Successful Tea Party Movement Must Include Pro-Life Issues, Not Just Economy

LifeNews.com Note: Tom Glessner is a pro-life attorney who is the president of NIFLA, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates. NIFLA is an organization with more than 1,200 affiliated pregnancy centers that provides legal, medical and practical help for pregnancy centers across the country.

Political change is blowing in the wind but it is not the change promised by Barack Obama when he ran for the presidency. For sure, Obama has brought political change to the nation, but his transformational policies have meant bigger government, higher taxes, federal subsidies of abortion on demand, and greater governmental control over the lives of American citizens.

Hundreds of thousands of citizens across the nation have raised their voices to protest Obama’s policies of change. They are crying out for a different change that will honor the integrity of each individual and create an atmosphere where true liberty in all spheres of life – economic, cultural, and spiritual- reigns. Political pollsters are now predicting a huge seismic shift in the political landscape this November. The recent Glenn Beck sponsored rally in Washington D.C., attended by thousands upon thousands of grass roots activists, indicates that this public outcry of protest is real and powerful.

The Tea Party movement is comprised of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents from all walks of life. The political ruling elite, the corporate world, and the media have completely failed to comprehend this populist movement dismissing it as marginal, extreme and even racist. However, this movement is not composed of ignorant and bigoted individuals, as suggested by the political class. Rather, it is an authentic grassroots movement of thoughtful and patriotic people demanding real change from an out-of-touch political establishment.

The Tea Party movement, for the most part, centers its protest on economic issues and concern about the loss of freedom that an ever-growing federal government brings. These concerns are valid and appropriate. Most leaders of this movement also believe in the sanctity of life and the need to halt the wholesale destruction of innocent human life through abortion and other life related issues such as embryonic stem cell research. However, many in the Tea Party movement have made it clear that while they are sympathetic with the pro-life cause, the abortion issue is not formally part of the Tea Party agenda.

Economic issues are a vital concern; as is the growing size of the federal government and its overreaching into the lives of ordinary citizens. The overwhelming burden of excess regulation and taxation upon businesses and individuals is alarming. In the same manner, however, the killing of 1.25 million unborn children annually from abortion must be a grave concern. Accordingly, a failure by the Tea Party to incorporate the serious pro-life concerns of millions of Americans into its agenda will be fatal to achieving success.

Perhaps, the Tea Party should take a lesson from the old fashioned three-legged milking stool. When I was a child I visited my aunt and uncle on their dairy farm and was intrigued watching my uncle milk the cows while sitting on a three-legged stool. I asked him why he used such a funny chair to milk the cows. He explained that a four-legged chair can be unbalanced if one of its legs is a different length than the others and it could even tip over if you leaned backwards. A three-legged stool, on the other hand, balances evenly and won't tip over even if one of its legs is longer

We should learn something from the old-fashioned milking stool. There are three legs to a successful agenda that will change America for the better. Each leg is critical and the current grassroots movement for change in America will collapse if any of these legs is ignored. These legs are:

1) Revival of the Economy: This leg requires the establishment a strong robust economy that creates full employment and does not burden small businesses with taxes and oppressive regulations that hinder job development. Limited government and reduced taxation are at the core and are necessary to bring the nation out of the serious economic recession/depression in which we find ourselves.

2) Maintaining a Strong National Defense and Protecting Homeland Security: This leg requires a serious commitment by the government to win the war on terror and protect our country’s border from those who would illegally enter and do us harm.

3) Protecting the Family Unit and Restoring the Right to Life for All: The social issues – protecting the sanctity of marriage and restoring the right to life – are issues of equal importance. Millions of Americans, including myself, have placed these issues at the top of the priority list for the next generation of political leaders to seriously address.

To date, while it appears that most Tea Party leaders verbally support all three legs of this “milk stool” some, such as Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, assert that the social issues (and specifically abortion and the right to life) must take a back seat to the other two legs, which are seen as more important.

A further example of this viewpoint was shown in a recent interview of Sarah Palin with Sean Hannity of Fox News. Gov. Sarah Palin, a committed pro-life leader, was asked to name the top five issues facing the country today and the deaths of 1.25 million unborn annually from abortion was not on her list. If, indeed, this is the approach a new Congress takes after the November mid-term elections, then the agenda of the Tea Party movement will fail.

America must be forewarned. A nation that fails to protect the lives of its most vulnerable members has set a course for itself that will lead to its eventual destruction from within. The killing of future generations through the act of abortion has already taken a toll on the demographical future of the nation and the Western world. Unless this trend is stopped then, notwithstanding the impact of the Tea Party movement, our culture and nation will have effectively committed suicide.

The invention of the three-legged milking stool was truly ingenious. Will the current populist movement for change understand this and formally incorporate the life issues into its agenda? Time will tell and the future of America hangs in the balance.

