We, The American Tea Party Movement – the Republic’s defenders against injustice, tyranny, and Statism, have had enough. We are ending this phony dialogue on motivations and our identity. We have allowed a year of unwarranted and unprovable attacks on our character, our identity, and our motivations to go unanswered in the vain expectation that our opposition would be rational enough to see that schoolyard taunts are not the same thing as intellectual argument. We expected our opposition to act in their own interest and cease the nonsense when it became apparent to them that no one was buying what they were selling. We assumed that our silence would be understood. On that, we were mistaken. As a result of the NAACP’s ridiculous “vote” on our character and their demand that we apologize for each and every individual within our movement who might hold racist thoughts or opinions, we have been forced to respond.

Our response is this: We are school teachers, firefighters, shopkeepers, elected officials, homemakers, retirees, students, bankers; we are police, business leaders, husbands, wives, small town merchants. We are the voice of every American who believes that his life is his own, and that his neighbor is not responsible for or entitled to either his failures or his successes. We are the voice of every American who believes that he answers to the dictate of his own conscience, not to the demands of the barrel of a gun. It matters not whether that gun is held by the hands of a street thug, or a thug in Washington, our response is the same, a gun is not an argument.

We have been stoic in the face of the intellectual equivalent of the barrel of a gun as an argument. Namely, unprovable smears that racism is the motivation for our opposition to the “fundamental transformation” of America. The fact that this transformation is coming via the hands of a black president does not change the fact that it is a transformation into Statism, which we abhor. We do not care that the vessel for that transformation is a black president, we oppose the change, not the man.

As to the man, we do not withdraw our recognition that he is a radical, regardless of his race. We do not withdraw our assertion that his past and current associations with radicals matter, and should not be ignored, regardless of his race. We do not withdraw our acknowledgment of his accomplishments or his achievements, regardless of his race. We do not believe race and identity are equivalent, though many of our opponents do.

As to our identity, we define it, we do not allow the Alinsky method to define it for us. To that end, it is interesting that we have been painted as ignorant and incompetent on one day, and well coordinated astro-turf the next. It is interesting that we have been portrayed as violent extremists one one day, and passive social security recipients the next. It is interesting that those who comment on our motivations frequently surmise that we must be unemployed layabouts while we are actively opposing policy that would make such a life untenable. It is utterly fascinating that our opponents are unable to use reason and logic. Finally, it is beyond comprehension that they have not yet figured out who we are.

We are the voice of reason in an irrational world, and we will not be silenced or muted into submission by accepting an unearned guilt. We are the choir which is the combined voices of America.

For those who have demanded that we repudiate or apologize for the small fraction of racists who may believe that they are tea party members or that they hold our values,; for those of you who demand that we do the logically impossible and, by default, prove our lack of racism – we say: are you serious? We can not, of course, prove a negative, except by implication. So we call out those who believe without evidence that we are motivated to oppose the radical that has inherited the sixty plus year old Progressive agenda at the peak of that agenda’s success, because that President happens to be black. We will be happy to engage on the merits of that argument, and on the merits of our ideas for the future of our Republic. We will not, however, continue the absurd distraction that is identity politics. We are too busy and have too much to do to engage in such nonsensical distractions.

We are too busy transforming America back to the vision our founders had for her to distract ourselves by engaging with those who wish to alter our identity in the minds of our fellow citizens, when those citizens have not yet met us face to face.

We are not dealing with primarily an economic crisis. The crisis
goes well beyond questions of whether markets will fail or
whether we will have our jobs next week. What we are
experiencing is is a crisis of faith. We have, as those who lived
through the Depression experienced, lost faith in our leaders,
our economic system, and most crucially, we have lost faith in
ourselves.

Our leaders are trying to convince us to have faith in the
“system” (a system they have torn asunder and now claim that
they will fix), our ministers and priests assure us that we must
have faith in God and the Church while simultaneously telling us
our problems are the result of countless misdeeds- from support
the ten commandments – and our government bodies tell us to
have faith that they can prevent an Ancient Rome style collapse
with minute to minute changes in the interest rates, tax cuts,
and revisions of the regulatory code. Friends, this is a crisis of
faith, and I for one say good riddance to faith.

Faith, belief in something in the absence of evidence , is not the
answer. We need solutions which are based, not on faith, but a
rigid commitment to the facts, to truth, and to our nature. This
is the precise definition of the process that philosophers have
tried to damn since they reneged on their responsibility to
provide answers-reason.

