Over the weekend I’ve been thinking about Tea Party Nation’s convention in Nashville and some of the criticism which has been leveled at it. A lot of that criticism focuses on the fact that the organizers are charging a lot, paying Sarah Palin a lot, and making a profit on the event. This made me wonder when people on the right who supposedly believe in free enterprise and individual liberty decided that making money was a bad thing.

It’s not just the convention. Throughout the discontented masses of newly energized activists there’s a suspicion of any group which has links to corporate interests or is supported by large donations from foundations or companies. FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and the Tea Party Express have all been the targets of criticism because they are seen as sellouts or shills for special interests. Yet what’s so wrong about bringing money or influence to a cause? If a group or a company or a rich individual happens to share your interests, why is it wrong to benefit from his largess? If a wealthy foundation or even a health insurance company will give you the platform to reach a wider audience with your message, why is that bad? They may be using you, but you’re also using them, and if your interests coincide even temporarily then you both benefit and if you’re sincere your efforts will do more good than they would if you were just protesting on a street corner without the money to get on TV or gather larger crowds.

It seems to me that the new activism of the Tea Party has to some degree become infected with the anti-capitalism of the protest culture of the left, and I’m pretty sure that’s not a positive influence. If we accept that the enemy of the movement is the out-of-control state and its corporate allies, that does not mean that every politician and every business is an enemy. The policies which the Tea Parties object to are as harmful to many businesses as they are to individuals and there are plenty of politicians who remember that votes got them elected, not just money. Not all businesses are part of the cabal which wields power and there are always ambitious politicians looking for a new power base. Populism and opposition to the status quo can be a powerful political force which can make your career.

Causes need money, and sooner or later every movement is going to need allies with deep pocketbooks. The trick is picking allies whose interests are close to your own, and it shouldn’t be difficult, because they will come knocking at your door, realizing that your group is one they can work with.

In the same way, attracting some opportunistic politicians who want to promote their careers while promoting your issues is not a bad thing, so long as you remain true to your beliefs and hold the politicians accountable. The media has declared that Sarah Palin has hijacked the Tea Party movement, but it’s just as true that the Tea Party movement has hijacked her and that she’s tailoring her message to appeal to their interests.

In these relationships both sides benefit.

So today, in the aftermath of the Tea Party Nation Convention, I received an email from the Tea Party Patriots, who are one of the more legitimate, grassrootsy Tea Party groups. They’re not well funded and are mainly just a bunch of activists all over the country who are organizing small protests in combination with other groups. They’re all chuffed because the Tea Party Nation folks had their convention first and got so much media attention and they’re afraid it will cut into their popularity and take away from their their convention which is coming up on April 15th.

In their email they write about Tea Party groups selling out to politically connected and well-financed interests:

The Tea Party Movement started because of these tactics and we will not be used like this. We are smarter than that and we will call out any one and any organization who tries to undermine the grassroots movement known as the Tea Party Movement.

The truth is that if they want the press coverage they can get it most easily by forming alliances with groups that have money and can draw prominent speakers and get media attention. That doesn’t necessarily mean selling out. Those groups need the grassroots folks on the ground too much to exploit them in any way which would alienate them. And ultimately you are responsible for your own integrity. If you don’t like what your allies are doing, call them on it and sever ties. Just make sure that your own behavior and activities are above reproach.

In a related phenomenon, Ron Paul supporters make a big deal of how they had the Tea Party idea first. But you can’t really own an idea or own a movement, even if you got there first. And you can’t take someone’s movement away or hijack it because you decide to join it and brought a lot of friends or a lot of money with you. If the movement is authentic and if it is driven by real issues then it is going to continue and gain strength.

Obviously the Tea Party movement is diverse and it’s made up of lots of groups with different strategies and interests and resources. But for it to work and grow people need to be willing to form alliances, and that means they can’t afford to let the anti-corporate, anti-establishment attitude run away with them. It’s self-indulgent and self-defeating. Righteousness and ideological purity may make you feel great as you sit in the local coffee house plotting revolution with your little cell of like-minded individuals, but it gets in the way of actually accomplishing anything. It’s an egotistical delusion. To succeed you need to put ego aside and be prepared to not be the center of attention and devote your efforts to making the cause itself what matters, not yourself or your particular group.

