The Tea Party movement has been wrongly and unfairly characterized as a racist movement. As evidence of this, detractors of the movement like to point out that there are very few people of color involved in Tea Party activities. I believe that the reason there are not many people of color in the movement is due to a misunderstanding of what the movement represents. I also believe that minority groups have been taken in by the distortions and misrepresentations that are reported in the media and disseminated by a Democratic Party that is feeling very threatened.
This movement isn't just about taxes and it has nothing to do with the color of the President's skin. It is about returning this country to the principles of limited government, free markets and individual rights (granted by God, not the government) that our Founding Fathers intended.
I was drawn to the Tea Party Movement as I watched the core integrity of my country being pulled away at a rapid rate. Granted, we had been on a slippery slope for quite some time, but 2009 was a full speed, head on attack on the principles, values, history, and citizens of this country. On election night, I was astounded that so many Americans fell for the picture the media painted of Obama as a centrist. I paid attention to the truths that came out about his background and affiliations. When looking at what he stood for, his voting record as a Senator, things he'd said, and what he'd done in the past, I knew he was not a centrist, but rather a radical leftist. It disappointed me greatly when I heard people speak about how the election of Obama was a realization of the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. My belief is that his election was quite the opposite; contrary to the vision of Dr. King. If America truly judged this man by the content of his character and not the color of his skin, then all controversies surrounding his past would not have been denounced as racist. Nearly every argument against him both during the campaign and since the election have been denounced as racist. There is a movement to silence the voice of the people by defaming them.
The Democratic policies to expand the welfare state and grow government do not help. It simply keeps people stuck in a place in which many can no longer see their way out. When you have generational welfare with even the youngest believing that is their lot in life, a thought process that I worked hard to counter in my years as a teacher, then there is a problem. Couple those policies with their constant use of class warfare and race baiting and you have not a party or President seeking bi-partisan solutions in an attempt to bring the country together, but a party and President seeking to pit Americans against each other using clearly partisan tactics.
I felt that I had to address these attacks on the Tea Party movement. To ignore their attacks would simply help perpetuate their stereotype and allow them to silence and shame us into submission. The fact that there have been many vocally criticizing this attack on the Tea Party movement as itself being racist has caused the left to pivot and search for yet another claim to make. Now, the attack being made is that this movement is one of sedition. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of sedition is incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority. If it is seditious to expect that our government leaders will follow the Constitution, then we have a problem here in America. Contrary to what many, including our president, would like you to believe, the Constitution is not a "living and breathing" document. That idea is being pushed for the sole purpose of transforming this country into a place that is completely counter to what the Founding Fathers intended. The people that came before us did not go through everything they did for us to slip quietly into the night and become another European society.
Jennifer Burke is the youngest of 6 from a working class family. She is originally from the great state of Texas.
Jennifer is the wife of Matthew Burke who is running as a Republican against five-term Democrat Congressman Jay Inslee in Washington State’s 1st district. To for more information about Matthew and his campaign go to: www.matthewburkeforcongress.com.