Reason will tell you that what we have done so far is not
working-therefore change the methods we are employing.
Reason will tell you that our government has failed in its
obligation to protect us from this mess-therefore change the
nature of our government. Reason will tell you that church
leaders don’t have a rational solution-therefore ditch those
archaic and failed institutions which have consistently provided
no answers, and have created the crux of the problem.

In her well articulated article “Faith and Force: the Destroyers of
the Modern World” (printed in Philosophy: Who Needs It
(available at amazon.com)), Ayn Rand clearly demonstrates the
need to return to reason as the solution. For those who claim
otherwise I want to tell you: you will be held accountable.

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During the early decades of our Republic Liberalism was understood to be defined by its commitment to individual
rights.

The notion of “collective rights” or group rights was
foreign to political thinkers.  Groups, as such, had no
rights.  The concept of rights belonged to the individual.
individual rights.

Notice, therefore, that the modern “liberal” has no such
commitment.  They claim to be dedicated to protecting
“rights”, but their notion of rights does not extend beyond
groups-be they various sexual or ethnic minorities,
economic pressure groups, or organizations whose only
apparent motive seems to be promoting animosity
between competing factions-the individual–you–has been
left out of the equation (unless you self-identify or profess
allegiance to the various groups which the “liberals” work
to “protect”).  What is notoriously absent is the central
element which separates one individual from all
others-his ideas.

Philosophy, the study of ideas, belongs to no group; only
individuals-by their own conscious effort-can define a
philosophy, and it is this key element which is
deliberately obscured by all “liberals”.

Modern Liberalism has no philosophy, it has only a
grab-bag collection of Statist, collectivist programs
which: A: discount the efficacy of the individual as
non-existent or irrelevant; B: promote “group” rights as a
given (implying, therefore, that those who do not belong
to said group do not enjoy those rights); and C: maintains
that any opposition to such principles is rooted in a
repudiation of “rights” as a whole (ignoring the fact that
by proposing “collective rights” they have, in fact, made
any assertion of one’s own, individual rights, impossible).

Liberalism has turned its back on its own history;  at first
by default, accepting the underlying premises and
assumptions of socialist thinkers like Marx and Engels;
now, by intent, by obscuring the historical definition of
Liberalism and highjacking the once noble lable.  Modern “Liberalism” has sold its soul to its ethical antagonist and has lost all claim to the word “liberal”.

We are not dealing with primarily an economic crisis.  The crisis goes well beyond questions of whether markets will fail or
whether we will have our jobs next week. What we are
experiencing is is a crisis of faith.  We have, as those who lived
through the Depression experienced,  lost faith in our leaders,
our economic system, and most crucially, we have lost faith in
ourselves.

Our leaders are trying to convince us to have faith in the
“system” (a system they have torn asunder and now claim that
they will fix without showing the moral courage to define or name the “system” they intend to fix.  Our ministers and priests assure us that we must
have faith in God and the Church, which has failed entirely on every mission it has undertaken while simultaneously telling us
our problems are the result of countless misdeeds- from dropping support
the ten commandments  to the battles over abortion and gay marriage .   Our government Institutions and leaders tell us to
have faith that they can prevent an Ancient Rome style collapse
with minute to minute changes in the interest rates,  tax cuts,
and revisions of the regulatory code.  Friends this is a crisis of
faith- and I for one say good riddance to faith.

Faith,  belief in something in the absence of evidence , is not the
answer.  We need solutions which are based-  not on faith, but a
rigid commitment to the facts, to truth, and to our nature.  This
is the precise description of the process that philosophers have
tried to damn since they reneged on their responsibility to
provide answers-reason.

Reason will tell you that what we have done so far is not
working-therefore change the methods we are employing.
Reason will tell you that our government has failed in its
obligation to protect us from this mess-therefore change the
nature of our government.  Reason will tell you that church
leaders  don’t have a rational solution-therefore ditch those
archaic and failed institutions which have consistently provided
no answers, and have created the crux of the problem.

In her well articulated article “Faith and Force: the Destroyers of
the Modern World”  (printed in Philosophy: Who Needs It
(available at amazon.com)), Ayn Rand clearly demonstrates the antipathy between faith and reason; between persuasion and force, and the
need to return to reason as an absolute.  For those who advocate otherwise I  tell you: reality, logic, and human nature will hold you accountable.