Introduction
The Declaration of Tea Party Independence found below was originally written by Messrs. MacGuffie and Stark, who you might recognize as the authors of both The Seventh Crisis and numerous articles on this site, most recently on the Deep State flexing its muscles. In it, they lay out the general vision of the Tea Party, which sought to restore liberty, preserve America’s Founding Values, and reject the yoke of servitude placed on the American people by both the left and RINOs. The Declaration, released anonymously and to great acclaim, was highly influential and, in effect, defined the Tea Party movement and its goals.
Looking back at this Declaration of Tea Party Independence is important for two reasons.
The first is that it defines what patriots generally mean when they say that they are fighting for liberty. Their points on capitalism, government control, the corrupt Washington swamp, and numerous other topics all are excellent and the values that we must fight for if the America we love is to be preserved.
The second reason, however, is that point five shows why the Tea Party was less successful than it otherwise could have been. In that point, the authors reject the idea of a leader of the Tea Party. While a good idea in theory, in my opinion that set it up for a lack of political success after the elections of 2010.
Every movement needs a leader around which it can rally, especially when it faces enemies as numerous and dangerous as the ones faced by the liberty movement. Roman liberty would have perished sooner without Cinncinatus, American liberty would have been snuffed out without George Washington, and Europe would have fallen under the darkness of Nazi rule without Winston Churchill acting as liberty’s champion. While we Americans should and do distrust “men on a white horse,” such men are sometimes needed because they and only they can push through the obstacles arrayed against the movement they fight for. The Great Man theory of history exists for a reason: great men are necessary.
And without them our movement will flounder. Because the Tea Party had no leader, Mitt Romney the RINO was the GOP candidate in 2012. Could we really do no better than him? Hopefully, there is someone in America better than a corporate raider turned fake Republican politician! Had the Tea Party coalesced around such a man, perhaps this Declaration would have been put into practice all those years ago.
So, read this Declaration of Tea Party Independence and learn from it. The ideals in it made a movement incredibly popular, but the lack of a leader for that movement led to the enemies of liberty winning victories that they should not have, namely the 2012 election. We must stand for liberty, but we must also find champions of that liberty and the movement that is fighting for it.
Declaration of Tea Party Independence
I. As the course of human events winds its way through History, it has found some paths lead to Tyranny and some to Liberty. In seeking a path to Liberty, a great and powerful movement is now rising from every corner of our land. Created by the Will of the American People, it rejects unconstitutional domination by the Government that is supposed to be its servant. This movement has arisen, in large part, because our elected officials have failed us.
For much of its history the United States has been a land of prosperity and liberty, sound policies such as fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and a belief in the free market have safeguarded this condition. In recent years however, Congress, the President, the Federal Reserve Board and the Courts have replaced those practices with profligate government spending and expansion of the government power beyond what is
constitutionally permissible.
This course, if not reversed, can only lead to economic collapse and tyranny.
Therefore, Individuals acting through the Tea Party Movement, seek to restore the policies, which are proven to safeguard liberty and prosperity for all. We will organize, demonstrate and vote until this restoration has been achieved. We will stay focused on this goal and remain INDEPENDENT from any persons or political parties who seek to distract us from this end.
Many seek to define this Movement, to use it, to lead it, to co-opt it, to channel it, to control it, to defeat it.
WE WILL NOT LET THIS HAPPEN.
The Tea Party Movement is in agreement with our Founders that the government that governs least governs best. We believe that Capitalism – NOT GOVERNMENT – is essential to the creation of wealth and a vastly reduced government provides the foundation for a thriving Capitalist system.
The Tea Party Movement of America embraces and serves people of all races, creeds, religions, and political affiliations, and we declare ourselves to be independent of all those forces that seek to manipulate our actions or control our destiny.
II. We Declare ourselves INDEPENDENT of the Democrat Party and its power drunk junta in Washington DC, which is currently seeking to impose a Socialist agenda on our Republic.
We reject arrogant Left-wing politicians who furtively hide from public scrutiny, as they cut corrupt deals loaded with earmarks and pork in order to produce 2000 page pieces of legislation so purposely incomprehensible, they do not even bother to read them before foisting them upon us.
We reject the endless creation of myriad federal government agencies that drown free enterprise and local control in the swarms of education, energy, ecology, and commerce bureaucrats who style themselves “czars” sent to harass us. We reject the creation of federal government regulations and agencies which demand the States pay for unfunded Federal mandates.
We reject a Democrat Party which refuses to give credence to our demands for just redress of grievances and which insults and seeks to demonize our legal right to peacefully protest the unjust laws it inflicts upon us.
We reject a profligate Government that is spending TRILLIONS of dollars on worthless socialist schemes designed to bankrupt us and put the American people in a position of dependence on the State, as peasants begging for their very sustenance from self-styled “educated classes” and so-called “experts”.
We reject a foreign policy which bows and scrapes and apologizes before the world for America.
We reject an Attorney General of the United States who offers succor and rights to vicious terrorist murderers and seeks to protect them with a mock civilian trial when such enemy combatants, captured on the field of battle, should be tried in secure military courts.
We reject the claims of an un-elected Federal Judiciary to violate the separation of powers by demanding its decisions be enforced by the other coequal branches of government, regardless of how unconstitutional the other branches of government may think those decisions are.
We reject all acts that ignore or diminish the 2nd and 10th Amendments to the US Constitution and we seek to have all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution to be reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
III. We Declare ourselves INDEPENDENT of the Republican Party, which has in the past manipulated its Conservative Base to win election after election and which then betrays everything that Base fought for and believed.
We reject the idea that the electoral goals of the Republican Party are identical to the goals of the Tea Party Movement or that this Movement is an adjunct to the Republican Party.
