There is no possible contesting it: The IRS must be abolished

The Founding Fathers would "repent in Heaven" - as John Adams threatened those early Americans - if they could see the country they founded and what has come to light in the past few days.

If anybody can tender any argument whatsoever in defense of the Internal Revenue Service, I for one wish to hear what it is.

I am not a conspiracy theorist but hey, whaddya know: the conspiracy theorists were right all along.  The United States Federal Government really has been spying on the dissidents, the disaffected and those who want less intrusion into their private lives.  Add in how the government has also been found to have been spying on Associated Press journalists and then the whole mess about Benghazi (which cost lives, mind you) and only an idiot would deny that We The People are no longer in charge and that our own government has become a colossal, reprehensible beast.

Audits.  Threats.  Intimidation.  Favoritism toward political allies.  Cover-ups.  Seizing millions of private individuals' medical records.  Bullying a conservative education group to turn over the names of high school and college students.  Not even Billy Graham's ministry has proven safe from the IRS.

Our forefathers went to war with England for far, far less than this.  They bought our liberty with their blood.  Too many of them paid the price for a freedom they knew they would never know but wanted their children and their children's children to have.

We owe their memory better than this.

Yes, Mr. Adams.  The time has come to repent in Heaven.  The government which you and Jefferson and Franklin and Washington and Madison and Morris and Calhoun and the rest gave us, doesn't exist anymore.  We had a republic and we couldn't keep it.

And now we have a "government" of thugs with all the mentality of street hoodlums, or a Mafia family.  Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano...

They may have been elected, but they are not leaders.  They aren't my leaders, anyway.  They are, at most, glorified gangsters.  Albeit gangsters with their very own Gestapo.  And lots and lots of bullets (which we still haven't been given an adequate explanation for).

The Founding Fathers never would have entertained the notion of a government agency empowered to intimidate and threaten and confiscate the property of the people of the United States... much less approved of one!

So here's how I see it as things stand tonight...

Either the Internal Revenue Service is abolished for good, obliterated totally and its entire structure laid waste.  Or, there can be no more confidence and trust that We The People can place with our own government.

This is our Runnymede, folks.  King Obama Lackland needs to be dragged kicking and screaming to the pasture and told in no uncertain terms "you've gone mad with power, John.  Now sign on the dotted line and get the hell out of our way."

Say what one will for all his faults, but at least King John had enough sense to comprehend what the barons were telling him.  But then again John didn't have mega-sized computer databases, airborne drones and a secret police at his beck and call.

Either the IRS goes, and with it all its power and authority (which there is considerable evidence it was never meant to have to begin with), or there is no longer any pretending that we are living in a free nation of the people, by the people, and for the people.  There will be only government for the sake of government.

That is not the country I want my children to grow up in.

And you shouldn't want it either.

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How the Tea Party is being co-opted by those it's fighting against

In his latest essay "A Warning To The Tea Party Nation", Chuck Baldwin signals both profound encouragement about the Tea Party movement... and a caution about how it is being quietly taken over by the very sort that the Tea Party began in opposition to.

Here's a clip, beginning with a comparison to the "Republican Revolution" of 1994...

Spurred mostly by the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, a host of young, energetic freshman Republicans marched into Washington, D.C., determined to return a burgeoning and out-of-control federal leviathan to the constitutional precepts of limited government. I'm talking about then-freshman House members such as Helen Chenoweth, Steve Largent, Bob Barr, Joe Scarborough, Sonny Bono, John Shadegg, J.C. Watts, etc. These young conservatives went to Washington, D.C., determined to reduce the growth and size of the federal government.

The vehicle used to transport these young conservatives from grassroots activism to US House and Senate seats was the highly touted "Contract with America" (CWA), which was orchestrated by House Speaker-to-be, Newt Gingrich. The CWA included a promise to the American people that if they would give the GOP a majority in Congress, they would eliminate up to 5 federal departments--such as the Departments of Energy and Education--and many federal agencies.

Obviously, not only did the GOP-controlled Congress not eliminate a single federal department or agency--or even shrink the size of the federal government at all--it expanded the size and scope of the federal government at every level. And there is one reason for it: Big Government neocons posing as champions of conservatism co-opted and destroyed the Conservative Revolution of 1994.

