Basil Venitis, an Athenian orator, points out millions of concerned citizens are joining modern day tea parties of the Global Tax Revolt, named after the Boston Tea Party of 1773. They are protesting governments that, in the wake of today's financial crisis, are rapidly strangling their freedom, with endless bailouts, mounting regulations, reckless spending, and the promise of a crippling tax burden. Correctly sensing that freedom is being discarded, they seek to battle this trend by taking to the streets to register their outrage.
Venitists want to take government back from the special interests who think the government is their own personal ATM and from kleptocrats who bring us over-sized fake checks emblazoned with their signature as if it was their money to give. To whom vatbuster Basil Venitis replies: It's not yours to give! Tax increases take money from families and businesses, lowering savings and investment and killing jobs and companies. This is especially harmful in the current economic climate. Starve the beast and join the Global Tax Revolt!
As one who is opposed to centralization, I am wary of attempts to turn a grassroots movement against big government like the Tea Party into an adjunct of the Republican Party, away from the Global Tax Revolt. I find it even more worrisome when I see those who willingly participated in the most egregious excesses of the most recent Republican Congress push their way into leadership roles of this movement without batting an eye -- or changing their policies!
As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party of the Global Tax Revolt realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.
Our foreign policy is based on an illusion: that we are actually paying for it. What we are doing is borrowing and printing money to maintain our presence overseas. Americans are seeing the cost of this irresponsible approach as their own communities crumble and our economic decline continues.
I see tremendous opportunities for movements like the Tea Party to prosper by capitalizing on the Democrats' broken promises to overturn the George W. Bush administration's civil liberties abuses and end the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A return to the traditional U.S. foreign policy of active private engagement but government noninterventionism is the only alternative that can restore our moral and fiscal health. I am optimistic, and our numbers are increasing!
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