That’s called maturity and the Tea Party movement is very young. If it’s going to mature it’s going to change and people are going to have to make some compromises along the way. That includes putting aside ego and giving up some control and accepting the help of older groups and foundations and even allying with icky things like politicians and corporations, because that’s how you build influence. Just stick to your principles and lead by example and make the right deals with the right people. You might end up changing the world.

In reading coverage of the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville I have to wonder if this might be the final nail in the coffin of the Tea Party movement. There's still a lot of legitimate anger and grassroots protest out there, but this event is such a charade and so fundamentally antithetical to the spirit of the Tea Party protests that it's going to leave a lot of people discouraged and disenchanted and feeling betrayed.

The problems with the National Tea Party Convention are many, but three stand out:

It represents only one tea party group and most of the others, including organizers of the most successful tea party protests, smelled a rat and chose not to participate. The organizers seem like opportunists trying to cash in on the Tea Party phenomenon.

It's being run purely for profit, by a corporation created for that purpose and pulling out all the stops to make money, from a huge price to attend to massive merchandising of high priced T-shirts and trinkets. It's more like a Star Trek convention than a political event, except that attendance is much lower and fewer people are in costume.

It seems to have been taken over by one particular hardcore, right wing ideology, with Sarah Palin headlining and with many of the more mainstream conservative and libertarian speakers who were scheduled to attend canceling because they were uncomfortable with the environment.

The net result of this is a very limited scope to the convention and a very specialized audience. With a cost of $549 for full admission and the additional costs of travel and lodging, the young students and hard-working people who made up the crowds at authentic protests this past year mostly can't afford to attend.

Mainstream Republicans turned against the event and attempted to distance themselves, with Representatives Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) bowing out as guests on short notice because of concern over the corporate, for-profit status of the event and the backlash against it among the grassroots voters with whom they have become very popular for their outspoken criticism of the Obama administration.

Other legitimate grassroots groups involved in the Tea Parties are either ignoring the convention entirely like the Libertarian Party, American Liberty Alliance and Republican Liberty Caucus, or they are actively opposing the convention and even planning protests as the National Precinct Alliance declared it would do when it withdrew from participation. Even the Tea Party Express, which has itself been accused of selling out to corporate interests, dropped out of the convention a couple of weeks ago.

With both mainstream Republicans turning against the event and other legitimate elements of the Tea Party movement generally ignoring it, the environment at the convention seems to have turned rather strange. The huge number of press representatives who were invited are being excluded from many of the events and the convention has already attracted national negative attention when opening speaker Joseph Farah launched a birther screed about President Obama's Birth certificate, garnering major negative response from left and right alike.

As a result of all of this, attendance is embarrassingly low, with an official estimate of only 600 paid attendees, which is far less than the left's similar Netroots Nation event which intentionally capped attendance at about three times that size. I've run a lot of conventions, and with that few attendees and paying for Opryland and $100,000 for Sarah Palin's speech, even at $549 a head it seems very unlikely that the organizers will see more than a modest profit, and the new Ensuring Liberty PAC which they are launching out of the convention isn't going to have a lot of cash to throw around as a result.

Now I have to admit that everyone has a right to make a buck, and if turning the Tea Party movement into a circus and inviting the scorn of the left media and genuine grassroots activists is worth enduring to make some money, then Mark Skoda and Justin Phillips of Tea Party Nation have every right to do it. And we can’t blame Sarah Palin for banking another six figures in her bank account. But I think that there is reason to be concerned about what this event will do to the grassroots movement which it represents so poorly.

