Bitter tea

The tea party is dead.

The populist movement that called for smaller government, for all intents and purposes, has ceased to exist as a viable, autonomous entity; it’s been swallowed up by those who prefer to drink the Kool-Aid of the Republican Party’s extreme right wing.

That fact was obvious last week when Pharr minister Armando Vera was set upon by state tea party types who took exception to statements he made to one of our reporters suggesting that — horror of horrors — tea party members were capable of independent thought.

Vera created the Hispanic Tea Party in the Rio Grande Valley, telling our reporter in July that Anglos “don’t see the same perspective as Hispanics.”

“It was necessary to develop the Hispanic Tea Party to raise these voices (of) other Hispanics,” Vera said.

He also understood the reasoning behind the DREAM Act, which would enable foreign nationals who came to this country as children to secure legal residency and seek U.S. citizenship if they served in the U.S. military or pursued higher education.

“We should defend the rights of these students who are innocent,” Vera said in July. “They were brought by their parents, didn’t decide to come and live in this country. Now they want what everyone else does: A chance.”

Days later, members of the San Antonio and McAllen tea parties contacted our editors demanding a correction, and later issuing their own statement of position on Vera’s behalf.

Last week those officials flanked the pastor as he talked again to our reporter. Their heavy hand was evident as they forced the discussion, repeatedly interrupting Vera and apparently putting words into his mouth.

Before one interruption, Vera was able to say that he’d received criticism from people across the country who called themselves tea party members. They took umbrage that his position on the DREAM Act was similar to that of U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, who was quoted in the original article independently of Vera.

It appears that the good reverend was castigated for appearing in the same article as the liberal Hinojosa, something that was our decision, not Vera’s.

The Tea Party originally grew from 2009 demonstrations against high taxation and inefficient government. Because its members said they opposed tyranny and their adopted patron saint was Ron Paul, a true libertarian, many Americans hoped they finally would see a movement that supported both the conservatives’ opposition to high taxation and the liberals’ support for social freedoms. Sadly, that didn’t happen.

Libertarians recognize that people should have the freedom to act as they wish, as long as they don’t encroach on the rights of others. We’ve seen in recent months tea partyers’ demand that candidates sign pledges that they will take certain stances. Now, to rob a man — an ordained minister — the freedom to speak his own mind is the height of tyranny.

This could be why the tea party’s popularity, which was two-thirds positive during the 2010 elections, has fallen to 46 percent in a recent Associated Press-GfK poll.

It’s a shame that after such a promising start, the tea party, like the Reform Party and other grassroots movements before it, has been ripped asunder by zealots who are enemies of individual freedoms. “Tea party” has now become little more than a euphemism for the far right wing.

Let’s hope the next grassroots movement — and there will be others — will have the strength to withstand the deadly infiltration by the tyrannical right.