The Distractions of Myth

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Patrick Henry never opined between "liberty" and "death", Paul Revere was just one among many, and contrary to the Tea Party's patriotic raptures, America's betrayal did not start with Obama. It began at its founding.

The New England farmers who threw off British rule years before the battles of Lexington and Concorde soon realized the ideals they had fought and died for were not shared by the wealthy Federalists who expressed their gratitude at being freed from British taxes by keeping their fellow Americans mired in debt. It took a second peasant eruption, the Shays Rebellion, for Madison to convince the moneyed elite that to share a "common vision" the new republic needed (at least a pro-forma) Bill of Rights.

Jefferson viewed the uprising with approving condescension: "a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."

So where are the anti-Federalists in the big-business-corporate-funded "Tea Party"?

But there lies the rub. Wherever aggrieved interests are perceived to align comes the tug between anarchy and the corrosive power of the status quo. Rather than protesting the size of government, these would-be libertarians should be demanding a repeal of corporate personhood, non-partisan elections and publicly funded campaigns. Instead we are treated to the absurd spectacle of a pair of millionaire grifters invoking the vision of Martin Luther King Jr. to protest the evil notion that every American should have the right to affordable health care.