What exactly was I spectacularly wrong about?  Well, probably all things political, and religious for that matter, if you asked Bill, but one thing that I want to focus on specifically is that Bill (or perhaps his co-host Steve Benen, I can’t remember which one made this exact quote, but they both agree with its sentiment) asserted without further comment that I was “flatly, obviously wrong” in my claim that any expansion of government power results in a loss of freedom.

Well, it’s not obvious that I am wrong in my assertion.  I wish that Bill and Steve had realized that and expanded their response a little more, so I had something to work with here because to me, it is obvious that I am right.

Before I set about defending that I am right that any expansion of government power results in a loss of freedom, let’s first define what is meant by the word “freedom” here.

Merriam-Webster online defines freedom as “1: the quality or state of being free: as, a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b: liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence,” followed by c-h, but for my purpose, I want to focus on a and b.

Freedom means being absent from constraint in choice or action, free from the power of another.

To be totally free would mean to have no force or power limiting any of our choices or actions.

However, we do have the force of government limiting our choices and actions.  Any time the government passes a law, it limits our choices or actions; that is the purpose of passing laws!

This is not to say that is a bad thing – it is necessary, to some extent – but, it is clear that any time the government is empowered to make choices for us, we become less free.

Not only is this claim NOT “flatly, obviously wrong,” but it is, by the very definition of freedom absolutely correct!

So what’s the big deal?

Well, it’s not always a big deal, in a negative sense.  I mean, we need to limit the freedom of others to hurt us or our property.  This is the main function of our government.  We cannot have freedom unless those who would seek to oppress us are restrained.  It’s kind of paradoxical; we must restrict freedom to protect freedom.  But that is only true in a very limited sense, and that must remain limited.

There are many ways the government limits our freedom that are not necessary for protecting us.  They serve to shape our behavior in ways that are deemed better than the alternatives.  These things do not always seem like a big deal, as long as we are doing what the government wants us to do.

For example, in 2012, incandescent light bulbs will be banned in the US.  This is an obvious limit on our freedom of light bulb choice.  If you are already using another type of bulb by then, which most people will, since manufacturers are phasing out incandescent bulbs already, the ban will not seem like a big deal because you are already making the choice the government allows – no conflict.

But, if you, like me, have a health condition that is exacerbated, causing severe pain, by compact fluorescent bulbs, the US ban on incandescent bulbs is kind of a big deal.

When you want (or in this case, need) to do something that falls outside of what the government has mandated, your lack of freedom becomes glaringly obvious.

We have come to a point that most people do not care about the expanded role of government and its encroachment on freedom, unless it directly impacts them.  Our freedom is taken for granted to the extent that well-educated, thoughtful men deny the basic truth that any expansion in government power has a direct impact on freedom.

This was never an issue to me, either, until I chose an alternative lifestyle that butts up against the government’s unjust power – I decided to homeschool.

The government has, in incremental steps over the years, declared itself the sole power over the education of our children.  That was not always the case.  That power used to lie with the family.  These days, it is expected that the state needs to have that power, even when it contradicts what parents think is best for their own children.

Now, if you want to educate your child outside of the government-run system, the state controls and limits those choices.

If you want to use an alternative method that does not conform to the “school-at-home” model, you run the risk of problems with the state and charges of educational neglect.

The loss of freedom in education happened over decades.  That is how many freedoms are eroded and government power is expanded.  It happens gradually over time, in a way that most people do not realize, until the freedom is gone and the government power is accepted as the norm.

As long as one lives within the scope of what the government deems okay, the reach of government power into our lives is not obvious.  It is not until one wants to exercise a different choice that the limitation of our freedom is felt.

I did not realize how important it is to oppose the expansion of government, thereby protecting our freedom, until it affected me, but the truth is, we should all care whether it affects us or not.

If I accomplished only one thing in the three years that I published this blog, let it be that I raised your awareness about why freedom matters.

If you do not care about the freedom of others, it may be too late when you finally realize that your own freedom has been limited.

If freedom matters, and it does, it is worth defending the freedom of everyone.

There is no problem that cannot be solved without sacrificing our freedom to do so.