Obviously an event like this isn't going to put an end to the genuine discontent among working Americans which motivated all of the protests over the past year.  Yet it really does highlight the biggest problem that these loosely associated Tea Party groups have, which is their lack of nationwide organization.  They are inherently leery of some of the organizations which could provide them with guidance and structure like  FreedomWorks and don't want to sell out to the corporate interests they feel those groups represent.  But it's clear from this convention that even some from within their own ranks are pretty eager to sell out and turn a profit from the movement without really moving them any closer to unity.

A small, overpriced and not-very-representative convention with most of the Tea Party groups absent isn't going to provide any kind of real or lasting  leadership or influence, and the backlash against it is probably going to make future organizing and coordination more difficult as groups look on each other with even more suspicion.  While this event could have been an opportunity to unify protesters, it is likely to have the exact opposite effect, and the Tea Party movement will remain a loose alliance with its members even more disaffected and disillusioned than they were before.  Some will probably even become discouraged and leave the movement before the 2010 elections give them a chance to have a real influence.

Ironically, if this convention does have a unifying effect, it's more likely to come out of the hostile coverage from the left than from anything done at the convention.  As sanctimonious leftists like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann mock the event and the "Teabaggers" in general, such does more to bring them together despite their differences than any misstep like this convention does to drive them apart.  Even those who aren't supporting the convention are going to be offended by the mocking and derision of the left, and that  will help them find common ground in common enemies and maybe the next attempt at working together will go better as a result.

So don't write the Tea Party off just because of this sad event in Tennessee.  The final chapter in the story of grassroots America rising up and demanding better government has yet to be written and the real test will come at the polls this November.

The only thing falling faster than the dollar and the hopes of unemployed Americans this winter is the snow in Washington DC. The capital is now in the grips of its third blizzard in two weeks, this one expected to rival the famed Knickerbocker snowstorm of 1922 which shut the entire city down for a week. With 30 inches predicted and if the cold temperatures hold up we might get lucky and see federal offices still closed as the coming work-week starts.

Based on President Obama's proposed budget, every day we manage to keep the federal government completely shut down we save $10 billion, so if we can somehow keep the city closed for about 4 months of the coming year we could balance the federal budget, assuming there's any tax revenue left after back-door taxes and excessive regulation finish destroying the small businesses which make up 70% of our economy.

There's a certain ironic balance to the image of Washington buried under a blizzard of snow considering how they have buried the country under a blizzard of worthless paper in the form of bad debt and devalued money issued by the federal reserve. Perhaps it's cosmic vengeance for taking a nation which was an economic powerhouse only a few years ago and putting it so far in debt that economists are now predicting that our debt exceeds our ability to ever repay it and that the amount we will need to borrow to finance that debt actually exceeds the lending capacity of the financial resources of the entire world. All assuming anyone will lend us money when our national credit rating is downgraded.

Sadly we can't depend on winter to last forever and despite its extraordinary level of corruption and inefficiency, the DC government does have enough snowplows to eventually clear the streets, so business as usual will begin again in DC before long and our rights and our fortunes will once again be at the mercy of irresponsible legislators and out of control bureaucrats.

In addressing the risk that our national credit worthiness will be downgraded, Moody's Investment Services emphasized that the problem is not discretionary spending but entitlements, pointing out that "the combination of the medical programmes and social security is the most important threat to the triple-A rating over the long term."

When the snow ends and the government goes back to work, President Obama is going to have to face a reality which is going to be very unpleasant for the leader of a political movement based on handing out entitlements to every constituency. He's going to have to admit that not only can he not pass or justify a massive new spending program like national healthcare, but he is going to have to look seriously at cutting the benefits of already existing programs like Social Security and Medicare. Cutting those costs which make up over two thirds of the budget are the only possible way to get the debt situation under control and that debt now poses so great a threat to the economy that it cannot be ignored.

At this point, obligations to these programs has reached a level where even if the President were to cut 100% of discretionary spending the amount due for Medicare and Social Security alone would consume the entire projected government revenue in 2011. That means that it is effectively impossible to balance the budget without cutting these programs which now make up over 70% of the total budget. The experts at Moody's can see this, but it's not a reality that Obama or the Democrats in Congress are likely to embrace.

