First
of all, is it wrong for a gov't agency to act with prejudice?
Certainly. Should some people be fired or jailed? Yes if the proper
evidence is available. Should we have an investigation to see how high
it goes? Probably. But the outrage and tear-jerking by the right over
this is worse than comical, it's enraging. NPR reported on the
Congressional hearings, and it was like an episode of Maury. One
Tea-bagger testified that she couldn't sleep because she could only
imagine what evil the gov't would inflict on her next. Give me a break.
She and others got her apps delayed and had to answer some annoying
questions. Not right, but not the end of the world either (and the same
thing happened to some liberal-sounding groups during the Bush years,
and that was pre-Citizens United). Did they get shut down and their
assets frozen? Did baton-wielding brutes launch tear gas and kick their
teeth in? Were they detained for hours without charge or rendered
overseas to be tortured? Because that stuff happened to Americans, and I
didn't hear a peep out of the Tea-baggers then.
I would be more outraged if the wronged parties were like
Mormons or soybean farmers or bugle players. But these are
fundamentalist conservatives here, frankly with un-American ideology.
They were still wronged, but they don't get to bitch about oppression
and abuse when they are the ones advocating policies that marginalize
gays, Muslims, people of color, women, the planet, and people with
common sense. If they are all about keeping the vile gov't out of our
lives and protecting our god-given rights, then why do they want to
dictate who you can marry, what you can smoke, where you can build a
mosque, what official language we should speak, and when life begins?
And if they distrust/criticize the gov't so much, then why do they
expect to get swift, fair, and competent processing of their 501(c)4
status as a tax-free, non-profit, "social welfare" org? They claim to
love America, yet hate the gov't. Well the gov't is America too. What
are they, bipolar? America is not just a 200-year-old parchment with
some old edicts. It needs agencies and people to carry them out. I think
over 10% of our workforce is public sector. Maybe that is bad, but
those people are your neighbors and family and they mostly mean you no
harm (unless they work for DHS or CIA). In fact they help you in so many
obvious and subtle ways that you should show some freaking humility and
gratitude. Wasteful bureaucracy sucks, but unfortunately it's the
easiest way to have a society, unless you trust the free market and
for-profit corporations to "run your life" instead. And by the way,
there would be no functional market without the government. Well there
may be a market, but it would be like a giant craigslist swap meet cluster F.
We know that our system of political finance/influence is
broken and corrupt (yes, other nations are much worse but we'd like to
think that we're better than Iran or Italy). Citizens United really
re-wrote the book and most Americans can't directly experience/fathom
the effects. So you now can have orgs where million-dollar donors can be
totally anonymous. And you can have some orgs that don't have to pay
taxes because they claim to do just enough community service to go along
with their 95% narrow political advocacy. Tea-baggers don't like the
debt? Then before you cut off a poor working mom, why don't you pay some
tax on the collections you reaped at your BS worthless rally? Why don't
your employees have to pay into SS and Medicare, yet a literally
job-creating company has to (even if it's in the red this year)? The
nation is subsidizing your stupid beliefs and advocacy. Yes, you are
constitutionally entitled to hold and propagate your stupid beliefs. But
don't tell me you should get special treatment and a free ride. Doesn't
that make you a taker? And yes, I also believe that religious orgs
(that don't do enough REAL social work) and liberal orgs should pay
taxes too. The Bugle Players of Alameda County are not the Red Cross.
Neither is the Tea Party, any Tea Party.
It's ironic because the bad people that the Tea-baggers claim
to be saving America from actually resemble them a lot (apart from being
rich, old, and white). And it's strange that the majority of Americans
do not hold the same beliefs as these Tea groups. Only in this crazy age
do self-proclaimed patriots get financial assistance to advocate for
policies that are clearly damaging to the country and its values. And
then when they are slightly inconvenienced in the process, it's the
worst tragedy-scandal since Benghazi (which is the worst tragedy-scandal
in history... their version of history where Republicans like Cheney,
North, and Nixon never existed).
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