So it begins – the seeing of what was screamingly obvious to me a good few months ago; the horrified realization among the politically connected (especially in the GOP) that the loose confederation which amassed under the yellow Gadsden flag with the coiled rattlesnake motif and goes by the name of the Tea Party is not just a sort of mass temper-tantrum, or a collection of irate voters to be gentled, tamed and gelded to better serve the purposes of the Grand Old Party. Nor are they – being a loosely connected and leaderless network of fiscal conservatives, free-market small business owners and strict constitutionalists – a tool and Astroturf organization deliberately created by the machinations of the Dark Lord Rove. Nope – the fact the Dark Lord himself got downright pissy over the fact that Christine O’Donnell scooped the primary in Delaware over the favored GOP candidate . . . and then went on to demonstrate that financially, she has no need of the established lords of the GOP and their deep coffers. It’s not just a case of the tail wagging the dog; the high lords of the established American political process (Republican Division) have discovered to their absolute horror that in this political season, the Tea Party is not the tail . . . but the dog itself, and they have been reduced to being the tail. Or possibly the materiel which emerges regularly from a little bit south of the tail – but I don’t think they will be the first to come to this realization, nor will they be the last.

See – if you really had paid attention to the Tea Party, or been deeply involved from the get-go, you’d have known a number of things about them. One of those things is that – although a fair number of original Tea Partiers are social conservatives, even evangelical Christians – the fiscal-conservative/free market/strict constitutionalist mindset trumps all that. There’s also a strong libertarian bent among them, and a prejudice towards individual responsibility. Basically, it’s ‘let me alone to work out my own economic/personal salvation’ which usually results in statist tools pouncing triumphantly and saying things like “Ah-ha! So you don’t want roads, or police departments, or an FDA screening dangerous drugs, or social security – hah! You hypocrites!” This is something of an exercise in straw-man construction when it comes to Tea Partiers; generally we acknowledge that a government is good for something: roads, delivery of the post, defense of the nation, and a care for the health of the public are good things, and the rightful interest of a representative government elected by the people. It’s just that a good thing taken too far eventually becomes a bad thing . . . and in the words of that wonderful document, the Declaration of Independence ‘destructive of those ends.’ The way to Hell is paved with good intentions – in the eyes of Tea Partiers, a cold and unsparing look at the long-term results of those various good intentions is way, way past due, as well as a reconsideration of maintaining such programs which grew, like Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, out of good intentions some thirty, fifty or eighty years ago. Or even severely modifying them – because one of the other unspoken tenets of people who tend to become Tea Partiers – is that if well-intentioned laws, programs and practices have a bad result in the real world, than perhaps such laws, programs and practices out to be revised, amended or terminated.

All the good intentions in the world do not – repeat, do not – excuse or justify a destructive result. In the real world – that one where one in which most of us live – that which has a bad result should not be continued, full stop, end discussion. It has also been noticed that frequently those who insists that such a law, program or practice ought to be continued with just because of the original good intentions were noble, and that it hasn’t worked because we haven’t worked hard enough at it – have a vested interest in such continuation. As it looks to be shaping up this election season, that kind of blind devotion to principles, lack of consideration to results and self-interest has consequences, some of them severe. Life-threatening, even. Certainly career-threatening, to judge by the way that long-time career Dem politicians are distancing themselves at speed from bagatelles such as Obama-care, and top GOP strategists are regarding primary victories by Tea Party oriented candidates over the properly anointed candidates with horrified disbelief. I can almost hear them saying ‘OMG – they are serious about small-governments and the Constitution!’

PS – as it turns out, O’Donnell is said to be a witch! Three Beers Later…: O'DONNELL 2010“>This kind of witch, I think…