Republicans are alredy facing up to this reality. Earlier this week Representative Jeb Hensaerling (R-TX) was on MSNBC and got a lot of attention when he forward a proposal to cut Social Security benefits for younger retirees and ease into a privatized system. Obama's director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag is on record as advocating cuts in social security benefits prior to his appointment, and has pointed out that the projected deficits are unsustainable.

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has now proposed a bill sponsored by five other House Republicans which would solve this problem for President Obama. It cuts the corporate tax rate to spur economic growth, moves many medicare and medicaid services into the hands of private insurance plans, raises the retirement age gradually to 70 and reduces the growth of social security benefits while allowing some social security investment to be privatized. It's a smart and forward looking plan which would address the critical budgetary crisis in an effective way.

The question is whether President Obama will listen to Congressional Republicans like Ryan nad Hensaerling or will he and Congressional Democrats just pretend their proposals do not exist as they did with Republican ideas for healthcare reform. If Obama seriously believes in bipartisanship and is listening to the warnings coming from the international financial community and his own OMB director, he should take a hard look at Ryan's bill. It's pretty close to a life preserver for a drowning man. It's clear that the Democratic leadership in Congress wants to carry on business as usual, live in denial and pretend they can get away without making hard decisions. That leaves the burden of responsibility with President Obama. If he works with Republicans and it fails he can always blame them and if it succeeds he can get most of the credit.

Failing an outbreak of genuine bipartisanship and an alliance between Congressional Republicans and the President, we're lucky that the gurus of global warming are so laughably wrong. When this year's extraordinary snowfall turns into the fimbulwinter and DC is under a glacier, that might be the only hope we have left of stopping the mad spending.

President Obama is giving his first State of the Union address on Wednesday at 9pm EST. We’re going to be covering it live with special guest bloggers and commenters as well as open participation for our readers. Watch this space for the live chat starting when the president takes the podium.

I started out to write an article about an ominous attack on Second Amendment rights which took place here in Austin recently, but on viewing videos of the subsequent protest at city hall as part of my research I got sidetracked with more overwhelming evidence that Alex Jones is a narcissistic douchebag and really no friend of liberty, facts which I have observed before but which just become clearer with each new incident.

Earnest and passionate local advocates for individual liberty led by John Bush of Texans for Accountable Government organized a peaceful protest rally on Monday afternoon in opposition to the Austin Police Department’s involvement with the BATF in attempts to illegally shut down private gun sales at gun shows in Austin. They had a good turnout and a schedule of speakers including Darwin Bedecker, who was the most recent target of this persecution campaign, and notable local liberty advocates like Jerri Lynn Ward and Catherine Bleish. It was organized on short notice, but it was a well-planned and effective rally presenting a legitimate grievance to the city government with a permit and everything.

Then, in the middle of it all, Alex Jones shows up with a bullhorn and what can only be described as a gang of thugs, and proceeds to disrupt the entire rally, shouting over the speakers, shutting down the program, and ultimately driving off most of the participants with his obnoxious antics. Not only that, but Jones was rude to everyone, including those who tried to invite him to become a program participant, called Catherine Bleish a “cointelpro” agent provocateur and ranted on and on about the NWO and various issues completely unrelated to the purpose of the protest, while surrounded by his personal videographers and thuglike followers.

Apparently Jones is incapable of allowing a protest to go on where he isn’t the center of attention, and in order to get that attention he is willing to undermine the effectiveness of the protest, offend potential sympathizers and generally behave like a penis with legs. It’s not surprising that by the end of the event people were accusing Jones of working for the statists to discredit legitimate protesters, and a lot of people came away from the event cured of any prior attraction to Jones’ particular brand of anti-government paranoia. As I’ve said before, Jones is his own worst enemy and he lost a lot of supporters Monday because of his boorish behavior and an attitude which was widely described as “divisive.”

