Tea Parties are for Children

Normally, I would be gushing over the latest two Green Lantern books right about now, but I occasionally look up from my comic book obsession and actually notice what is going on with the world...and right now, things are looking...grim.

It is time...no it is PAST time, for the Tea Party to stop pouting, and for the Republican party to remember that they work for the whole Country...and not just for a vocal and obstreperous minority, and to stop the game of brinkmanship and just pass the damn debt ceiling! Why is this even a problem? It's been done hundreds of times in the past, and is just one of the means of doing business. Yes, I think that it is a good thing for the Country as a whole, to pull back a bit, and stop just pouring out money. Closing tax loopholes, and having the Bush givebacks ended is a good start. Reducing expenditures is another, we really can't afford $800 toilet seats for the military anymore. But bringing the country to its figurative knees is no way to do things.

Politics is not for the faint of heart. Nor for rank amateurs. There are a lot of people saying we should throw out the bums,and start with people who aren't politicians, or let businessmen run things. God, that's the LAST thing we should do! You can't run a country like a business, and whenever some hotshot CEO comes in and starts blustering that he or she would balance the budget and run it the way that they ran THEIR business, I get nervous. You can't fire congress, and you can't do all the things that moguls do...it just doesn't work that way. It is rough and tumble, and more than anything it is the art of compromise...an art that seems lost on the Tea Party crew and their partners in crime.

The Republicans, an old and formerly respected political party has apparently sold its soul to the Tea Party, and have not gotten a lot in return except a whole lot of headaches. This bunch of freshmen really don't have a clue...and seem to be priding themselves on that fact. A good political deal, is one that leaves both sides, slightly disappointed...and yet the work gets done, the bills are passed, and the whole thing lumbers along.

You cannot come in, and start stamping your little feet and threatening to hold your breath if you don't get your way. It is childish. It is puerile. It is close to insanity. And this whole situation has been self-inflicted, which makes it all the more galling. The Republican Party AND the Democratic Party are beholden to Big Business, to make the whole thing run smoothly...and I really can't imagine that Wall Street is particularly happy at the way that things are being run, what with the stock market going back into the toilet,and our AAA rating being reduced, and none of it needed to have happened, except that somebody had "principals". In the immortal words of Dorothy Sayers, the first thing that a principal does is kill someone. Standing up for what you believe in is a wonderful thing...but not when it has the impact that it is having on millions and millions of people.

I'm not holding the Democrats as being completely blameless...they are past masters of the art of screwing things up...but in this particular case, I think that they are actually being the more mature of the parties. At the best of times, Politics is a delicate dance...and we have a bunch of clodhoppers fouling things up. So grow up, wipe your runny noses, and knock it off...or you should be sent to your rooms without any dessert.

Sheesh!