I found out this morning that Bill Simmon and Steve Benen talked about my tea party post on their Poli-Sci-Fi Radio show Sunday, so I will be responding to what they had to say, as well, though I will not get to everything that warrants rebuttal.

You can listen to the episode online, here.  Tea Party talk starts about half-way through.

The first thing I want to address is the common Where were these people the last 8 years? response to the Tea Parties, popular among the left.

Answer: Complaining about Bush and the Republicans in Congress spending too much money.

I was, when I covered national politics.  So were other conservatives.  Here is a post from March 2006 – just one month after I started this blog on Blogspot – in which I reference a Cal Thomas column entitled, “Spending Obsenities.”  (Link is to my post.)

Mr. Guy, in the comments of my previous Tea Party post, claimed that Freedom Works, a sponsor of the tea parties, was not active in opposing spending before now.  I don’t know how long he has been a Freedom Works member, but a quick search of my e-mail shows a Freedom Works newsletter from January of 2006, opposing government-funded, universal pre-K and supporting consumer-driven health care, as an alternative to government-funded plans.

Libertarian groups, such as CATO, have been criticizing government spending and corporate welfare all along.

What you have to understand is that the people attending these tea parties, by and large, are not Republican Party defenders.  They are citizens who support smaller government, less spending, lower taxes, and more freedom – Libertarians (both big and small “L”), Ron Paul and Bob Barr supporters, Constitution Party members, and GOP voters who are disillusioned with the party’s power-drunk spending spree over the past decade.

Another claim is that the tea parties would not have happened if McCain were elected.

Wrong again.

Conservatives did not like McCain’s penchant for spending, either.  Conservatives also opposed the bailouts under Pres. Bush last fall.  I had a post (actually quite a few) in the fall of 2006 discussing the GOP and its lack of conservatism.

We are sick of the big-government, big-spending, and disregard for the 10th Amendment.  There is no longer a place for lovers of small government and people are looking for a way to speak out.  This was a long time coming and it would have happened no matter who was elected last November.

On the Poli-Sci-Fi radio episode I linked to, Steve Benen brought up the fact that Bush and Cheney had bad approval ratings – no one was saying, “At least they are not expanding government” – as if some sort of evidence that people do not want smaller government (or less government expansion).

That might have been a good point, if only Bush had not expanded the government’s size and power.  In fact, he did.  Being a political blogger for 6 years, one would think Steve would have known that.

Benen did raise one good point, though, that the tea partiers did not do a good job articulating their message to the rest of the country.  That was unfortunately true.  There is a good message to be had in all of this, but without a spokesperson or official group that can put together a platform, people are left to their own interpretation or that of the media, which in the case of the Tax Day Tea Parties, was largely wrong.

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It’s worth noting that there were a couple of things said on that PSFR episode that I still need to address, but they necessitate their own post(s).

I want to try to clear a few things up, if I can, for people who don’t understand what these protests were about.  (This is from my own perspective.  Obviously, there are other perspectives out there.)

Myth: Tea Party-goers think taxes are bad.

Taxes have been the scapegoat for expanded government because taxes are the part of a big government that directly affect our wallets – and our ability to spend our money the way we want to, but taxes are not the problem.

I read on Twitter yesterday the comment, “I proudly pay my taxes, the cost of a free society.”  Aside from the fact that taxes are also the cost of an un-free society, this statement is true.  Most conservatives are more than willing to keep the government running, performing the functions that a government should perform.

There’s the hitch.  A conservative view of which functions a government should perform is very different from the functions currently being performed by our government.  Under President Obama and the Democratic Congress, those functions are growing, and growing, and growing, way beyond what conservatives believe a government should be doing.

That is what the tea parties were about – growing government power, growing government spending.

The loss of freedom comes, too, but the loss of money via higher taxes comes sooner and is more tangible.  That is why many of the protesters focus on higher taxes.

Which brings me to…

Myth: Most Tea Party-goers will not even see a tax increase.

Maybe, maybe not.  The projections of this country’s debt are so enormous – nearly 100% of projected GDP by 2012 – that it is likely that everyone will have to pay for it.

But let’s say that it is true that most of the people at the tea parties will not see an increase in taxes.  What are the reasons, then, to protest?

