For the longest time a friend of mine had been trying to get me to join, or at least attend a meeting of the local Tea Party movement. Last night I succumbed to his persistence and attended my first meeting.

After the meeting I felt like I was someone suffering from terminal cancer who had just met a child who would one day grow up to become a brilliant doctor who would discover a cure for the disease that was killing me.

Just as my imaginary child did not have the skills and knowledge to save me, I got the impression that the local Tea Party Group was too young and uninformed about the seriousness of the threat to our country to be effective in staving off the near certain move to socialism in America.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking these people who are willing to take the time to get together and do what they can. However, in my opinion it is a matter of too little, too late.

As I sat there listening I got the distinct impression that a good number of the members thought that if we could vote out the Democrats and replace them with Republicans, then everything would suddenly be okay again in America. I heard no mention of supporting third party candidates, especially Chelene Nightingale whose record proves that she is a much better candidate for California than Meg Whitman. Yet her name wasn’t mentioned once.

After the meeting I went home, logged onto their webpage, and posted one of my older articles about the importance of rights. This article contained quite a few quotes from Jefferson and Locke. I want to see if I get any response, and the tone of the responses, before deciding if I wish to get more involved with this group of Tea Partiers.

I know they are fed up with what is happening in this country, but I got the impression that most of them felt that all our problems can be directly attributed to Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and the rest of the Democrats.

If that is the case, if they truly think that replacing them with GOP candidates will solve all our problems, then the process of educating them as to the extent, and nature, of the corruption in our government would be next to impossible, and therefore my attending their meetings would end up being an exercise in futility.

My friend did tell me, in an e-mail, that at least one member was well aware of the problem with our monetary system due to the Federal Reserve Banks having taken over our monetary system. But is one member out of a roster of about 250 enough? After all, didn’t the Tea Party spring up from those who supported Ron Paul in the last presidential election? And wasn’t one of Ron Paul’s primary platforms the destructive nature of the FED to our economy?

Again, I think these people’s hearts are in the right place, but their anger is misdirected, and they are far too ignorant of the true problems that face this country. I did get a glimmer of hope though. As I was standing by the door, after the meeting, an older gentleman complimented the ball cap I was wearing which stated, “The 2nd Amendment: My concealed weapons permit.”

We got into a brief discussion about the importance of the Second Amendment and he stated, and I am paraphrasing, that we need to lock and load and forcibly remove all these crooks from office. So there is a glimmer of hope that some of them actually ‘get it.’

The question then remains to be asked, how many, and will it be enough? From what I have read, and seen on video clips on the web, Tea Party members come from both political parties.

Yet I have to wonder, are those who attend the various Tea Party meetings across the nation doing so because of one particular issue? Could it be that some attend because the passage of Health Care was the last straw? Could it be that it is the constant attack upon our Second Amendment right is what led them to attend? Or could it be the governments refusal to do anything about illegal aliens that made them attend?

When I first started getting involved I was focused primarily on the Second Amendment, and illegal immigration. I soon found that the cancer that is killing this country, and taking my rights away, is much more pervasive. I needed to take a step back and look at the big picture.

The problem is, as J. Edgar Hoover so succinctly stated, “The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.”

Former President Woodrow Wilson went further by stating, “Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States —in the fields of commerce and manufacturing—are afraid of somebody. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

And this came from the man who signed into law the Federal Reserve Act, the act which has been at the root cause of all our countries financial problems since its inception.

You see, those who endeavor to bring about the downfall of our nation are, if nothing, patient. They have had a long time to lay out their plans. After all, didn’t David Rockefeller once say, “We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”

Think about that, forty years of silence by the media. That is a long time for these people to put their plans into motion. Just think how long they must have been plotting before the perfect time arose to set their plans into motion.

Didn’t Ronald Reagan say, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. ”

For decades we have been lulled into believing that our government is in control, that they have our best interests in mind. We have disregarded our individual duties as citizens to stay aware of what they are doing, and more importantly, to understand the principles upon which this country was founded.

In 1805, Mercy Warren published the History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution. From that I quote, “It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government.”

Our rulers, and I hate that term because they are supposed to be public servants, have long forsaken those principles. Therefore it falls upon the shoulders of each and every American who values their liberty, to take the time to research the writings of men like Jefferson, Madison, Thomas Paine, and John Locke.

Only then will you begin to understand just how far we have strayed from the system of government envisioned by our founders. Only then will you understand the extent of the corruption that permeates every facet of our federal, and state governments. Then you may begin to realize that voting out an incumbent and replacing them with another bought and paid for party hack, is not going to make a bit of difference.

It is like going to a doctor to have a mole removed when the skin cancer has spread into your lymph nodes. We have gone beyond the stage where changing out candidates is going to make a difference.

Americans have been lulled into complacency because, as Alexis de Tocqueville once said, “American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

As long as those running for office make us promises for things that sound good, or that will benefit us as individuals, we are more than willing to fall into line behind them like good little sheep.

Very few have the back bone to tell our government to shove it where the sun don’t shine, we don’t want your promises, we want to be left alone. Soon, and much sooner than many are prepared for I fear, tyranny is going to get up close and personal for each of us.

It will be then that the true nature of each individual will be revealed. Will they choose to live as slaves, or fight, and possibly die, for the freedoms fought, and died for, over two hundred years ago.

So again, I do not harbor any ill feelings towards the Tea Party movement, and my local chapter. I only think that their focus is too narrow and that they don’t truly understand the threat they are up against.

In some ways they may have to tone down their rhetoric to draw in the numbers to become an efficient grassroots movement, but in so doing they sacrifice the importance of standing strong against any, and all, infringements of our freedom.

So, I will sit back, and watch. I will see how they respond to the articles I submit to them. If they show that they are open enough to my ideas, then I will decide whether or not I will further participate in their meetings. Until then, I will continue to send out my thoughts to an audience that is more receptive.

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com. Visit Neal’s Blog at http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal