The soi-disant “Tea Party Express” has come up with a stupid idea: raise $700,000 to offer to Bart Stupak to resign.
“If Bart Stupak is considering resigning then we want to do what we can to help him along in that decision. Exchanging your votes, principles and decisions for money seems to be the modus operandi for Bart Stupak. So how do we find $700,000 to get this corrupt and failed politician out of office, so that we can get a representative of the people, who respects the Constitution, to take Stupak’s seat?” asked Mark Williams, Chairman of the Tea Party Express.
I understand the thought, but it’s still stupid. Paying Danegeld only makes the “Dane” go away until he wants some more. Although Kipling was speaking of nations paying “protection money” to aggressors, the principle’s the same,
Danegeld
IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
“We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:“We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”
Excellently appropriate poem!
Thx, Nicole.
VERY apropos, David. This ploy, though well-intentioned, will backfire on the TEA Party. Stupak is done, and he knows it. I heard he isn’t running just this morning. Why pay?
Yeh, well of course there is no “THE Tea Party” although the TPE and other groups are trying to make themselves the leaders of THE Tea Party, “The Tea Party” is a loose conglomeration of local, mostly ad hoc, groups that for the most part eschew being A “party” as we have come to think of political parties. The TPE’s arrogance and self-proclaimed assumption of leadership may boost it to prominence, but I doubt it’ll become THE Tea Party any time soon, partly because of stunts like this.