It is tempting to hate the tea party people but, if I did so, I would just be like them

Watching the fiscal crisis in Washington this weekend has been tough. I am furious to see how the Tea Party has hijacked the Republican party for their own selfish and racist purposes.

But I understand tea party philosophy even though I don't accept it. They want to dramatically reduce the size of government and its programs...unless they benefit from it. They, with their good buddies at Fox News, have tried to whip up anger about the country's allegedly high taxes when in reality federal taxes are historically low levels. They try to blame the recession and Wall Street shenanigans on Obama even though W should bear most of the blame. They talk about Obama beingin socialist and how they want their country back, when they really don't like black people and don't want one as their president. And they talk about how America has changed too much, including how gay people have the audacity to think they are God's children, too, and deserve to be treated equally, including getting married.

But the tea party politicians (Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, etc) and their supporters don't think too deeply about these matters. Besides their lack of compassion for their fellow man (and the Christian idea that we all are connected and our brother's keeper), I find their of lack of critical thinking to be the most insulting thing about them. They badly distort the facts to fit their view of the world.

I am all for trimming government programs that don't work or reforming other things about government. I also favor fiscal responsibility, and my family and I live like fiscal conservatives, not just talk like it. And while I don't like to pay or see my taxes raised but I realize that need to pay for everything for our society. It is simple math. The fallacy of the Tea Party movement and Reaganomics is the belief in magical shortcuts. By somehow cutting taxes with the Prop 13 in 1970s and in 2000 when George W cut taxes for everyone, including and especially the rich, that in the long-term we are still going to be able to pay for everything the country needs and made us great. The reason Reagan and Bush were able to cut taxes is that in the previous decades the country had invested in infrastructure, education, and other programs, and the state and country could coast for a few years without additional investment in those areas. But look at California now after decades of Prop 13 and Republican tax cuts...the golden state is a lot less appealing. Sometimes we need to cut taxes but this period is not one of them.

America has seen demagogue movements before and this latest one will not be the last. So I am going to breath deeply and tolerate their right to their opinions and political actions, not because I am a saint, because I am a true believer in a pluralistic democracy, I believe that the tea partiers are also God's children (no matter how delusional), and I don't want to be as intolerant as the people who hate me.