in New England and more often than not you will see masterful intense debates.
Today I was saddened to read the opinion section of the Boston Globe called “the Tax man cometh, time and again” from a Scottish immigrant to the United States. First the article to tried to covertly say that the Bible demands we pay taxes and that protesting it is not a Christian thing to do. (Perhaps she should read what Christ said in his Sermon on the Mount about man not being able to serve two masters to the tax man.) The Boston Globe and Margot Livesey, the writer, missed the point that the protest is about having responsible government that reflects the values of the people it serves.
America is going down the wrong road when the newspaper for a city enshrined in American folklore and history has forgotten what America is all about. The liberal press is betting that no one will be protesting in Boston, that no one is watching what the government is doing, that the idea that a few citizens can stand up for what is right is just a story in old history books. If only one person shows up in Boston America still has a chance.
Dr. Tony Magana was raised in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M;University, and holds a doctorate from Harvard University. He has served in the United States Army Reserve. He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