First, freedom.  As I said above, this is not just about taxes.  Arguably, taxes are not even the real issue.  The issue is the loss of freedom.

With every expansion of government power, there is a loss of freedom.

Unlike the connection between executive pay and yours, this actually is a zero-sum game.

In any given set of activities, the more the government regulates those activities, the less power you have.

The stimulus and other bills have expanded the government’s role and the government’s power, therefore, it has lessened our roles and our power over our lives.

Who cares whether or not we, personally, have to pay for it?  It’s still something to be concerned about.

Second, just because we are not paying it ourselves is no reason to ignore an injustice.  Expecting 5% of the people to fund government programs that put their money into our pockets is wrong.  Expecting 5% of the population to pay for the services we all use is wrong.  Everyone should pay something to support our society.

If paying taxes is patriotic, as Vice President Joe Biden says, why are we letting 43% of the people pay no income taxes at all?  Are they not part of this free society?

Finally, over-taxing the “rich,” ie. the people who create jobs and produce goods and services, is bad for all of us.  Think about it.  When your company gets hit with higher and higher tax burdens, do you think that will not affect you?  When the producers of products you buy are spending more on taxes, do you think that will not affect prices?

As with many political causes, this is not just about what affects us personally, but what affects us all.

Myth: A majority of Americans support expanded government.

This was a misrepresentation of a poll coincidentally released the day before the tea parties and touted by Huffington Post and others as proof that the tea partiers were not representative of America.

It was as close to a lie as you can get without actually lying.

While it is true that the poll found a narrow majority of Americans (53%) support the government expansion to aid the economic crisis, a majority (55%) also said it was too expensive.

The more telling piece of polling data came when people were asked if they support the expansion of government being permanent.

Only 13% said yes.  The rest either oppose it altogether, or want it rolled back when the economy is no longer in crisis (if it even is).

Another way to say that is that 83% of Americans do not want permanently expanded government power.

83% rejects the progressive left’s vision for centralized power and a government that is involved in shaping our economy.

This makes the Tea Partiers very much representative of America.

There is so much more to cover here, but I will stop with these few for now.  I will have more posts like this over the next week.  Feel free to jump in with your comments, questions, etc.

Here’s a look at the crowd, via video.  I have to warn you, it is a little shaky.  I was trying to navigate my way through the crowd, without saying “excuse me” on camera.

No word yet on the turn out in Rutland, where Tea Party participation was expected to be even greater.

I put together a little montage of the protest signs, in case you missed it.

The event will be taking place on the State House lawn from noon – 2:00.

From the facebook page:

Matt Cropp, of VT Campaign For Liberty, American Socialism for the Rich and the Bank Users Strike Team will talk about credit unions and how they benefit users and the communities they serve.

Jim Hogue, blogger, farmer and radio host will be discussing the Federal Reserve and how this private banking cartel took control of the American Taxpayer.

Stewart Skrill, farmer and former VT and US House of Reps. candidate, will be speaking about the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution.

Vermonters For Economic Health will also be providing us a speaker.

Please bring at least 3 tea bags with you to the rally. We will have 3 crates set up near the Federal building in which you should deposit your tea bags. The crates will then be delivered to the offices of Rep. Welch and Sens. Leahy and Sanders. I am asking for volunteers who would be willing to make these deliveries (especially to Welch as his office is in Burlington).

**UPDATES**
Be sure to pack a lunch and bring a blanket or chairs to sit on. There is no vending on the State House Lawn, though the cafeteria will be open. Again, this is a peaceful, family-friendly event. No pets allowed unless they are service animals.

Vermonters For Economic Health will be making a presentation “Vermont’s Unsustainable Future” immediately following the Tea Party at 2pm in the AIV conference room. This presentation is free and open to the public. Having seen this presentation before I highly recommend making time to attend. For more information please visit http://www.vermontersforeconomichealth.org/

The “We The People” Food drive at the Tea Party will benefit the Salavation Army Emergency Food Shelf. TJ Michael’s will be helping me coordinate this effort. Please make sure to bring a non-perishable food item.

Again, we have a website www.vermontteaparty.com and comments can be made at this site: www.taxdayteaparty.com/vermont

And don’t forget– the Legislature is in session! Be sure to allow time for yourself to stop in and say hello. Let your Representatives and Senators know where you stand!

