ME OVER WE - THE ESSENCE OF THE TEA PARTY

The Tea Party is essentially a movement of "Me, the person," rather than "We, the people." The movement focuses on bettering the lives and conditions of a group of individuals rather than improving the lives and conditions of an entire nation. When one hears the vitriolic Tea Party jeer that Obama is leading this country toward socialism, nobody seriously believes Communism is what the shouters have in mind. No, they are angry because our nation calls upon them to help their fellow citizens in need.

The Tea Party vehemently opposes such a nation. They believe the concept counters America's long-professed ideals of rugged individualism and self-sufficiency, and they argue that looking out for the least of our brethren will sound the death knell for America's belief in hard work and the necessity of taking personal responsibility. Sadly, these otherwise valid concerns mask the true aim of the Tea Party movement – the elevation of narcissism at the expense of the weakest members of our society.

To be sure, many in the Tea Party would deny such a claim, but those denials ring hollow in light of the movement's rhetoric. According to that rhetoric, America's greatest enemies are not the tyrants and dictators of the world who seek to bring death and destruction to our nation's shores. They believe the country's greatest enemies are Obama and Pelosi and anyone foolish enough to think that raising the conditions of the weakest in America is a noble pursuit for the nation of America.

Franklin D. Roosevelt once noted, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

In that regard, America's Tea Party does not advocate for movement toward progress. Rather, it advocates movement toward selfishness, and away from the virtue of charity that motivates the better angels in all of us.

The rise of the Tea Party movement is a sad chapter in our nation's history. In America's prior darkest hours, we banded together for the good of "We, the people," not just "Me, the individual," and we as a nation were better for it.