To My Tea-Partying Republican Friends: YOU are a big part of the problem!

Sorry, but somebody had to say it!

I know you’re frustrated. I know you’re tired of having everything you’ve worked for confiscated every April 15th. I know your intentions are good, and I really don’t fault you for going to the Tea Party, but I also know that come Election Day 2012 you will go into the voting booth and vote for whomever the establishment Republican candidate is at the time. The Republican Party knows this; the Democratic Party knows this. They know that they are in no danger, so they are content to let you have your toothless “protest.”

The whole thing smacks of empty symbolism…a “tempest in a TEA cup,” if you will. Ok, so we have this “protest” and several thousand people show up…then what? You get on a mailing list? You carry a sign for a couple of hours? Then you go home and turn on Rush or Sean or Glenn or Bill or whoever your favorite party hack talking-head is, and you really feel like you’ve done something. Congratulations.

Let’s just admit it: these “protests” are nothing more than backlash from the Obama election. That’s fine too. There is plenty to be mad about when it comes to Obama, but the truth is that America has arrived where it is now over the course of many years, spanning several administrations (Republican and Democrat). All we did in November is trade one socialist party for another. In 1994 the Republican Party gained control of both houses of Congress. In 2000 G.W. Bush was elected to the Presidency. The Supreme Court has been made up of a majority of Republican appointees for a lot longer than that. From 1994 to the end of Bush’s first term, government spending increased 60%. Bush implemented the largest increase in the Welfare State since LBJ. Through the Patriot Act and the Dept. of Homeland Security Bush ran rough-shod over the Constitution and set the stage for folks like us to be declared “domestic terrorists.” Bush implemented the $700 billion “bail-out,” the Morgan Stanley “bail-out,” the AIG “bail-out,” and the Fannie and Freddie “bail-out.” No protests. No TEA parties. No outrage. And then you voted for McCain, who essentially would have been an extension of the Bush administration.

There was a Republican candidate running for President who promised to abolish the IRS, the Income Tax and the Federal Reserve (you know, the central bank that is neither “federal” nor a reserve), and put the dollar back on a gold standard. These things alone would halt the boom/bust cycle that has caused the present depression. His name is Ron Paul. He’s getting a lot more air time lately. You may get another chance to vote for a real conservative, free-market, liberty minded American. If you do, take the opportunity; you’ll love the liberating experience of actually doing something. Until then, educate yourself. Visit Lew Rockwell’s excellent site every day. Listen to the podcasts (they are only about 20 minutes long). They are starkly different from the junk you're hearing on Fox or from Rush. Check out Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty organization. Subscribe to their email lists. Learn what liberty is all about, and forget the neo-con Republican Party counterfeit that we’ve been sold for so long. Contact Dr. Greg Dixon and ask to receive the Trumpet newsletter. Find out if your church is a free church, or a government subsidized corporation.

This is my point: if all this amounts to is going to a rally or saying to the world "I'm really ticked off about all these taxes," and then going back home and continuing to do exactly the same thing, it's worthless. Do something real for a change. It may cost us something, as it did our Founding Fathers. Is liberty worth it? They thought so. They pledged their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor" in the cause of liberty. We must do no less.

Ultimately though, there is no political solution. As the name of this blog suggests, the Bible is the sole authority. The reason that the original Tea Party in Boston was such a catalyst for liberty is that the Colonies were on the heels of the Great Awakening in which multitudes of people had been born-again through personal faith in Jesus Christ. Prior to that awakening the established denominations espoused a form of godliness but they denied the power of the gospel--the new birth. As these people experienced true salvation, they became citizens of another Kingdom and subjects of the King: King Jesus. They took the admonition of scripture "we ought to obey God rather than men" seriously and refused to render unto Caesar what rightly belonged to God. American Christianity in our day has become like the Laodicean church: poor and miserable and blind and wretched and naked, all the while claiming great riches. Many of the things we protest about: high taxes, crippling debt, being over-run by aliens from other countries, heavy-handed government, having our people dying on foreign battle-fields, and so on are all signals of God's displeasure and judgment upon a nation.

If you claim that Jesus Christ is your Saviour, examine yourself to see if you really have experienced biblical salvation (2 Corinthians 13:5, John 3:3). Then make sure you are a fruitful member of a Bible-believing church through which you can serve Jesus Christ and evangelize those around you. Then, stop rendering unto Caesar the obedience that belongs to God.