Aren't these tea parties missing the point?

I just read on CNN.com that there have been various "tea parties" taking place across the country as a form of protest against big government and out of control government spending. The tea parties are meant to resemble the Boston Tea Party, where in many people get together to throw a bunch of tea (or empty coolers that say "tea" on them) into the sea.

These people say they're protesting because they don't like the way their tax money is being handled, which is understandable. People never seem to be happy about taxes, but alas, they are one of those prices we pay to live in a democracy. Anyway, they complain on and on they can't afford all these taxes, or they assume that with the way our government is spending tax money now, they won't be able to afford the supposedly inevitable high taxes in the future.

But they can afford to buy a bunch of tea and dump it into the sea? Or take the time to buy coolers and sharpies and write "tea" on them, only to dump them as well? Hmm, interesting. (Edit: turns out they're being funded by Republican billionaires. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense! [/sarcasm] Read the HuffPo article here, where in Paul Krugman of the New York Times is quoted saying these parties are "embarrassing to watch." Agreed.)

Now don't get me wrong, I understand the connection between these tea parties and the Boston Tea Party. The tea party of history books was a protest against the Tea Tax. The difference, though, is those people weren't complaining they couldn't afford it; they were complaining about the colonies being taxed by Britain. They weren't upset about government spending; they were upset about not living in an independent nation. Their tea party helped lead the United States of America to the Revolutionary War, resulting in our independence and following democracy.

Those are some pretty big differences, if you ask me. Yes, both the old and new tea parties revolve around taxes, but the motivations are completely different.

Don't think I'm happy about the bailouts or every part of the stimulus plan, because I'm really not. I wasn't happy about them when Bush did it, either. But when it comes to having a relatively big government, I have to be honest and say I don't really have a problem with that. Whatever it is people have against social programs, I don't understand the anger.

Something that continues to boggle my mind is the American hatred of socialism. In journalism, we're taught to write for a 6th grade audience, that people don't pay attention if we use commas correctly (which requires us to write sentences that use as few commas as possible, resulting in very grammatically simple sentence structures), and that people have such short attention spans, we can't expect them to read an entire story.

That's why I find it hard to believe the vast majority of Americans even have a basic idea of what socialism is.

To be honest, I only have a basic idea of what socialism is, which resulted in reading short explanations about it on the internet. I don't know much about its history or how it has worked in practice, though I do intend to read up on it before making an argument for or against it. I wish more people would do this, but I suppose asking people to research their opinions is difficult if they can't keep their attention past the first paragraph. It's much easier to simply repeat the same rhetoric that's been forced down our throats by equally ignorant people.

Ah yes, first it was communism, now it's socialism. Just for fun, I did a search on google asking "why do americans hate socialism" and there are certainly some good reads there. The LA Progressive article "Why capitalists hate socialism" is an interesting comparison about "wasteful" spending on both sides, and this blog post by New America gives a good explanation about why Americans don't necessarily hate socialism but instead fear it (and misunderstand it).

You know, I feel like drinking some tea.