'76 Blog

Here's more from the March 2 debate, "Does the Tea Party or the Occupy Movement Best Represent the Needs and Goals of America?"   Michelle Morin readies her "get in the game" football prop as Tom Tancredo, Daniel Kagan, and Pat Steadman respond to a joking remark by moderator John Andrews As the exchange began, State Rep. Daniel Kagan (D-Denver) and State Sen. Pat Steadman (D-Denver) disclaimed any direct affiliation with, or endorsement of, OWS but argued for its superiority to the Tea Party.   Tom Tancredo, whose remarks are given in the previous post, had a spirited partner in opposing the Occupy side - Colorado Springs homemaker Michelle Morin.Morin (rhymes with "begin") sketched her activist resume, then played the Reagan card.  Here's the outline she spoke from as the debate opened:   I'm Michelle Morin and I’m honored to be here.   For those of you who don’t know me, here’s a little about me.  Mostly, I’m a blogger.  But….  • I’ve walked precincts,  • co-founded a successful grassroots group,  • spoken at every tea party in COS since 2009 plus others across the state,  • created and maintained an online cause with national reach of over 120,000 to stop ObamaCare, • created my own blog Mom4Freedom.com,  • created and hosted my own Political Power Tools workshops across the state to teach average folks how to advance freedom’s cause using online and other tools, led the volunteer petition effort for 2010’s ballot initiative 62,  • written for local freedom newspaper the Constitutionalist Today,  • formed a statewide online discussion forum and coalition providing opportunity for over 100 Colorado freedom activists to network and coordinate efforts,  • organized a variety of freedom events,  • awarded the 2010 Vern Bickel grassroots leadership award by the Independence Institute,  • and named a top 5 Republican influencer in Colorado by Campaigns and Elections magazine.     And that’s really just some of what I’ve done.  I think you would call me a triple A personality type who just happens to love America and value my freedom.  I really do enjoy talking with folks, I’m thrilled to be here.   WHAT WE'RE DEBATING HERE...   The most exceptional nation in world history is at a critical cross roads.  The issues that face America today actually cross party lines.  But they are not issues which were new to our founding fathers.     Want to start with quote….1964 Ronald Reagan – “We’re told we must choose between left and right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right.  There is only an up or down.  Up to man’s age-old dream – the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order – or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.  Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path.”     I’m going to boldly state that the tea party movement is a reflection of the original intents of America’s founding fathers and that the tea party represents the virtues which bring America up.     In contrast, the means of the occupy movement are the very weights which would bring America down to that heap of totalitarianism.     WHAT A CONTRAST...   Tea Party – individuals and power of individual Occupy – masses, 99% - basic focus seems to be upon transferring power from individuals to community   TP- responsibility, self-reliance Occupy – dependence on community and government   TP – free markets Occupy – would crush capitalism   Tea Party – arises from a spirited people who have the pride and courage to resist and reject the advance of despotism.   Occupy – stems from an excessive dependence from those who would easily invade the property and civil rights of others.  A dependence which feeds individual weakness and governmental strength.     Tea Party - tea party wins when America’s founding principles win Occupy - occupy wins when america’s founding principles lose   -          

  "Does the Occupy Movement or the Tea Party best reflect the needs and goals of America?"  That was the debate question at CCU on Jan. 30 as an overflow crowd cheered, laughed, and occasionally hissed at the crossfire between former congressman Tom Tancredo and Colorado Springs activist Michelle Morin on the Tea Party side and Democratic legislators Sen. Pat Steadman and Rep. Daniel Kagan on the Occupy side.  More than 200 partisans of the two viewpoints (conservative for the most part) packed the Beckman auditorium for the 90-minute event, moderated by Centennial Institute Director John Andrews.Video of the full program will be posted online later this week.  Here is Tancredo's opening statement:I begin by congratulating CCU and John Andrews for hosting this program. Our political season is largely devoid of good quality humor, and this debate question should get awards for political parody: Anyone who takes the “Occupy Movement” seriously as a force for fulfilling America’s destiny probably also believes Stephen Colbert is a serious political commentator.Maybe in Greenwich Village, Hollywood and Boulder, but not in the America I know and love. However, in a perverse way, the debate question is indeed a good jumping off place for a vigorous debate on “America’s needs and goals” because the differences between those two political forces are about as stark and extreme as you can find in politics today.The debate may put a bright spotlight on the deep divide in America today, a divide between two radically different understandings of America---And I mean more than differences over “needs and goals.” I mean deep differences over the very meaning of the Constitution, different concepts of our “core values,” and extremely different visions of what constitutes American greatness.   §  On the most obvious level, the Tea Party Movement began as a citizens' protest against high taxation and government debt, whereas the Occupy Movement wants even higher taxes and ENDLESS GOVERNMENT DEBT.  §  So which of THOSE visions do you think offers hope for America?§  On the level of political activism and civil behavior, the Tea Party movement has followed and respected traditional American tools of protest—public rallies under legal permits, speeches, petitions, and organizing for political participation in caucuses, conventions, primaries and elections.§  On the question of civic virtue and the rule of law, it is worth pointing out that at the HUNDREDS of Tea Party rallies across the country since the first ones in February 2009, conducted in full view of a critical and often hostile media, there was not one rape, one shooting, or one reported theft of property. YET, in the dozen or so OCCUPY movement’s tent cities, there have been several such crimes.§  On the level of grassroots legitimacy versus “Astroturf choreography,” the Tea party Movement is as genuine a grassroots protest movement as we have seen since the Populist revolt of 120 years ago.§  It is totally funded by local donations. Led by local citizens, young an old, and not coordinated by national funding or national structures.  And its program of grassroots organizing and protests does not rely on or depend on media favoritism or messaging.§  WHEREAS, BY CONTRAST, the “Occupy” movement is totally dependent on a fawning media to tell its story and gain a national audience.§  The Occupy Movement explicitly rejects the traditional American means of protest and chooses -- instead—WHAT? –§  The “Occupy Movement” chooses PHYSICAL VIOLENCE as its preferred means of protest, not petitions, not rallies, not speeches, not organizing for candidates in an election.§  The very NAME of the movement – “OCCUPY” is a PHYSICAL assault, not a form of speech.You see, behind the choice of its name and its choice of violent rhetoric, the “Occupy Movement” has made a choice to reject the basic institutions of American democracy. Its primary tactic is not persuasive argument but physical threats and intimidation. We know where those tactics come from, and its called totalitarianism. To the “Occupy” movement, all of these American institutions are illegitimate.To the Tea Party Movement, by contrast, America is a nation with problems that can still be fixed and our basic institutions are still legitimate.To the Tea Party Movement, our problem is to restore faith and adherence to basic values and core institutions that have been slowly undermined and weakened over the past decades.In short, the Occupy Movement cannot claim to represent America’s needs and goals because it does not understand what America IS. And to the extent it does have any understanding of American values and institutions, it REJECTS them.The contrast between the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party Movement is not a contrast between Republicans and Democrats, for I cannot believe all Democrats or even a majority of Democrats share the thoroughly socialist principles of the Occupy Movement.   I prefer the Tea Party Movement, which reveres the legacy of freedom and seeks to preserve and extend our freedoms, not further control our lives through an expanded and avaricious federal government as envisioned and championed by the Occupier–in-Chief, Barack Obama.