Jones clearly has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and has all the earmarks of a little Hitler in the making and that type doesn’t like to be left on the sidelines. He has the “rule or ruin” attitude where if he’s not in charge and doesn’t have all eyes focused on him then he will cause chaos and destruction and to hell with everyone else and the important issue which they may have been protesting. For Jones the cause of liberty and the truth are secondary. His goal is self-promotion and probably personal profit as well. Jones can’t just cover a story or add his voice to protesting an issue, because he has to be the story and he has to define the protest or it is of no value to him.

For more video of this event taken by Catherine Bleish see here and here.

While everyone was still yammering about the significance of Republican Scott Brown's remarkable victory in Massachusetts, another significant defeat for the American left went virtually unnoticed as Air America Radio shut down forever on Thursday. After trying to operate on a model which was clearly incapable of attracting affiliates, listeners or advertisers and without further infusions of cash from wealthy sympathizers, the management faced up to economic reality and finally gave up.

Air America was founded in 2004 and struggled for years with defining its purpose and finding an audience. Some shows enjoyed moderate success, but their most successful hosts, like Rachel Maddow, Mike Malloy and Randi Rhodes, found that they could be more successful on competing networks which were better managed, paid regularly and appealed to a broader audience. After a financial scandal and massive losses Air America declared bankruptcy in 2006 and was taken over by Green Family Media who attempted to make the network more professional and attract major-name hosts like Montel Williams and Ariana Huffington. In 2007 they attempted to expand syndication through a partnership with the Westwood One radio network.

Despite all these efforts, Air America continued to lose money and could not attract advertisers, with 10 consecutive quarters in the red through 2008 and 2009. Their best talent kept drifting away and they finally lost their longest-running show when Thom Hartmann left to join the Dial Global Network in 2009. In addition, very few stations were willing to carry their full schedule of programming, with most affiliates only picking up a few of the most popular shows. With an average 1.3 share for the network there just didn't appear to be a market for Air America anywhere but in a few very left-leaning cities like Portland, Oregon and Madison, Wisconsin.

At the end there were fewer than 20 stations nationwide carrying the full Air America lineup, a dismayingly low number for what started as an ambitious attempt to challenge the domination of the talk radio airwaves by the political right. Rush Limbaugh is currently carried on over 500 stations. In six years on the air the total revenue earned by Air America was less than Rush Limbaugh's salary for a single year.

Critics attribute the failure of Air America to many contributing causes. Obviously top among them is the ongoing history of financial mismanagement, but ironically the political dominance of Democrats in Congress and the White House also played a large role. It is much easier to play the role of political critic and gadfly when your enemies are in power. In addition, the shrill and unpleasant tone of the much of the programming on Air America may have alienated many potential listeners, an increasing problem as their best personalities left for bigger and better things, with Al Franken serving in the Senate and Rachel Maddow hosting on MSNBC.

I know it seems trivial given the scale of the tragedy in Haiti, but Pat Robertson’s remarks about the causes of the earthquake on The 700 Club yesterday are really so remarkably idiotic that I can’t let them go without commenting.

In a repeat of the twisted logic which caused Robertson to blame hurricane Katrina on Ellen Degeneres hosting the Emmy awards and his earlier statements that the attacks of 9/11 were God’s vengeance on homosexuals, Robertson declared that Haiti was hit with this devastating earthquake and has previously suffered years of oppression and poverty primarily because of a pact the Haitian people made with the devil over 300 years ago.

After making his bizarre remarks and receiving criticism in the media for sounding like an absolute lunatic, later in the day Robertson’s staff issued a statement; not apologizing as one would expect, but rather outlining the details of his Deus Irae theory of earthquakes:

“On today’s The 700 Club, during a segment about the devastation, suffering and humanitarian effort that is needed in Haiti, Dr. Robertson also spoke about Haiti’s history. His comments were based on the widely-discussed 1791 slave rebellion led by Boukman Dutty at Bois Caiman, where the slaves allegedly made a famous pact with the devil in exchange for victory over the French. This history, combined with the horrible state of the country, has led countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed.”

