Legitimization of the Tea Party

The below was originally written for Politics and Pucks, Mike's blog. He was kind enough to invite me to do a guest post on the day of Blogathon. Because this was a guest post, it has none of my usual formatting. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

One of the very interesting responses to the Democrat Party's takeover of Congress and the White House during the 2006 and 2008 electoral cycles has been the emergence of the Tea Party phenomena amongst voters in the United States. As readers of this blog will know, the Tea Party isn't actually a political party, but a loose association of individuals who share openly the ideas that government is too big and oppressive, and especially, taxes far too much. I don't feel the need to delve into the extended history of the Tea Party - Mike's coverage of the movement has been more thorough than I could ever be - but I would like to go over their ascendancy from fringe movement to legitimate portion of the American right.

The Tea Party began as an embodiment of the concept that the government should reduce taxes and expenditure in order to restore power to the average American, and a popular patriotic symbol was chosen as the flagship of this movement - the Boston Tea Party of 1773. It is interesting, and apt, that these self-described patriots chose to name their movement after an event that was designed to lash out against legitimate government on a hypothetical and ultimately fictional basis while utilizing extreme racist overtones that precipitated a violent event. The two Tea Parties have shared interestingly similar paths of development, though of course, I hope the end result differs.

Incorporation and the 2nd Amendment

Update: Ryan from Chicago Gun Owners was kind enough to feature this post on his website. It was incredibly kind of him to offer me the opportunity to share my writing with a bunch of new people, and I hope you all enjoyed reading my thoughts!

More theoretical political thought, since the last post on American political history and thought was oh so popular! This one is on the recent extension of Incorporation to the 2nd Amendment. Of course, the 2nd Amendment - the right to bear arms - has been probably the most contentious of the Bill of Rights, and dutifully so. A very strong percentage of Americans, especially American liberals, believe that gun control is an important method of crime prevention, especially aggressive and violent crimes.

Due to the case of Barron vs. Baltimore, the Bill of Rights was not applied to state or city governments in the United States; therefore, according to constitutional precedent, while the federal government cannot unreasonably restrict the right of a person to bear firearms, the many state and municipal governments are not bound by that particular restriction. Many states and especially cities, therefore, established laws banning handguns and other restrictions. One of these cities was Chicago.