Steeped in Tradition

The tea party participants have been taking it on the chin -- and worse -- for a year. The Left accuses them of bigotry, racism, and physical violence. The reprehensible, tendentious Rachel Maddow likens them to mass murderers in her recent MSNBC special on Timothy McVeigh.

Tea party critics never address the fundamental and solidly traditional view of the movement: A government that seeks to increase its power over the citizenry in the interests of ensuring their safety and security is no legitimate government at all but a tyranny. If the tea parties constantly bring up the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, it's because the philosophical principles of government and liberty are at the very heart of the tea party movement, and Washington's dangerous straying from those principles animates their anger and anxiety.