Presumably those scholars teach at Bob Jones University, Oral Roberts University or Liberty Baptist College in their respective departments of Eschatology, Theurgy and Creation Science.

The scary thing is that there are people who actually listen to Pat Robertson and take what he says seriously. Even with his long history of bizarre statements and repeated claims that the apocalypse is just around the corner, millions watch his show and presumably share his delusion. Many of them even voted for him in the Republican primary a few years ago.

Perhaps we ought to establish a new kind of literacy test for voting. If you take Pat Robertson seriously then you are too crazy or too stupid to be allowed to vote. Why not just turn off The 700 Club and instead of sending money to televangelists, send it to the Red Cross to actually help the people of Haiti. I know you might miss the first American witch trials in 300 years or perhaps a live exorcism, but your mind and your soul will be better for it.

A lot of attention has been directed at the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat representing Massachusetts in the Senate, but one aspect of the race which has been simmering beneath the surface is the split which it has generated within the coalition that makes up the Tea Party movement. Although the main contenders in the race are Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Martha Coakley, there is also a credible and widely popular libertarian running as an independent challenger.

Joe Kennedy bills himself as "The Tea Party Candidate" and has attracted a lot of attention because of his name and the possibility that it may draw substantial votes from Coakley, even though he is not related to the Kennedy family in any way. He is currently polling at between 5% and 10% of the vote, with some indication that he is drawing votes mostly from Coakley, bringing her numbers down enough so that Brown is within a couple of percentage points of winning and becoming the first Republican to hold that seat since John F. Kennedy defeated Henry Cabot Lodge in 1953.

It's an interesting scenario, but one which we've seen in other races where a libertarian or an independent does well enough to change the possible outcome of an important election. But from the perspective of those in the Tea Party movement it has become much more controversial, almost a struggle for the identity of the movement.

Kennedy calls himself "The Tea Party Candidate" because he is endorsed by the Boston Tea Party, one of the original Tea Party activist groups associated with the Ron Paul 2008 presidential campaign. He is also endorsed by the state Libertarian Party and even has some support among liberty Republicans, both groups who were central to the original grassroots Tea Parties.

However, other elements of the Tea Party movement have chosen to support Republican candidate Scott Brown, even though his record on issues they are concerned about is weak. The Tea Party Express has officially endorsed Brown. It is a group founded by Howard Kaloogian which has attracted a lot of mainstream Republicans and is viewed as suspect by many grassroots activists. The Tea Party Patriots, who are backed by FreedomWorks and are frequently accused of being shills for big business interests have also shown strong support for Brown, as has Tea Party Nation which is a coalition of far right social conservatives, nativists and extremist groups associated with the Tea Parties. Even many members of Ron Paul's nonpartisan Campaign for Liberty are pushing Brown.

None of these groups who are supporting Brown are terribly enthusiastic about his record or his positions on issues. Many of them would support Kennedy in a second if he was running as a Republican challenger to Brown and had a chance of getting elected. Some of the more socially conservative groups have no candidate they like in the race at all. Yet all of these Tea Party associated groups have abandoned the candidate with genuine Tea Party credentials to support Brown because it is a better political strategy. They may not like Brown much, but if he can win a Senate seat from Massachusetts that's such a huge blow to the Democrats and would do so much to weaken the efforts to pass Obamacare that they are biting the bullet and promote a candidate who they wouldn't give a second look in another circumstance.

In return, Brown has really embraced the Tea Party label and has borrowed their message and many of their ideas in pushing his candidacy. This raises the hope for those who are reluctantly supporting him that some of that rhetoric will stick with him once he gets in office and he will be a better representative for the people than he would have been without their support, either by being educated from his association with the Tea Party movement or out of a sense that he owes something to them for putting him in office.

