Community Voices: The Tea Party Experi(ence)ment

 Barack Obama signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act at the White House Español: Barack Obama firmando la Ley de Protección al Paciente y Cuidado de Salud Asequible en la Casa Blanca (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Mario Rivas

For quite a while now it seems we’ve gotten hit with what I would phrase as the Tea Party experiment-experience.  You see, I’m a student of public administration and a combat veteran of the Iraq War.  I know all too well that trying to turn a ship the size of the U.S. government is not easy.  Perhaps it’s my military background that has thought that if a ship is broken you find a way to fix it.  But what some members of Congress, the Tea Party nuts, are trying to do is not just turn a ship or fix one but crash it into the rocks. 

Lately, under the leadership of the Republicans and their Tea Party lunatics, we, as a nation have hit new lows.  As if the sequester wasn’t bad enough. We’ve had to witness the shutting down of everything from national parks to the IRS and the furlough of over 400,000 government workers.  Even worse, is the unfortunate news of casualties in Afghanistan and members of our military and their families not being given their benefits.  Since the Tea Party Republicans took over the House of Representatives they’ve wasted no time in going after so called “big government” and making an embarrassing spectacle of it. 

Senator Ted Cruz (R-FL) optimized this by speaking gibberish for over 20 hours over Obamacare in the senate chambers.  While railing against a health care law that was upheld by the U.S Supreme Court three years ago, he would later tell a group of reporters about his ordeal.  An ordeal, he said, not unlike that experienced in Bataan during WWII where the Japanese force marched thousands of prisoners for 65 of miles over the course of five days.  Not surprisingly WWII Veterans were offended.  But Ted Cruz and his Tea Party counterparts didn’t stop at just offending a group of veterans, they delighted over shutting the government down. They went as far as threatening not to raise the federal debt limit and undermining the economy.

This all begs the question of why the GOP is still called the GOP or The Grand Old’ Party? If the grandest thing they seem to do is speak of non-sense and shutting everything down while insulting everyone along the way, what’s so grand about that?  Is it grand that important policy decisions like immigration reform goes unanswered?  But perhaps my perception of the situation is wrong. 

I’ve never steered a ship, but I would strongly guess that when steering a ship’s course along the way a map is read and compass checked.  When the majority of the American people are for Obamacare and against a government shutdown, then is when you read the map.  When the heads of state (Japan & China), economists and CEO’s of some of the biggest companies in the nation tell you that not raising the debt and not paying the bills will be catastrophic for not just our economy but the world’s, then is when you check the compass.  Of course, if you can’t read a map or compass and never even seen a ship like the Tea Party Republicans you shouldn’t be in office let alone a ship.

Deliberately steering your ship towards the rocks when your party begins to lose all relevance and respect is not grand, that’s disgusting.

Note: Author Mario Rivas is a resident and active resident of the City of Bell and is a Contributor to Hews Media Group-Community Newspapers.

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