Hope to see you there!

(Except you, Ryan.)

Politics makes strange bedfellows, indeed.

There is one notable difference between the two blogs, though.  VDB doesn’t like the idea because it doesn’t pass the “Dick Test.”

All of which fails the Dick Test, in our opinion: would you want this law on the books if Dick Cheney were the Shadow President? Epic fail, Rockefeller and Snowe.

The Ace of Spades crew doesn’t need to imagine a power-abusing, boogy-man “Shadow President.”  The current power-abusing president is cause enough for concern.

Either way, no one wants this type of power bestowed to some Dick in the White House.  And that is one of the few things you will get conservative and liberal bloggers to agree on.

Q and O also weighs in.

I just have to say, first, I hate this issue.  I wish it would just go away – and it would, if the left didn’t want to keep it around to scare people into voting against the scary Republicans.*

That said, my core beliefs, which are more libertarian conservative than traditionalist conservative, keep me from supporting laws that favor the moral values of one group over another, unless the law is needed to protect the rights of others.

My husband and I have had this debate over and over, where I say, laws should not be based on my moral beliefs, and he reminds me that all laws are based on someone’s moral beliefs.  Why shouldn’t we fight for ours?

Well, because two wrongs don’t make a right.

At the same time, I end up living under laws that reflect someone else’s forced morality.

And those people are a bunch of intolerant bigots, guided by fear, if I could borrow their language for a moment.

Merriam-Webster defines bigot as: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices: one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.

I would say that this reflects the attitudes coming from the left regarding conservative Christians, no?

The problem with being libertarian these days is that no one else is, not enough people to prevent our rights from being trampled, anyway.

So, I realize that, even though I believe in the biblical definition of marriage, not everyone does, but everyone deserves the same legal protections.

In return, Vermont is one step closer to silencing Bible-believing Christians and forcing them to violate their religious beliefs – and they are giddy about it.

Over at my favorite blog of tolerance, Green Mountain Daily, people were spouting off about the idiot-bigot-moron opposition to same-sex marriage, because, of course, anyone who disagrees with them has no good argument, where someone said that no one has been harmed by same-sex marriage.

I pointed out that the Catholic Charities of Boston was forced to adopt children to gay couples after Massachusetts passed a gay marriage law, so they closed their doors.  I would consider that harm.  The state should not force a religious organization to violate its beliefs.  Then there are all of the children who were harmed by the closing of an organization known for finding homes for difficult-to-adopt children.

But Freedom of Religion is just one of those unimportant little freedoms that was merely listed in the First Amendment.  It’s not like the Freedom to Marry, which is made up, or the Freedom from Intolerance, which is a farce.

Besides,

That’s not being negatively affected by same sex marriage, that’s being negatively affected by bigotry.

Ah, the magical B-word that shuts down all disagreement as invalid.  If they just agreed with me, they wouldn’t have had their rights violated.

Then there’s this,

To me, this is an example of the problem with Church structure.  The staff and board of Catholic Charities recognized that gay people often make great adoptive parents.  Yet their experience and judgment is not respected because in the Catholic Church power flows one way from the top down, and not much common sense flows with it.

See!  It’s not the rights-violating actions of a state that refuses to recognize the freedom of religion we are supposed to have in this country; it’s that pesky church!  If only it would use some common sense and abandon its centuries-old beliefs.

At least there are some straight shooters, who are willing to lay it all out,

Here’s the problem: religious beliefs, if granted unconditional freedom, will inevitably be used as a justification to infringe the freedoms of those who do not share them.

I see, so let’s just beat them to the punch and infringe on religious freedom.

That gem was accompanied by this enlightening quote, “Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”  Beautiful.

So this is what we face.  I guess that’s what I get for supporting other people’s rights, huh?  I get a nice big, thanks, but now we have to continue on with our war against your beliefs.

Let me bottom line this rant, no one has a right to be accepted.  You just don’t.  The law should not be used to force people to approve of your lifestyle, even if you claim you were born that way.

Live and let live needs to work both ways.

