The Coffee Party

I saw on Facebook a new group formed called the Coffee Party. The New York Times has a story on it here.

The slogan is “Wake Up and Stand Up.” The mission statement declares that the federal government is “not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges we face as Americans.”

They say this is a response to the Tea Party.

“We’re not the opposite of the Tea Party,” Ms. Park, 41, said. “We’re a different model of civic participation, but in the end we may want some of the same things.”

The author of the article, Kate Zernike states,

The Tea Party argues for stripping the federal government of many of its roles, and that if government has to be involved, it should be mostly state governments.

This is the problem with those who disagree with the ignorant Tea Party people. They have no idea what is being said. The Tea Party is not attempting to strip the Federal government of its role. It is simply calling the government back to its proper role that is specified in the U. S. Constitution. You know. It is that whole silly idea of enumerated powers thing.

This paragraph has to be the most absurd in the article.

“The way I see it,” Ms. Park said, “our government is diseased, but you don’t abandon it because it’s ill. It’s the only body we have to address collective problems. You can’t bound government according to state borders when companies don’t do that, air doesn’t. It just doesn’t fit with the world.”

Ms. Park is clearly ignorant and should run to the Hillsdale College website and watch the videos on the Constitution.

First, the Constitution as framed was designed to enumerate the powers that the Federal government possesses. If it is not spelled out in the Constitution, then Congress does not have the power or authority to do what it wishes.

Second, this person thinks that all levels of government are just one big happy family. That there really is no separation of powers or the fact that the State of (Whatever you pick) is just a part of the imaginary "collective" government. The State of Kansas is no more the government of Arizona than Massachusetts is Florida. Simply because there is an overarching Federal government does not mean that government can do whatever it wants.

Third, what the bleep is this person talking about when she says it just doesn't fit with the world? I am a person who would stand along side with Ronald Reagan's view of government. He did see a proper role of government as we saw in the breaking up of monopolies and siding with the government in certain regulations of food, ect. But the Federal government has the power to regulate interstate commerce as stated in Article 1 Section 8:

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.

Ms. Parks may lament that people just can't work together to pass legislation, but she is assuming we all want the same thing. More importantly, she assumes that we all see government as the solution to reforming health care and the economy and many other things. Many Tea Party people do not want the Federal government nationalizing health care. There is by definition no working together. How does one meet in the middle of polar opposites? Only the post-modernist mind may figure that one out. Do we want a king of sorts or do we want liberty?

Now what does any of this have to do with the Tea Party? Well, members of the Tea Party seem to understand that the Federal Government has no authority to regulate 1/6 of the American economy, health care. The Federal Government is spending Trillions of dollars it doesn't have. There is nothing for Tea Party people to work with. When government ignores its Constitutional role and authority, when government taxes citizens, who are not even born yet, then by definition it is not merely diseased, it must abandon the "democratic process" in favor of its bureaucracies, and be a road block to the liberties of a free people, an "enemy" of sorts.