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.

Shelby

This is a picture of me and the dog I grew up with, Shelby. She's a pomeranian/miniature poodle mix that my dad just randomly brought home one day back in 1996 when I was 11 and my sister was 9. We had never had a dog before, and needless to say, we were ecstatic to have this cute, crazy ball of fuzz!



Shelby was a typical puppy at first, always getting into trouble. It only lasted for a few years, and after that, she was the perfect little dog. She wasn't the type to bark excessively, though we always knew if someone was walking on the sidewalk outside our house. She went through a short phase of ripping apart trash, but she would always come apologize to us in her special way before we would even find it.

She almost got hit by a car once, back in the first year we had her. She escaped from the front door when we were leaving and ran across the street toward the light pole, a popular place for neighborhood dogs, and she darted out in front of a blue car. The driver slammed on his brakes, and Shelby came running right back to us. I think she was as scared as we were. I've never forgotten it.

You know how it is when you have an animal in your life for years, and you seem to have your own language between the two of you? That's how Shelby was with our family. And you know how animals have weird little personality quirks that you only notice once you get to know them really well? We had that in Shelby too.

For example, she always dug the carrots out of my mom's garden and ate them during the summer. After awhile, my mom didn't fight it anymore and instead just gave Shelby carrots as she harvested the other vegetables. Shelby would spend hours in the backyard with my mom, either "helping" in the garden or just laying in the grass, sniffing the air and soaking up the sun.

Every summer, Shelby had an ongoing war with the squirrels. They would team up on her, teasing her and running around, staying at a spot on the tree just out of Shelby's reach. After about the fourth summer, Shelby finally got one. My sister came home from school just in time to see Shelby swinging the squirrel around by its tail, its broken legs flailing. Horrified, she ran outside to save the squirrel from Shelby, only to be bitten by it and having to get a rabies shot. We only found out later that squirrels don't technically carry rabies. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

Another summer, we took Shelby out to our grandparents' cabin at Lake Guernsey for a weekend, where we hiked trails and played on the dock. My sister and I got on our floaties and swam out toward the center of the lake as Shelby watched us from the dock. She began to bark like she wanted to come with us, but we were already too far out to go back and get her. That was when she jumped into the water off the dock, only to start sinking to the bottom. Of course, we started screaming, and my mom basically jumped in to save her. After that, we always took Shelby with us on the floaties. She eventually learned to swim.

Shelby on the dock at Lake Guernsey. This was one of her favorite places to be!


Shelby eventually got to the age where she settled down, and we never had any problems with her. We could take her on walks in the park without her leash because we knew she wouldn't run too far from us. We could even let her go out in the front yard with us, and she'd never leave our property.

She had a lot of joy in her life, thanks to our big yards and the many outdoors areas at Guernsey and on my grandparents' ranch. Everytime we had to leave town as a family, Shelby would go out to the ranch, and I think she'd just barely miss us more than she loved it out there. We'd also take her with us on car rides, and she'd happily stick her head out the window. I remember laughing so many times at seeing her reflection in the sideview mirror of the car, the wind blowing her hair into a frenzy, her little tongue hanging out of her mouth.

I moved out of my parents' house when I was 18, but it was only a few blocks away, so I still saw Shelby on a regular basis and would take her to the parks with me when the weather was nice. Then I moved to Kearney, four hours away from home, and I saw Shelby less and less. It was always a happy reunion when I went back, though, and my parents would always bring her with them when they came to visit me.

Shelby's getting old now. A couple of summers ago, she began having heart problems. She's always kind of had a weird hacking cough due to the murmur in her heart, but then her little heart started to get bigger and bigger. According to the x-rays, her heart is the same size as a grown adult human! According to the vet, her heart could fail at any time.

The last time I saw her was over Thanksgiving, and I had to give her pills twice a day wrapped in cheese. One night, as we were sleeping together in my bed, I woke up to her having a siezure. I didn't know what it was at the time, but when I explained it to my mom, she told me about it and said, "Oh, that happens to her sometimes."

Shelby can't come visit me anymore because the four-hour drive is too much for her little body to handle. When my sister or I go back home, we have to try to keep her calm so she won't have a heart attack, or as my dad says, so she doesn't "explode."

She can't run too much, and her walks are much shorter. What used to be a dark black coat of fur is now partly grey. When you think about it, she's now 13 years old, which puts her somewhere in the 60s as far as dog years go. The average life expectancy of small dog is about 15 years, though, so she might still have a ways to go. But even if she did die today, I'd consider it a good run for the money.