Frankly, I am pretty pissed about this.  I am sick and tired of the left going on about freedom, when all the while they have no respect for freedom; they just want their way.  But when it comes to someone else’s freedom, they couldn’t care less about protecting it.  In fact, they want to restrict it.

My only consolation is knowing that there will be a lot more people lining up to fight back, including me.  We might have supported your pursuit of legal rights, but we are not on your side in your crusade to suppress religious freedom.

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*The Democrats – who control Congress, and have – could make civil unions federally recognized and force gently persuade the states, by threatening to withhold money, to offer civil unions.  With equal legal protection, gay marriage would be wholly unnecessary.  This is a compromise that would give both sides most of what they want.

“To me, the candy cane has only one context — and that is Christmas and because of this it is truly a religious sign.”

So says Charlotte resident William Gerson in a letter to the school board in which he was opposing the red and white striped pillars at the entrance to the Charlottle Central School, in Vermont.

Actually, Christmas is a secular holiday, in addition to being a religious one, and the candy cane is a pretty innocuous secular symbol.

I grew up in a very non-religious home.  In fact, my mother was very anti-established religion and her own beliefs, which are a sort of a la carte spirituality, I was wholly unaware of until I was an adult.

But my mom loved Christmas.  Christmas was an amazing time with decorations and lights and family time and giving to those in need and those we loved.  There was no nativity scene, no savior, no virgin birth, and definitely no church.

My guess is that the majority of Americans who celebrate Christmas do so in a very non-religious way.  But that is just a guess on my part.  I have no data to back that up.

Claiming that the candy cane is a religious symbol, though, reduces Mr. Gerson to a parody of the separation of school and Christmas crowd.  Not that they are not ridiculous in their own right.

I say, get over it and enjoy a nice mug egg nog.

T’is the season to be jolly, after all.

NOT ALL COUNTRIES guarantee their citizens the right to virtually unbridled freedom of speech. The United States does. Would someone please tell the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama? And the dozing guardians of liberty at the University of Mary Washington?

This comes no where near the Obama Police Squad, but I am sensing a pattern.

If they think banning signs is bad, wait until the Truth Squad of Obama-supporting sheriffs and prosecutors comes after them.

Obama on the first amendment: Send out law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad during the presidential campaign.

If this doesn’t bother you, it should.

The truth is relative.

Ask Obama if he supports the 2nd amendment, he’ll say “yes!” Ask someone like Jeff Soyer and, based on Obama’s factual record, he’ll say, “Hell no!”

Why can’t Obama defend himself? Why does he need to make political speech a crime?

(Wait! Was that a lie? Will I get arrested or shut down?)

Just yesterday I was in a doctor’s office and I read an Obama quote about McCain that was outright false. Arrest him!

(Yes, I will post the quote and evidence that it is false, but I have to go dig out my notebook to do that and I want to post this before I have to go make biscuits. It is a delicate balancing act I run here, people.)

In a recent issue of Time, Obama was quoted saying, “John McCain has been in Washington for 26 years and hasn’t lifted a finger to reform the regulations that could’ve prevented this crisis.”

Yet, the root cause of the financial mess we are in can be traced back to the lending practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And John McCain was, as Kevin Hassett of Bloomberg News points out, “one of the three cosponsors of S.190, the bill that would have averted this mess.”

Obama lied about McCain in Time magazine.

(See where this will lead us?)

In the news clip, one of the things that the Obama Law Enforcement Squad (which by the way are actual prosecutors and sheriffs) wants people to know is that he will lower taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.

Well, we cannot know whether that, or the counter claim that there is no way for Obama to fund his vision of government without taxes going up for everyone, is true until after Obama takes office. (Remember “read my lips”?)

So, how can someone decide what to target as false and misleading?

Many of the things that Obama claims to be false (such as the NRA ads, over which he has threatened legal action against stations that air them), others claim to be true.

So who is right?

More importantly, do we want the Obama Truth Squad (again, made up of real law enforcement officials) to determine what is true?

This action alone is enough reason to do everything (legally and morally) possible to keep this man from becoming president.

And people call Bush a fascist. At least people were free to criticize him.

On a lighter note, I love how the beginning of the video says “No MO early voting.” I wish there was no mo’ early voting. I think that people should wait until all of the campaigning and debating has run its course before voting.