NW Indiana Patriots - Tea Party respond

The Northwest Indiana Patriots Mission Statement is the basis of our actions: To restore limited government, fiscal responsibility and accountable representation through citizen activism and education, in order to preserve the Constitution of the United States of America.

One blogger posting as "Oscar Zoroaster Et Cetera" takes exception to our efforts here Northwest Indiana Politics: Tea Party Attendance Dies as NWIPs Focus on RTA Mr. Z's tone deaf pronouncements make it sound as if he could be affiliated with the local political party Running through an incoherent maze is more easily done by starting at the finish, so we'll go through Mr. Z's post from the bottom up.

He asks, "On Thursday, a handful of NWIP representatives are going to come to a Republican Party meeting in Kouts to protest the RTA and see where party insiders stand. Is this really productive? What exactly are they hoping to prove?"

We did attend that meeting, and it was productive. Not being there to "prove" anything, we wanted to find out what the local GOP's stance on the RTA is. What we found was they have none.

The local GOP, like Mr. Z, "don't care enough about" the creation of an extra-govermental body with the power to levy taxes on us. A body who has the deck stacked in its favor by local and state politicians to insure its creation. Why isn't the local GOP "throwing a hissy fit" over this? That's rhetorical - the Republican party has shown it is just as enamored with expansive, intrusive and tax-drunk government as the other side of the aisle, an aisle that gets narrower daily.

We are on the street every single day informing our fellow citizens about the referendum on November 3, and people are responding. Some go in and vote right then and there. Others take signs and inform others. This is what's called grassroots activism, Mr. Z - your top-down focus illustrates just what is wrong with today's political culture.

Power should reside with the people, and that starts at the local level. Local government can be just as tyrannical and oppressive as a federal behemoth. If Mr. Z is truly as concerned with the national Tea Party movement as he claims to be, he would know that involvement in local government is mainstream Tea Party policy.

It is Mr. Z's opinion that we should "tell our elected leaders to vote NO on the President's proposed healthcare reform plan." We have, Mr. Z, and we, along with the millions of other Tea Partiers this summer, stopped the lightning passage of that healthcare takeover. Doing what the GOP was impotent to do, the healthcare reform debate is now center stage on the national scene. Had we left it to the Republicans, we'd all already be cogs in the exchange, on the path to single-payer socialized healthcare.

And what does this say of the local GOP's assessment skills? Who should we convince to vote no on the healthcare takeover, Mr. Z? Are you referring to elected officials like Pete "Do What the Local Unions Say" Visclosky? We've attended meetings with Mr. Visclosky, and trust us, he's not listening.

We and our members continue to write letters, send faxes and make phone calls to our officials to reaffirm our opposition to socialized medicine. But there are other battles to be fought, and we must fight them on the local level especially.

So, the local GOP doesn't like what we're doing? Good. They seem to think that they should reap the rewards of America's disgust with gargantuan government. Well, our memories are not that short, Mr. Z. We recall that the Republican-controlled Congress earlier this decade grew government faster than any before it, paving the way for today's runaway House, Senate and administration.

Thank you, Mr. Z. It's nice to be noticed.

Faith Jones-Founder and Organizer
Bonnie Kuzminski - Organizer