Hot Tea Or Cold Tea?

[Sovereign]

Some people say the "Tea Party" is nothing but a bunch of genteel people with "new" ideas about how the country should be run. Others think it is getting completely out of hand, a la this.

While what they're doing is legal as far as I can tell, their logic is contorted at best. George W. Bush's policies continue to this day in the form of warrant-less wiretapping, FISA court bypasses, extraordinary rendition and "the War on Terrorism" in general. Somehow, these people seem to be more riled up by a health-care bill than anything else.

I just see this as extraordinarily hypocritical. Where were they when the PATRIOT ACT passed? The federal government could demand to see, for example, what books you were checking out of the library (on the grounds that they might find potential lone-wolf terrorists through their reading habits) and your librarian couldn't even say whether the feds had been by or not. In other words, you cannot contest the surveillance, lawful or not, because you cannot prove it happened. I feel like that is far more invasive than any health-care bill.

As long as they just parade around like five-year-olds playing army I don't care--they're within their rights (if a bit creepy to me). But as soon as they incite violence or harm someone, God help them when the real Army comes in and kicks their butts with all that expensive war material we've been buying.

If it makes them feel "safer," fine, but if the implication is that the government needs to be removed through force, that's a whole other story. I find it interesting that there has been a large (at least in terms of reports) uptick in "anti-government" and "gov needs to go" rhetoric now, as opposed to earlier, and that many of these people complain Obama hasn't ended some of Bush's policies. Policies are, just like the institutions they represent, hard to change. Sometimes, they might be useful as distasteful as they sound, hence the administration keeps them on hand (I think Karl Rove said something to that effect).

We have elections. Use them. If anyone out there is going to contend that the situation is so extraordinary that we need to not only remove the politicians but be ready to physically resist something they can't even put into words beyond vague rhetoric, then I'd love to hear the justification.