A good friend sent me a New York Times article that attempted to explain away the anger exhibited by the Tea Party. Using a lot of high-falutin' language, this professor and author basically said the Tea Party is mad because they can't count on the government to be their generous Uncle Sam any more.

This is my response.

I don't buy it. The anger in the Tea Party comes from a couple of sources: the very name reveals one source: Taxed Enough Already. Our government, from the local to the federal, has become a bloated beast that has accumulated more debt than can ever be paid. The only way to pay this debt (which apparently they don't plan to do) is to tax us all at 100 percent, but that would completely destroy the economy. The only way out of this is to default on the debt and start over with a new currency. Tea Party Members see this coming, and they are mourning the loss of the greatest nation the world has ever seen.

Another source of anger is, it didn't have to happen. If the Federal Reserve and our corrupt government officials had maintained the sound fiscal policies (money backed with gold and silver, not fiat currency) set up by our founding fathers, this would not have been possible.

And, it isn't just the destruction of our currency. The government at all levels has gone from being the protector of our rights to the theif of them. Property owners no longer own their property: eminent domain has been used all over the country to strip owners of their rights and take their land, often to give it to insiders for private development. The EPA has been used to strip property owners of their rights to use their land as they see fit. Most Tea Party members know people who have lost land or the use of it to one government level or another.

And, it's not just land and property. We don't have the authority to raise our children as we see fit anymore. The "nanny state" knows that we should not own guns, we should vaccinate our children with whatever big pharma says we should, we can't spank our children or discipline them when they need it. The "nanny state" knows best, and parents who disagree lose their children. Yet still, with all the abuses of the nanny state, children die from accidents or abuse at the hands of caregivers every year. These stories are magnified all over the news to give the nanny state more credence and authority.

So, the extreme anger exhibited by the Tea Party is not that of a jilted lover. It is that of a populace who has seen their freedom, autonomy and authority gradually stripped away year after year, and they are saying "ENOUGH." Most of us would like to see 95% of our federal government eradicated, and taken back down to the limits imposed in the Constitution. Would this be painful? YES. But the direction we are headed in is far worse.