I just ran into Zanton and here is his mission statement. Maybe it’s gogogodzilla’s world view. Classic “If everything was all different, everything would be all different!” pie in the sky fantasy that could never ever be the way they imagine it to be.

I’m a classical liberal, libertarian, Objectivist, and beyond. I’m also an intellectually fearless free-thinker and truth-seeker. I believe in aiming at individual happiness and personal greatness above all else. I also think life is a wonderous gift to be Enjoyed and Celebrated at all times! :-)

My fundamental viewpoint about pretty much everything can be described as “pure liberalism.” This philosophy is based upon the best and truest of the traditional liberal cultures of Greece, Rome, Europe, and America (all sadly defunct). It’s also based upon the best and truest of the avant-garde theories of Austrian economics, libertarian politics, and Objectivist philosophy.

This New Liberalism, as I teach it, is the general philosophy, or the family of philosophies, which is essentially based upon:

(1) the epistemology of reason, rationality, logic, and science;

(2) the metaphysics of physicality, mathematics, physics, mechanics, materialism, and empiricism;

(3) the personal ethics of individualism, self-interest, and private happiness;

(4) the social ethics of non-tyranny, non-criminality, honesty, compassion, comradship, and social utopia;

(5) the domestic politics of: freedom, justice, and individual rights; of life, liberty, property, and privacy; of security, safety, free will, and persuit of happiness;

(6) the foreign policy of: libertarianism, free exchange, minimal aid, isolationism, non-interference and yet rescue and liberation, peace and yet justice; of non-appeasement, non-collaboration, non-diplomatic recognition, and non-moral sanction of foreign tyranny;

(7) the economics of capitalism, free enterprise, free trade, and laissez-faire;

(8) the sociology of the brotherhood of man, empathy, live-and-let-live, non-fraud, and frank directness;

(9) the esthetics of vivacity, dynamism, and heroism;

(10) the spirituality of the sublime, transcendent, infinite, and great.

Understanding and practicing these liberal values is the key to social paradise and personal joy — to the good life for all.

Check me out at www.youtube.com/ClassicalLiberalFire!

Here it is:

http://www.tvpnc.org/

Hmm, can’t copy and paste their 12 Visions, but they are so entertaining that I will type ‘em up! The site is insanely wordy and does have the “sampling too much product” vibe...

Vision One: Become the Person You Were Meant To Be

[I am already am, thank you very much!]

Vision Two: Live the Life You Were Meant To Live

[Happening as we speak, thank you!]

Vision Three: Feel Extraordinary Every Day

[Ahem - that will be in the Kingdom of God in eternity, not in this world, fool!]

Vision Four: Slow Down Aging Permanently

[Hmm - cryonetics, or that thing where they freeze your head?]

Vision Five: Land the Job of Your Dreams

[You mean everyone can do this? No one will ever be disappointed ever again?]

Vision Six: Build the Business of Your Passions

[Is this in connection with legalized porn?]

Vision Seven: Experience the Love of Your Life

[A political party slash dating website? Or maybe the legalized prostituion...?]

Vision Eight: Have the Body You’ve Always Envied

[Free plastic surgery for everyone?]

Vision Nine: Become a Genius of Society

[They’re going to kill all the stupid people or what? Brain implants?]

Vision Ten: Have Everything You Ever Wanted
(Via the free-to-soar geniuses and super-techonologies)

[Now we’re cooking with gas! Invent your own reality - wheeeee!]

Vision Eleven: Ride a Prosperity Wave to Riches
(Via falling prices and soaring buying power)

[But won’t the people who sell stuff really cheap get the short end of the stick? Or this is a world where sticks only have one end, that’s it!]

Vision Twelve: Enjoy Nearly Perfect Health
(Via soaring medical technologies and falling prices)

[Come one, “Nearly”? That’s not good enough! They don’t get MY vote!]

Extremely creepy - reminds me of some horrible New Age positive thinking seminar friends dragged me to in the early 80s once. Skin crawlinging sickening.

The moral issues are what's destroying this country. You can pass all the laws you want cutting spending and reducing taxes. If too many of the people are irresponsible, dishonest, and degenerate, you can't have a republic.

So tell me, exactly what do these characteristics have to do with abortion? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Not every irresponsible, dishonest degenerate (as you've named them) has had an abortion or is pro-abort.

Exactly why does the pro-life movement feel the need to hijack the Tea Party movement? Could it be because the pro-life movement is jealous of the attention the Tea Party movement has received?

I'd say yes, and I say that as a staunchly pro-life, pro-fiscally responsible Conservative.

The minute you hijack the Tea Party, BOTH movement's messages are distorted, diminished and blurred, and NO ONE wins. I want both messages to win in the court of public opinion which is why I object to the hijacking of the Tea Party movement by us Pro-Lifers, so as not to diminish the message of each movement.

That's fact.

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