Newton's Law- To every force there is an equal and opposing force. If we assume this axiom to be true then we can conclude that the anarchists in the Tea Party movement are the equal but opposite force of the socialist Democrats. Too harsh? Let's take a look, shall we?
All throughout the ages, when one movement has seemingly gained too much influence in the hearts and minds of the masses, an opposing force comes to combat it and eventually takes its place as the dominating factor. I'm going to focus on Western culture simply because I'm more knowledgeable about it. (If you have a problem with this, please write an accompanying article focusing on Eastern, African, Latin etc culture and I will direct people to it.)
During the Dark Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire, basic knowledge such as reading and writing was limited to those in the church. (Does not apply outside Western Europe). The counterrevolutionary force was The Enlightenment. Upper-class white men all of a sudden were required to use reason to gain knowledge as opposed to religion. Reason was valued above any other quality. If something could not be scientifically explained, then it had no value in society. After many years of the Enlightenment being the dominating way of thinking, the Romantic era came about in opposition to the Enlightenment. The Romantics said that there was more to life and more ways of looking at the world than simply through the cold, unfeeling scientific lens. So their movement focused on feelings and emotions and beauty and "sublime". Skip ahead a few years to after the Holocaust and World War 2. What happened in the world of theater? You had plays like "Waiting for Godot" coming out. Plays that wander about seemingly without any kind of direction or point. Plays that ask the question "What if this is it?" My professor was asking if a Christian, or any person with deeply held religious beliefs could bear waiting for nothing that could ever come. These sentiments sprang from a kind of hopelessness and disbelief that something like two world wars and the Holocaust could happen in a 'civilized' and 'modern' world. Generations died. How could this have happened?
Flash forward to 2010 and the mid-term elections that just passed. The anarchist Tea Party movement is calling for an end to socialist Democrats plans. I'm not going to support one or the other here. All I'm going to say is things are going to get really ugly really fast. And do you know who's going to suffer the most? Us. "We the people of the United States" are the ones who will continue to pay the price of our government's feuds. I'm not sure when they stopped working for us, or listening to us, but they did. Both Democrats and Republicans. Get ready for nothing to happen. Get ready for a lot of broken promises- more than usual; get ready for the end of America as we have known her for so long. No more will we be a country of progress and innovation but rather a country of stagnation, corruption, and only a small percentage of people living a decent life.
All the empires have fallen. Am I going to witness the fall of ours?
We all know what goes up must come down.