We reject the Republican Party professionals who now seek to use the Tea Party Movement for their corrupt and narrow political purposes.
We acknowledge that standing on our principles does not mean throwing out our common sense; we will NOT abandon our principles in the name of a nonexistent bipartisanship or a misguided devotion to an illusion of “pragmatism”, which disguises a desire to betray us in its name.
We reject the scare tactics of the Republican Party, which seeks to herd us into voting for candidates who supposedly represent the “lesser of two evils” in the name of fealty to the principle of small government and then having to suffer such candidates as they betray that principle. We are not well served by parasites whose livelihoods depend on the very State whose power to reward or sanction we elected them to limit and proscribe.
We insist that the Tea Party Movement does NOT consider the election of Republicans in and of itself to be necessarily beneficial to our goals.
We demand the Republican Party understand that we reject its attempts to co-opt us.
WE WILL WORK AGAINST THEM when they oppose our views by trying to force Republicans In Name Only (RINO) on us. When Republicans are in accord with their Conservative Base as well as the Independent voters who align with it, IT WINS; when they are NOT in accord with the Conservative Base and the Independent voters who align with it, IT LOSES.
We reject RINO money; we reject RINO “advice”; we reject RINO “professional experience”; we reject RINO “progressivism”; we reject RINO support of Big Government; we reject RINO back room deal making; we reject RINO pork spending; we reject false RINO professions of Conservative views and we reject the RINO’s statist subversion of the principles of small government for which the Republican Party is supposed to stand.
Republican Party attempts to ignore the will of the Base, as it did in 1976, 1992, 1996, 2006 and 2008, resulted in disaster; when it embraces the will of the Base, as it did in 1980, 1984 and 1994, it wins historic victories.
We demand the Republican Party recognize that while the Tea Party Movement cannot guarantee their aid will help them win elections, it is very likely WE CAN MAKE THEM LOSE if they are disdainful of our goals.
IV. We Declare ourselves INDEPENDENT of the Media, which has proved itself to be anything BUT a fair and balanced enterprise and which focuses more on entertainment, fear mongering and shock value than investigation and unbiased fact.
We reject the fiction that an unbiased media still exists; there is friendly media and there is unfriendly ENE-media. The Tea Party Movement refuses to give false credence to the self-aggrandizing, self-deluding lie that ANY PART of the Fourth Estate is free of the self-serving agendas of those who own them.
V. We Declare ourselves INDEPENDENT of self-styled “leaders” who claim to speak for the Tea Party Movement. This movement is not a brand name to be used to sell product; nor is it a logo to be used to justify profiting off its name.
We reject those who seek to personally capitalize on our popularity and momentum by trying to associate with our cause.
We reject the idea that the Tea Party Movement is “led” by anyone other than the millions of average citizens who make it up. The Tea Party Movement understands that as a Free People, we need to SAVE OURSELVES, BY OURSELVES, FOR OURSELVES.
The Tea Party Movement is not “led.” The Tea Party Movement LEADS.
VI. We are united in our common belief in Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets. This threefold purpose is the source of our unity in the Tea Party Movement.
We reject the idea that the Tea Party Movement must all be unanimous in our specific policy views in order to win. We recognize that the current situation requires we come together in confederation to achieve the MANY MUTUAL GOALS we all seek to accomplish.
We recognize that the current situation requires that we concentrate on the many things we have in common rather than those few things about which we may disagree.
We are the Tea Party Movement of America and we believe in American Exceptionalism.
We believe that American Exceptionalism is found in its devotion to the cause of Liberty.
We believe that Liberty is based in rational self-interest, in freedom of thought, in free markets, free association, free speech, a free press and the ability granted us under the Constitution TO DIRECT OUR OWN AFFAIRS FREE OF THE DICTATES OF AN EVER EXPANDING FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WHICH IS AS VORACIOUS IN ITS DESIRE FOR POWER AS IT IS INCOMPETENT AND DANGEROUS IN ITS EXERCISE.
We believe that either fate or history has chosen this Country to be a beacon of freedom and prosperity to the whole world because of America’s belief in and vigorous defense of political and economic Liberty. The United States has been the instrument of Liberty against the many tyrannies that have threatened the people of this world.
The Tea Party Movement rejects the idea that America has to apologize to a far guiltier world that has been largely unappreciative of the sacrifices made on their behalf by the brave and noble members of our Armed Forces, whose sacrifice and patriotic service in our defense makes all else possible.
The Tea Party Movement rejects the imposition of “transformational change” performed on our Nation by smug elites who call themselves the “educated class”.
The Tea Party Movement understands that our Nation is NOT the same thing as our government and that America is much more than simply a militarily and economically powerful State.
The Tea Party Movement sees America as something exceptional, as something unique, as something that came into existence to fulfill the hope of all previous generations that longed for freedom.
It came into existence because it is more than simply a country with land and population and riches and armaments. America came into existence because LIBERTY is an eternal concept in the mind of both God AND Man.
The United States of America came into existence because Mankind needs freedom the same way it needs food and air and property and security and love.
And what is freedom other than the RIGHT to be free of the tyranny of Government and the elitist, self-styled aristocrats who seek to run it at our expense and to our detriment?
The Tea Party Movement will fight this danger to our Liberty as long as its members have breath in their bodies.
When America didn’t exist men and women were compelled to invent it, BECAUSE MANKIND CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT FREEDOM AND STILL BE FULLY HUMAN.
To this goal we mutually pledge to each other, as our Founding Fathers did over two centuries ago, our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
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For what it is/was worth? I was there.
(Obama Bows and Atlas Shrugs… I thought it was very clever.)