Deathbed Converts

Ace and Bill Sher face off in The Hill's pundits blog to debate whether the Tea Party is a flash in the pan or a long term movement.  Sher's position boils down to SOS-the Tea Party consists of a bunch of racists fueled by hatred of black president.  The position is more wishful thinking (how sad is that?) than reality and not worth much consideration.  On the other hand, Ace spoke directly to why I became involved in the Tea Party movement.  Ace:

For the Tea Party, spending discipline is not merely an economic issue but a moral one, inasmuch as we leave our children a legacy not of hard-earned bounty but rather of irresponsible debt. And, too, it is a moral idea much similar to cleanliness is next to Godliness -- our inability to propose a plausible budget and live within our actual means is an indulgence demonstrating a fundamental unseriousness about our civic duties as Americans. Year after year our Congress leaves its budgetary business half-completed at best with a note to future generations: "You figure the rest of this out, and you pay the price of our inability to do our jobs.”

It’s that moral dimension that gives the Tea Party passion. This isn’t just numbers. It’s not about money. (Although, as is always the case, anytime something is said to be not about money, of course, it’s largely about money.) But it’s about our duty as Americans to do as each generation of Americans has done before us – to do our duty, well and without complaint, and leave the country more prosperous than we found it.

My own conversion from a "card carrying Republican" to a Conservative and Tea Party activist could be likened to a deathbed conversion.  I consistently voted for the Republican candidates because the Republican Party was the party of life and national defense.  I may have grumbled, privately, when my party backed policies that were fiscally irresponsible but I sucked up any misgivings because I believed that even the worst Republican was better than any Democrat.  Then, at lightning speed, while I meandered through my comfortable little life, my country plunged deep in to debt and as a matter of policy just kept spending.  Hallelujah, I saw the light!
 
This country can not continue on its current spending spree and I suddenly realized that if I continued to vote for every (R) on the ballot without holding them accountable for the decisions that they make on my behalf then the moral is failing is mine.  It is my grandchildren who will live in a diminished society if I am too lazy to stand up.  
 
I am now taking responsibility for my citizenship and the Tea Party is my mentor.  It is the Tea Party that I look to for support.  Because of the Tea Party I am not alone and I have a voice.  
 
Sen. Lindsey Graham believes that we will die out.  No, he hopes against hope that we will die out.  He is one of those (R)'s that took our vote for granted but he can't do that anymore and he is fighting back.  He is fighting for the status quo.  He can be dismissive all day long but would he have pulled out of Cap & Trade were it not for the Tea Party?  Graham has a long history of supporting amnesty, but he is pretty darn quiet about it now.  Sen. Graham wants the Tea Party to go away and let him get back to business as usual. 
 
We are not going anywhere.  We have seen what happens when the political class is allowed to function unchecked.