Guest Column: Revised again: Tea Party version of freedom

Revised again: Tea Party version of freedom

I am sick and tired of members of the Tea Party saying that they are for freedom, less government and lower taxes.

Well all that is easy to say, but let’s analyze what they actually want to do. Their No. 1 priority, in their own words, is to protect our borders. Seems reasonable, doesn’t it? But just how do you suppose we do that?

Yes, you guessed it — they want the government to do it, and the president has responded by giving an additional $500 million to border control. I wonder if that is enough to make the radical right wing Tea Party happy. My guess is probably not. They say they are for less government, but their No. 1 issue would require more government.

The Tea Party says they are for reducing the deficit. Sounds pretty good, but how do we do it? At the same time they are calling for reducing the deficit, they are also calling for extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent, which is one of the reasons for the budget deficit to begin with.

You can’t take money out of the government and expect it to run effectively. Doesn’t sound fiscally responsible to me to continue to cut revenue. What business would look at ways to cut revenue? Conservatives always tout their business experience and that government should be run like a business. Well, cutting revenue doesn’t sound like good business principles to me.

Now let’s talk about freedom. Who isn’t for more freedom? I think that this is something every American can relate to. But not so fast — the Tea Party version of freedom isn’t what you think.   In fact, they actually want less freedom for everyone who doesn’t believe the way they do and look they way they do.

Let’s go further. Ask any Tea Party member what they think of the Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero in New York City, and I bet the majority of them will say that they are against it.  But wait, isn’t that infringing on the freedom of religion? Why yes it is, but they don’t care because they don’t really believe in religious freedom unless you are Christian.

I don’t think that jives with the Constitution, but I don’t think they really care. They don’t like Muslims and don’t consider their legitimate rights as Americans and how they are being infringed upon. This whole issue is a religious freedom and Civil Rights issue. They want to take that right, that freedom away from Muslims.

Let’s go even further. They want to repeal the Voting Rights Act which insures that African Americans have the right to vote, the freedom to vote that will never be infringed upon. They want to take that away.

Why? Because they say that it infringes on their rights. How?

Let’s go even further. They want to take away the right of children born in the United States to be American citizens. They want to muddy the water on this issue, calling into question the citizenship of many legal Latin Americans. It’s nothing more than a witch hunt, but in the name of freedom. The 14th Amendment was put in place to protect the rights of people born within our borders, not take them away like the Tea Party wants to do.

The Tea Party is a fraud. What freedoms are they fighting for? What world do they want to create? What do they really hope to achieve?

Anthony D. Hall is president of the Lenoir County Young Democrats and a member of the Lenoir County Board of Health. The opinions of the guest columnist are not necessarily those of The Free Press.