All of this seems pretty unfair for Joe Kennedy who really is a good candidate with solid credentials and interesting ideas and a more authentic Tea Party platform. Some of his supporters are taking it personally. There is already a lot of resentment among more libertarian Tea Party activists against some of the more mainstream and often better-funded groups which have become involved. They are seen as corporate shills or interlopers from the Republican party or opportunists trying to cash in on Tea Party momentum. There is fear that they will take over the movement and resentment that they give the left-leaning media a basis to criticize the movement as a whole as illegitimate.

The groups which have stuck with Kennedy are the ones which are most ideologically driven and which put ideals and principles ahead of political pragmatism. But this sort of misses the whole point of the Tea Party movement, which is to actually influence government and implement changes in policy. You can't change anything with candidates who can't get elected, no matter how great they are. It's the old, old argument of whether or not to take the lesser of two evils, and one element of the Tea Party movement has decided that evil is still evil and utterly unacceptable while the rest have taken the position that less evil is better than more evil.

It is certainly true that Martha Coakley is "more evil." Not only is she guaranteed to vote with the Democrat establishment on health care, bailouts and other issues, but seeing that Brown has welcomed the Tea Party groups into his campaign network, she has been hammering him on that association relentlessly, a tactic which may actually have backfired, driving more grassroots support and money to Brown.

Borrowing a leaf from the Tea Party's book, Brown launched a fundraising "money bomb" on Monday with the goal of raising $750,000. At the end of the day he surprised everyone by having raised $1.3 million, giving his warchest a huge boost at a time when the election is only a week away and Coakley's larger initial funds have almost run out.

Brown is now only two points behind in the latest poll, which has put even more pressure on the Tea Party groups, because if Kennedy could be persuaded to withdraw that would very likely give Brown the votes he needs to win. All over the blogosphere Tea Party activists are haranguing each other over this issue, arguing principles vs. pragmatism and getting very hot under the collar. Ultimately it comes down to Joe Kennedy, and it seems unlikely that having taken his campaign this far he would withdraw and throw his support to Brown at this late date.

It is an irony of our political system that everyone concerned about this situation at the grassroots level knows that Kennedy is the better candidate and one who represents their interests much more completely. At the end of the day, however, that's not enough when the issues at play are so important and the stakes are so high. Some in the Tea Party movement will never accept this, but it's a reality they are going to have to face again and again in the upcoming nationwide election cycle, and that clash between ideals and reality may very well tear the Tea Party movement apart.

This week the Texas State Board of Education will be meeting to consider recommendations from a review panel tasked with looking at revisions for the history curriculum and textbooks in the state's public schools. Since the days of Mel and Norma Gabler, this periodic process has been the focus of national attention because the Texas school system is so large that its decisions dictate what publishers will put in their books and what school districts around the country will do with their curricula.

While the Gablers censorship efforts focused mostly on trying to muddy the biology curriculum with creationism and remove suggestive material from the English texts, the focus of their successors has shifted to something closer to my personal area of concern, the issue of whether the United States was formed as a "Christian Nation."

Among the many attempts to revise history to fit a political agenda, the efforts of Christian extremists to distort the intentions of our nation's founders are particularly pernicious. Contrary to the writings of the founders, from their personal journals and letters to the key founding documents of the nation, these fanatical propagandists would have us believe that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who were outspoken in their disdain for organized religion, intended for the United States to be a Christian theocracy.

This is the "Big Lie" for the ages, issued by people who believe that if they can redefine the past they can control the nation's future. They know that liberty is based on truth and believe that if they can change the truth they can then destroy liberty and essentially rewrite the Constitution. They've seen how the political left has used the schools and the teachers unions to try to sway rising generations and they see this as their opportunity to do the same.

Most troubling is that the Texas State Board of Education, which has an enormously important responsibility to safeguard the educations of the nation's children, has put people on the panel which is reviewing history textbooks who are either grossly unqualified for the job or driven by agendas which are hostile to the truth. Three of the six members are legitimate academics, but the other three represent interests whose priority is not historical accuracy.

