make that lemon with the C-J's Tea (Party)

Some good points from the C-J editorialists, but they ignore other points-- and their scope-- and are thus, unnecessarily soured on today's protests...

Yes, many Americans are uncomfortable with the high cost to taxpayers of the bailouts. Yes, many Americans feel the spending is out of control, and that they have little control over how national leaders are handling the economic crisis. We get that.

Question: Where was all this outrage when the nation's savings account was opened and the dollars were flying out, when the nation's credit card was being swiped again and again to pay for wars that weren't even showing up in the nation's budget? Suddenly, there's a new president and, boom, instant tea parties.

Actually, there was protest-- from more stringent fiscal conservatives-- when the problem was smaller. Sure, I wish more people had been excited then, but that's not the way it works. Now that the problem is much bigger, many more people are interested. Is that really so difficult to understand? Being enamored with Obama is clouding their vision here...

We also have a historical beef. At the heart of the Boston Tea Party, which has inspired today's tea motif, was the reality of taxation without representation; the colonists were being ripped off by the British government, not their own. We have representation. If enough of us feel they're ripping us off, we have the right to overturn them every couple of years, and we just did that.

Yes and no. In practice, it's not nearly that easy! And perhaps the Tea Party is the beginning of an effort to displace our pathetic Congress in 2010, yes?

That said, the C-J'ers are correct in that taxation without representation was key-- and that it's not an issue today. But as the old Walter Williams joke goes: how do you like it with representation? The taxes protested in 18th century Boston were puny compared to what we face today. Surely, the CJ'ers understand that taking far, far more money might be worthy of protest-- even with "representation".

Instead, it would have been nice to see the C-J complain about other taxes-- especially those (like cigarette and payroll taxes) that pound a group they claim to champion, the (working) poor.

We'll pass. We're a little sour on this whole, stagy thing, which means we'll be taking lemon with our own tea today.

I'll be there! See you soon!

At the end of the day, the C-J editorialist can't be there because he/she is a statist and can't generate enough excitement about any tax, even when it harms the poor.