If one wants to put names to these treasonous wretches (and I do), I'm talking about charlatans such as Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. Anyone who thinks that Newt Gingrich is a real conservative or that he will do anything to reduce the size and scope of the federal government needs to speak with any of those Republican members of the freshman class of 1994. (Sadly, too, some of the members of that great freshman class went on to become Big Government toadies themselves. Such is the power of that Putrid Province by the Potomac.)

The Tea Parties of 2010 remind me very much of the Conservative Revolution of 1994. And if the Tea Party Nation is not very careful, they will succumb to the same fate. The signs of a silent takeover of the movement are already appearing.

My gut feeling is that we're going to be watching the Tea Party wax brilliantly throughout 2010 and it's going to no doubt be a factor in winning a bunch of seats in Congress for the GOP. And then come this time in 2011 the Tea Party will be a fast-fading memory: its purpose as a ready-made vehicle for the Republicans fulfilled. That's if the Tea Party continues to make the mistake of hitching its wagon to "stars" like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and the like. The Tea Party is supposed to be a movement about an idea: that government must be limited by the Constitution in deed as well as in word. That's a different thing than being led around by ideologists who have proven well enough that they have not this country's best interests in mind.

On a related note, my good friend Danny de Garcia II out of the Big Island of Hawaii has in the past 12 hours started up what he calls a "conservative splinter" faction of the Tea Party...

The Coffee Party is born! Here's the official (well as official as a political party less than half a day old) description of the Coffee Party...

The TEA Party has been hijacked by big government, pro-globalist, pro-finance oligarch, pro-war, pro-police state, anti-liberty candidates and spokespeople who are interested only in putting the American people BACK TO SLEEP with their tranquilizing chamomile tea of propaganda.

We on the other hand are awake, we realize that the TEA Party movement began with a distrust of big government, a desire to repeal the USA Patriot Act, to end the Federal Reserve, to stop the illegal wars and to return America to a land of the people, by the people and for the people. Americans drink coffee more than their British cousins because after the Boston Tea Party, they learned to live without Tea. Well, it's time to switch from the tainted TEA and get a dose of reality.

The TEA Party was fathered by men like Ron Paul who believed in a return to the Bill of Rights and Constitution, not phonies who want to expand the powers of the state. Now, "TEA Party" candidates are opposing Ron Paul and others and replacing the message with a false revival that promotes totalitarianism. As any REAL conservative knows, our question is not one of left or right, but up or down - up to liberty, or down to the ash heap of liberty. Join the Coffee Party!

I love it! :-) And if you want to join the Coffee Party too, here's the Coffee Party's page on Facebook. I was member #6 ("I am not a number, I am a free man!!") 'Twould be great if this thing cracked double or even triple digits by the end of the weekend! :-)

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The unique populism of the Tea Party movement

The biggest problem I've had with the Tea Party thing is that I can't but think that I've seen this many times before already. Specifically, a bunch of well-meaning citizens who come together in common cause against government corruption and the like, only to see their collective energy peter out and their efforts assimilated by a bigger political machine.

But having read Larrey Anderson's essay at American Thinker about the Tea Party movement, I'm now compelled to reconsider my position. Or at least, I now feel more confident about giving the Tea Party more of a fair chance to prove itself. The difference between it and previous efforts, as Anderson notes, is that in defiance of the many flavors of opinion held by those active within the Tea Party movement, there is a very common regard for the Constitution that is uniting them...

The Tea Party is a unique populist movement and moment in American history. There is no charismatic leader of the party. The Tea Party has more grassroots movers, shakers, and members than any other populist movement ever seen in our country. So what makes it so different from previous populist political factions?

"Populism" is a vague political concept. There have been populist (and wannabe populist) political movements on the left, on the right, and even in the middle (wherever that is) in the history of American politics. None of the movements were particularly successful -- and many of them were outright scams.

(snip)

So what makes the Tea Party different? I have attended several local Tea Party gatherings (and addressed a couple of them). There is one document that is ubiquitous at these events: the Constitution for the United States of America[iii]. People hand out copies of the Constitution like hors d'oeuvres that are served at...a de rigueur tea party.

I especially like how Anderson notes that the Tea Party does not need a charismatic leader or spokesperson. Indeed, it would almost certainly work against the Tea Party's favor if it were to invest in such a person.

I've thought for the longest time that the most refreshing thing that could possibly happen in American politics is for the average citizen to stand and take the initiative on his or her own. If the Tea Party earnestly represents that and can continue to buck the status quo, then I couldn't help but applaud it.

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