Tea Party Confusion

The idea that politicians should sign a pledge to promote personal morality is contrary to the avowed Tea Party commitment to small government. If you want the government to have a restricted scope, you should stick to the US Declaration as your guide: Government is instituted so as to secure our rights! It is not instituted, at least in the American political tradition, so as to be our moral police!

This is the kind of inconsistency that will bode very ill for the Tea Party and the Republicans. It is just like the liberals' inconsistency of preaching choice in the abortion debate but loving to take it from us in nearly everything else. Obama care comes to mind, which commands people to buy health insurance and is, thus, anything but pro choice. And what about coercing us all to buy green light bulbs?

Who are these people, imposing their standards of right conduct on the rest? Both sides of the political spectrum are still wedded to their tyrannical ways. No wonder so few people vote.

Here is the pledge Tea Party Republican Rep. Michell Bockmann wants candidates to sign:

"Therefore, in any elected or appointed capacity by which I may have the honor of serving our fellow citizens in these United States, I the undersigned do hereby solemnly vow* to honor and to cherish, to defend and to uphold, the Institution of Marriage as only between one man and one woman. I vow* to do so through my:

Personal fidelity to my spouse.

Respect for the marital bonds of others.

Official fidelity to the U.S. Constitution, supporting the elevation of none but faithful constitutionalists as judges or justices.

Vigorous opposition to any redefinition of the Institution of Marriage – faithful monogamy between one man and one woman – through statutory-, bureaucratic-, or court-imposed recognition of intimate unions which are bigamous, polygamous, polyandrous, same-sex, etc.
Recognition of the overwhelming statistical evidence that married people enjoy better health, better sex, longer lives, greater financial stability, and that children raised by a mother and a father together experience better learning, less addiction, less legal trouble, and less extramarital pregnancy.

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