The Tea Party Goes on the Defensive … Sort of.

Today’s Maui News included a vociferous defense of the Tea Party movement from a regular contributor to the letters column. Here’s my problem with this so-called movement: The only “solution” they have for the immense and complex problems facing our country is smaller government and lower taxes. They offer no proposals to deal with poverty, homelessness, unemployment, out-of-control healthcare costs, home foreclosures, and on and on. Why is that? Possibly it’s because, as surveys show, Tea Party members are overwhelmingly white, middle-to-upper class, and – this is the part that astonishes me – educated. In other words, most Tea Party people aren’t facing any of the problems that millions of ordinary Americans must struggle with every day. They just keep on yammering about “getting their country back” and demanding lower taxes.The Tea Party, the letter-writer assures us, is not racist and isn’t against civil rights. Well, maybe. But, from everything I see and hear, these folks are something almost as bad: they’re selfish..