The Tea Party movement just finished its first national convention in Opryland, outside of Nashville, Tenn., Feb. 5 through 6.

The Tea Partiers, large crowds of fearful white people whipped up in a frenzy by hate TV and radio (i.e., Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, et al.), started by acting out at town hall meetings of Representatives and Senators who were discussing health care last summer. This soon escalated into Tea Partiers showing up at presidential events and visits with signs saying “Keep the Government out of Health Care” and “Don’t Touch My Medicare,” with others openly wearing weapons strapped on their persons.

On the first day of the convention, among the sessions planned for the event was “Why Christians Must Engage.”

The tone of this movement is one of ethnocentrism, and that was evident in those who spoke at their convention. Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a failed presidential candidate in 2008 who became notorious for his opposition to illegal immigration, was the first speaker. He called President Obama a “committed Socialist ideologue” who was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote.”

Tancredo added, “People who could not even spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.” The literacy tests he pined for are not unlike those previously used in the South to keep blacks from voting.

The Tea Party movement is upset at the “debt” the government is incurring and the “socialist agenda” being imposed on America. I guess this means a government that would meet their expectations would eliminate any and all socialist programs now in place. The first things to go would be Social Security, Disability, Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). These are definitely socialist programs, and a drag on the economy with the added burden of the elderly, disabled, poor and young children living much longer than necessary.

In line with these cuts, there would be absolutely no money spent on anything considered to be a stimulus, so the many projects that have been initiated to fix or replace components of our crumbling infrastructure — roads, bridges, waterlines, sewer lines and others — would be stopped immediately. But the Tea Party movement is strong on national security, so the war budget would continue to swell from the present $600 billion.

Border security would also be a priority, with a continuous, perhaps weaponized-wall, for the first time spanning the entire southern border. Raids inside the country would increase to round up those seen not fitting into the visual image of America, who are non-white, non-English speaking, and/or non-Christian. Those who jeopardize national security by questioning these activities would also be seen as an enemy of the state. You say this cannot happen in America, and I answer it has (such as during World War II when thousands of Japanese-Americans were rounded up) and could again.

For the rank and file, these movements are based on emotion, not logic. I recently re-read the classic political account, “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72,” by Hunter S. Thompson. The great thing about reading it again is the perspective of the present that allows comparison and reflection.

In “Fear and Loathing,” Thompson recounts a moment at the 1964 GOP convention where nominee Barry Goldwater made his famous quote, “Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice,” in his acceptance speech. Thompson wrote, “Goldwater had not even got the words of out his mouth when the delegates were on their feet cheering wildly. Then, as the human thunder kept building, they mounted their metal chairs and began howling, shaking their fists at Huntley and Brinkley up in the NBC TV booth — finally they began to pick up those chairs and with both hands bashing then against the chairs that other delegates were still standing on.”

This was obviously a demonstration of emotion, but as Thompson continued, “It was a memorable performance, etched every bit as vividly in the folds of my brain as the police beatings I saw at the corner of Michigan and Balbo four years later,” referring to the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. The perceived idea of liberty being at risk in both of these snapshots is analogous to the present Tea Partiers, who would identify with those who were venting their anger at the media and at the demonstrators as the enemies of “liberty.”

History teaches us that those who scream the loudest about protecting liberty are the most likely to take it away from others, and can be, in the end, the bearers of fascism.

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