Professor Daniel Dreisbach of American University is at least an academic, though he is not a trained as a historian. He has written several books attempting to distort Thomas Jefferson's beliefs regarding the separation of church and state and dispute the accepted interpretation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. David Barton is the head of a group called WallBuilders which basically has the agenda of turning America into a Christian theocracy. Barton uses very selective sources and quotes taken out of context to try to make his argument that the U.S. was founded as a vehicle for religion-based government. Reverend Peter Marshall is an evangelical preacher who has said "We're in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America, and the record of American history is right at the heart of it." These three revisionists see their role on this panel as being to rewrite history with the express goal of putting an end to the principle of the separation of church and state, contrary to the intent of the founders and the best interests of our modern, religiously impartial nation.

I have no argument with those who want to change the emphasis of the text books to focus more on the religious groups who came to America to avoid persecution. That's a legitimate area of study which has been neglected in recent textbook editions. I think that their ideas and especially those of some of their greatest forgotten leaders like Roger Williams, who wrote "forced religion stinks in God's nostrils," ought to get more exposure. Yet even those puritans believed vehemently in the idea of the separation of church and state. They moved to America expressly for the purpose of removing themselves from a state which sought to dictate how they should worship. The wisest among them, like Roger Williams and William Penn were absolute in their belief in religious toleration and freedom of faith.

Just as we ought to give fair and honest coverage to the role which faith played in bringing people to America in their struggle for religious and political freedom, we have to give fair recognition to the influence of the enlightenment and the move away from organized religion and towards a more rational view of the universe. It was that trend which led to the new political ideas which inspired the revolution and were the basis of the government of new nation, and while they may have included a respect for the moral values of Christianity, they also included a strong suspicion of and even hostility towards organized religion and especially state-sponsored religion.

As a historian I find any effort to propagandize history by any group to be troubling. We have already seen the political left trying to subvert the curriculum and filling the heads of our children with arrant nonsense and Marxist ideology. But it is no better to undermine education with lies from the right than it is with lies from the left. Religious indoctrination has no place in the schools. Textbooks and course plans should be based on historical fact, not revisionist fantasy. Those who would rewrite history are enemies of liberty and are using the tactics of tyrants to attack the foundation of our constitutional republic.

The Texas State Board of Education doesn't get a lot of attention until an issue like this comes around, but this week they will face protesters on both sides of this issue and pressure from groups with agendas to promote. I hope that they will try to listen to the voices of history and to the wisdom of the founders of this nation rather than the advocates of extremism and theocracy.

I get emails almost daily from Ken Mercer’s campaign for reelection to the Texas State Board of Education. In light of the attempts to corrupt the history curriculum in our schools by an “expert” who he sponsored, I felt I had to write him a letter:

Ken:

I had been considering supporting your reelection campaign because your opponent seems like a sham and an opportunist, but on hearing that you’re partially responsible for giving this fanatic Dan Barton a role in the textbook selection process I’m having second thoughts. As a historian I am deeply troubled by the attempt to alter our history texts and curriculum to promote a false and propagandistic version of the founding of this nation. Our most notable founders like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams saw organized religion as a major threat to liberty and would be enraged that the SBOE is giving any credence to the lies which Dan Barton promotes.

We have had enough trouble in our schools with the political left and the teachers unions filling the heads of our students with arrant nonsense and marxist ideology. However, to commit the same crimes against truth in the name of Christianity is just as unacceptable. When truth is destroyed then liberty will be the next casualty. The Republican Party has a history of standing up for the truth in the face of unprincipled opposition, and you shame the party and its ideals when you support those who would teach lies to our children and to children nationwide, adopting the tactics of tyrants in a covert assault on our constitutional Republic.

I hope you will consider how important it is that our children be given a fair and balanced view of history based on events and facts rather than any revisionist agenda, whether from the atheistic left or the theocratic right.

Dave Nalle
Precinct Chairman, Travis County Precinct 105

I have no idea if he’ll pay any attention to a lowly precinct chair, but if he persists in giving fanatics a platform for their efforts to indoctrinate our children with a curriculum of lies I will do everything I can to defeat him in the Republican primary and in the general election if necessary.

Dave