Parties of A Different Kind

Parties of A Different Kind - ALAN KEYES
Loyal to Liberty ^ | Monday, April 20, 2009 | Alan Keyes

Posted on 04/20/2009 9:27:30 AM PDT by EternalVigilance

Yesterday I returned home at the end of a week of travel and speechifying that took me to several Tea Party events, starting with the April 11th gathering in Pittsburgh posted previously, and continuing on to Washington, D.C.(April 15), across from the Treasury Building and the White House. I also spoke at events in Hazleton, Pennsylvania (April 15) and Fort Wayne, Indiana (April 18). Contrary to the hate filled slanders being perpetrated by the character assassins in Obama's servile media claque, the people I met were not racists or greed driven rich people; nor were they phony throngs fabricated by Republican media hacks. What impressed me most about them, in fact, was that they are not mainly driven by selfish fears and desires, clamoring against some real or imagined harm being done to themselves alone. The present economic situation of the country, and the orgy of debt financed spending in Washington certainly precipitated their involvement in the rallies, but the predominant reaction was one of angry and indignant shame over the oppressive burden it implies for their children and grandchildren, future generations whose representatives were plentiful in all the crowds.

At the rallies I addressed, the attendees responded with cheers and applause to denunciations of the greedy bankers and self-serving politicians whose dereliction helped produce the financial crisis that provides the excuse for abusively squandering the faith and credit of the American people. But they also gave sober and heartfelt affirmation to words that laid a fair share of the blame at their own feet- as members of what is supposed to be the sovereign body of the people of the United States. In their response to such clearly reproachful words, and in many of the comments they made to me afterward, people shared their feeling of shame that somehow, through their inaction, indifference or preoccupation they had failed to understand and act against what has been happening to our country, with all the misery it implies for their posterity.

Though the economic implications of the skyrocketing national debt helped to trigger this shame, at bottom it seemed to reflect a sense that moral decay is killing America's liberty and prosperity. Though many media figures and self-serving political types have articulated mainly money focused outrage, the people I spoke to, and the homemade signs many of them carried to the rallies, focused on the threats to our constitution and form of government. They pointed to the need for the restoration of moral standards and self-discipline. They fervently expressed the truth that the strength of America comes from our faith in God, not in government or even in ourselves alone.

I doubt that the rallies, or the state of mind clear in the people who organized and attended them, gave unequivocal encouragement to partisan hacks, seeking to exploit the situation for narrow political ends.