Dear CNN, MSNBC, et al...

You seem confused by our Tea Party movement. Allow me to help you understand.

First, a note about investigative reporting. It is painfully obvious that none of you understand this concept anymore, given your incredibly shallow and vacuous reporting during the last election cycle. Admittedly, back then it would have taken some real effort on your part - Obama and the Chicago Machine are quite adept at keeping secrets. Now, however, all that would be required is listening. We are quite willing to explain, in as much detail as you wish. But apparently that old adage about having one mouth and two ears is lost on your staff.



I guess good reporters are hard to find these days. There's just so much demand in the newspaper industry....oh, no. Sorry.

Well, since there is obviously some breakdown between the citizen and the "journalist," I'll just write the story for you.

These rallies have come to be called Tea Parties. This is a reference to the Boston Tea Party, which was primarily a protest against taxation without representation. They are not called, nor do they have anything to do with, teabagging, which, unbeknownst to most of the rally participants because we live in a more wholesome world than you apparently do, is a co-opting of yet another english word into something far less than wholesome. Were your reporters a bit less perverse, the barely veiled sexual innuendos which have pervaded your reporting on these events might not have made it so difficult for you to understand the true purpose of our gatherings. Judging by the juvenile snickers you are sharing among yourselves as you try to turn our cause into something cheap and tawdry, you obviously have lost your professionalism along with your morals and intellectual curiosity. I find that terribly sad.

Despite the similarity in name, our Tea Parties are not, strictly speaking, tax protests. We do believe that taxes should not be as high as they are, and we certainly do not support the progressive tax code that allows nearly half of our nation's citizens to forego paying any federal taxes whatsoever, even giving millions of them annual personal bailouts from our hard earned dollars. But the vast majority of us are not fortunate enough to be wealthy, and thus are not the primary targets of exhorbitant taxes. Were taxes the only concern, there would be no protests, just as there were no protests during the last eight years.

These protests are about something much more precious and valuable than money.

Most of us have watched in horror throughout our lives as our federal government encroaches more and more on our liberties. It began long before I was born, and even before the New Deal. It has been a continuous onslaught since. We have watched as our "leaders" mount ever larger debts, debts which are our debts, but accrued without our permission. We have written letters, made phone calls, attended town hall meetings and voiced our opposition through the customary channels, respectfully trying to explain to our elected representatives our opposition. We have been ignored.

This is not about any political party. We are as disappointed in President Bush and the Republicans who supported his vast expansion of government as we are any other previous administration.

These are not staged events. We do not have a leader, or a corporate sponsor, or some conservative equivalent of George Soros financing and supporting us, organizing us and exciting us. We do not need those things. You question the authenticity of this grass roots movement - you are wasting your time. I ran into my next door neighbor of nineteen years, at the Tea Party I attended last night. I was astonished to see him there. There was no one going door to door in our neighborhood, passing out flyers to drum up a crowd. There were just similar people, with similar values, who decided that enough is enough. If they won't listen to us when we ask politely, we will turn up the volume.

This is not, strictly speaking, an anti-Obama movement. As the current occupant of the White House, he is necessarily a target of our protests. But if John McCain were the president and the same reckless spending was occurring, we would be every bit as vocal.

This is what happens when millions of people reach the irrevocable conclusion that it doesn't matter anymore who we vote for - both parties have cast aside any respect for the Constitution that we hold dear. We have made a good faith effort to elect people we believed would represent our wishes only to be betrayed time and time again. Now we want to fire almost all politicians and begin anew, without corruption, without people who live only to amass ever more personal power over our lives.

We are not right-wing radicals. Many of us are not even right-wing. What we are is Americans, in the original sense of the word. We learned, and remember, the real history of our country, not the much abridged and politically corrected version that the liberal agenda demands be taught in our schools today. We feel a kinship with the founders of this nation - we have a spark of the adventurer still beating in our souls, and we believe that we, more than any government official or court, are the best judges of what is right and good for us and our families. We - are you sitting down? This may be difficult for you - actually believe the hokey words in our National Anthem about the land of the free and the home of the brave. We believe that the Declaration of Independence still applies, and that the Constitution of the United States is the greatest document ever written and does not have to be "living" to be valid.

We believe that the primary function of the federal government is to stay out of the way. We do not want stimulus dollars, which were our dollars before the government took them from us at the threat of prison. Our version of taking care of us, when applied at the federal level, means maintaining strong armed forces to defend our liberties and defending our borders against those who would enter illegally, for whatever reason.

We do not believe that our medical records are the business of any government agency. We do not believe that those of us who work should be forced to support those who will not. We do not grant the government the right to dictate what kind of car we drive, what kind of food we eat, what kind of toys our children own.

We understand hard times. We know how it feels to want things and not be able to afford them. We have something called discipline, a quality which mandates that we live within our means and not fulfill our every wish instantly if it drives us into debt. We spend our entire lives trying to make a better future for our children and their children, and do not appreciate the complete lack of responsibility which defines our government today. We do not condone deficit spending when we are the owners of the ultimate responsibility for that spending.

Are we arrogant? Absolutely. We have the arrogance of knowing that we are the only people in the history of mankind that have ever gotten it right. We still have our American Dream and understand why this is the only nation on Earth that needs fences to keep people out. We are proud of our accomplishments and refuse to apologize for being more able to create wealth than any other land. We understand that it was the intent of the founders of this country that we have the freedom to fly as high as we are able, and to crash back to earth in spectacular failure if our choices are faulty. We accept full responsibility for the consequences of our actions.

We also understand that the United States of America is the only place on this planet where we can truly experience life as we choose, and that there is no other option for us if we allow our elected officials and unelected judges to change what it means to be an American. We do not wish to overthrow the government by violent means, we wish only to be heard. What you do not understand about us would fill volumes, but the most important point of all is this: We will not relinquish our liberties easily. We would rather die than dance to the demands of a puppetmaster government. We love our country, and countrymen, that much.