(Centennial Fellow) Class warfare is alive and healthy in elite parts of America today. Yes, elite. Only elites — a tiny fraction of a fraction of the American public — are able to camp in public parks denouncing businesses, while other elites in high government offices and the media discuss them. The rest of us have to work. So what do the elites want? From the repeated assertions of our president that the "rich" pay too little in taxes, to the anti-capitalism chorus of Occupy Wall Street, the echo chamber refrain seems to be that those who've earned less deserve what those who've earned more have. But in the idiom of Marxist political economy — the haves vs. have-nots — what do the haves, have? It's not money, simply. It's wealth, of which money is merely a measurement. Money and wealth are commonly confused, but their differences are important if we're to respond persuasively to the unjust demands of some for the property of others and explain why the creation of wealth solves, rather than creates, the problem of poverty. Imagine several people shipwrecked on an uninhabited island. Nothing survives the wreck, save only one item: a printing press filled with paper. As the people crawl to safety, they're exhausted. They stare in disbelief and shock. But soon they begin to realize that they're hungry, thirsty, cold, unprotected from the elements. They're in dire poverty. They must think and act, or die. What shall they do? Suppose one of them happens to be a member of the Obama economic team. He eyes the printing press and gets an idea: An economic stimulus plan of the kind he learned from his days in government. He quickly prints lots of dollar bills and distributes them (unevenly) to his fellow castaways. They now have more money than they did before, true. But has any wealth been created? No. They still have no food, no water, no heat, no shelter, no anything. They remain as poor as they were before receiving the dollars. The stimulus plan stimulated nothing. Suppose another castaway surveys the surroundings and figures out how to catch fish. By ingenuity and sweat, he catches lots of fish, more than he can eat. Another sets out on her own to find fresh drinking water, collecting and storing more than she needs, while someone else gathers firewood, and another designs a shelter while yet another builds it. Unlike the government economic advisor, these entrepreneurial castaways are not making, i.e. printing, money. Instead, they're creating new wealth by producing things that others find valuable. But how will the others obtain some of the valuable things being produced? Unless they resort to stealing, they must produce something of value themselves in order to engage in exchange. Production of wealth stimulates production of more wealth. Our motley crew of imaginary castaways began desperately poor, but now they are wealthy, relatively speaking. They prove an economic truth of human life: Production precedes consumption. Contra Keynesianism, it makes no more sense to "stimulate" consumption by printing more dollars than it does to hand a starving, dehydrated castaway a crisp new dollar bill. They also prove that the creation of new wealth is the solution to problem of poverty. The genesis of all new wealth is the mind, not money. Wealth is born as an idea, and made real through work, whether physical or intellectual. Wealth does not grow on trees — even apples remain worthless for human beings until someone thinks to pick them, eat them, and cultivate the growth of more. Wealth must be produced, and production requires work. But people are unlikely to work productively if they have good reason to believe they'll be punished for their work product (say, in the form of progressive taxation), or it will be taken away (whether by force or regulations). In world historical terms, the total amount of wealth on Earth remained relatively flat — and world poverty remained relatively constant — until the Enlightenment, when the global stock of wealth began to skyrocket. Why? Individual freedom, property rights that allow a person to keep what he acquires, the rule of knowable, fair, stable laws that provide equal protection for all who live under them, and minimal government interference in the economy led to increases in the production of new wealth, living standards, and levels of philanthropic aid for the poor unknown in the annals of history. Occupying Wall Street and envying the "rich" for not paying their "fair share" creates no wealth. It does not alleviate the plight of the poor. But we know what does: Let's restore the conditions that stimulate the creation of wealth and provide have-nots an opportunity to become haves. • Krannawitter teaches politics at Colorado Christian University and is a Centennial Institute Fellow. This article originally appeared in Investor's Business Daily.