The Tea Partiers & The Occupiers: Separated at Birth?

The Tea Party Movement started out simple enough. An YNN station reported on January 24, 2009 about a Tea Party protest in Binghamton, New York in response to Governor David Paterson’s 18% tax on non-diet soft drinks. The headline read: “A ‘tea party’ to protest Paterson’s taxes.” It was a short article basically stating: “Around two dozen protesters showed up, mostly outraged by the governor’s obesity tax on soda.” Fast-forward two years, and the Tea Party has 62 U.S. House Representatives and 4 U.S. Senators, after seeing 138 Tea Party backed candidates in the 2010 election cycle.

The Occupy Wall Street movement started out simple enough. An email began floating around mid-July 2011 from a Canadian based advertising group: Adbusters Media Foundation. They simply promoted the notion of occupying Wall Street on September 17^th, 2011. In a little over a month, the movement had gone global. Now present in 900 cities, across the globe, the protests have caused 992 arrests, and have cost the New York Police Department over $3.2 million in overtime.

Regardless of how you feel about the Tea Partiers, they represent an American foundation and a basic constitutional right. Similarly, regardless of how you feel about the Occupiers they represent an American foundation and a basic constitutional right.

The right to free assembly has been one of the most utilized constitutional rights in American history.  When citizens do not feel that the government is working in their best interest, they take it to the streets and make their voices heard. Tea Partiers have called for lower taxes, smaller government, and more free market economy. Occupiers have called for higher taxes on the top 1% of income earners???, the closing of corporate tax loopholes, and harsher punishments on infractions by “WallStreet Barons?”.

The purposes of the movements are more alike than they are different. Yes, they call for different things; yes one has been clearer than other; and yes one has been more supported than others, but they are fundamentally alike. The movements are something that all Americans ought to do, get off their a$$e$and get on their feet, and support something they care about.

Photo by nmfbihop via Flickr.

No related posts.