An Appropriate and Well Timed Rant from Diane Rufino | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I have a question; I see a lot of overlap lately between the Tea Party and the GOP and I'm wondering: How is that working out?

    I see more people urging us to support Claude Pope than someone like Dr. Greg Brannon. Do we, as the Tea Party, need the GOP or it is the GOP that needs us? Is our need for political power so great that it is causing us to sacrifice our principles and slow the momentum we began in the wake of the Bailouts, Obamacare, and the overt shredding of our Constitution? I don't see the kind of leadership in government that is worthy of the support of the Tea Party. I see Republicans crossing party lines on immigration reform. I see them selling out the rule of law, the one thing that makes the US so superior to the rest of the world. I see some strong-willed Republicans in the House pushing to defund Obamacare and threatening to shut down government (something our Founders envisioned that our Senators might do if it it saw the House trying to do something unconstitutional), but Senate Republicans mocking them, calling them names, and saying their ideas are "among the stupidest ever heard." And where are House Republicans fighting Obama's plan to exempt members of Congress and their staffs from the Individual Mandate? There is nothing more constitutionally offensive and so urgent at this time in history than to free Americans from the shackles of the government's mandatory federal health insurance plan. The NDAA is another liberty-killer, for so many reasons, yet some of the strongest support to give the President the unlimited power to target and detain American citizens indefinitely came from Republicans. And I see the GOP actively frustrating Dr. Brannon's campaign for the US Senate. There is no one more knowledgeable, principled, committed, purely driven, or capable of defending or educating on the Constitution or founding principles than Dr. Brannon and if the GOP can't see this as a huge PLUS for the conservative movement, then how do we imagine there can be enough common ground? If the Tea Party doesn't continue to focus its full effort on restoring the meaning and intent of the Constitution and returning the government to the limited boundaries set by that document and making sure that the government spends money on constitutional objects ONLY, then this country is dead. If the Tea Party looses that mission or dilutes it so that it can partner with the GOP, we're back to the days of Obama v. McCain and Obama v. Romney. We're back to the politics of compromise. So my question is this: Which group is co-opting the other?

    As FreedomWorks urges GOP and conservative groups to hold Town Hall events and demonstrations over the next 4 weeks in support of the initiative to defund Obamacare, the message I would really like to see from the TEA PARTY is this: "If Republicans in the House do NOT defund Obamacare and force a shut-down of government to force their hand AND if Republicans do NOT defeat the current immigration reform plan (to include amnesty), then they will ABANDON the Grand Old Party and urge all their members to STAY HOME in future elections." If the Republicans want to assist in the fundamental transformation of this country, from its culture to its principles, then the Tea Party should have no part in it.

    The bottom line is this.. in this country, we are still operating under the notion that the government is a creature of the people ("of the people, by the people, for the people"). The government works for us and is supposed to be accountable to us. So we have every right to DEMAND how government will serve us. We reinforce our will as a people by either withholding our vote or giving that vote. Unfortunately, government today is not run by representatives, but rather by Party politics.

    Publisher's note: Diane Rufino has her own blog, For Love of God and Country. Come and visit her. She'd love your company.