The fundamental trouble with Washington today is arrogance. Those who live and work in and around the Beltway are afflicted with the misconception that without their enlightened guidance and personal intervention, the rest of the country would be lost. Citizens at a local level, especially simple country-folk in dark corners like the ‘Footloose state’, are not equipped for political debate at the levels those in Washington are accustomed to.
Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks is a perfect example of the arrogance of today’s Washington. Last week Matt traveled to Utah in order to vet possible candidates for Utah’s 2012 Senate race, which he has determined Orrin Hatch not to be suited to win. Prior to that, Matt pulled FreedomWorks out of the 2011 Tea Party Express bus tour because he personally objected to allowing Mitt Romney to present his ideas to the Tea Party crowd.
At their core, the Conservative and tea Party movements are a repudiation of this ridiculous conceit! They are expressions of the realization by millions of Americans that we are not only capable of making decisions for ourselves, but that it is preferable to leave political and economic decisions in the hands of those closest to the questions at hand than it is to place those questions in a suggestion box and ship them off to Washington.
It is time for Matt Kibbe and FreedomWorks to get on the conservative bandwagon and to recognize that we don’t need beltway babysitters telling us who we should vote for or who we should listen to any more than we need an Obama appointed nanny helping us select a healthcare service provider. As much as Kibbe would like to be the Maximilien Robespierre of the Tea Party revolution and use his elite Beltway wisdom to guide us towards the future he ‘s certain is right for us, we don’t need his guidance or interference. We’re quite capable of thinking for ourselves!