Tea Party: The Easy Target

I think that the Tea Party is an easily-attacked political movement that should be taken very seriously.  After reading many of my classmates forum postings and their opinions on the Tea Party, I found many articles presenting the Tea Party in a bad light.  I just wanted to point out that any political party will have some number of people with radical and/or controversial ideas.  These views may not support the entire party, but they become points of focus because they make for great news stories.  And while they may make for interesting articles, I think that the Tea Party stands for a lot more than just a few radical ideas, and they should be taken seriously.  

I've been reading the Wall Street Journal (almost) daily since I came to St. Olaf, and there never fails to be an article about the Tea Party every single day.  The movement is new, it's uniting, it's more and more mainstream, and it isn't stopping.  On Wednesday, Professor Rohn stated that we (as students) should be concerned with the Tea Party movement because it is our generation's movement.  I disagree with this statement slightly- I would say that the Tea Party movement is not the political of our generation, but of this time period, and perhaps even this decade.  

Because of that reason, I think that it is even more important than a generational movement because it reflects views of people from any age.  And now, to answer the tough question: What is the Tea Party movement?  ...No, no one exactly knows what it is, but in my opinion it is a group of people who are dissatisfied with government, namely large government control.  The movement is unhappy with the lack of control by "the people" and its goal is to bring control back to "the people".  The Tea Party has passionate members who are really just not satisfied with how things are going in America. I am quite positive that come election day, the people of the United States will be even more concerned with the Tea Party and its effect on politics across the country.