> The problems that most Americans have is that they are no Newtons. Newton
> realized that he could see farther because he stood on the shoulders of
> giants. Most Americans are oblivious to that - these nullities imagine that
> they have standards of living never before achieved because they
> individually and singlehandedly produced them - and they would have even
> more if it were not for the tax "burden."
There's a perhaps relevant post on the the TP mindset that I found here (with some discussion):
http://cruelmistress.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/deal-with-the-devil/
The post:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/the-very-angry-tea-party/?hp
[....]
What has gripped everyone’s attention is the exorbitant character of the anger Tea Party members express. Where do such anger and such passionate attachment to wildly fantastic beliefs come from?
My hypothesis is that what all the events precipitating the Tea Party movement share is that they demonstrated, emphatically and unconditionally, the depths of the absolute dependence of us all on government action, and in so doing they undermined the deeply held fiction of individual autonomy and self-sufficiency that are intrinsic parts of Americans’ collective self-understanding.
The implicit bargain that many Americans struck with the state institutions supporting modern life is that they would be politically acceptable only to the degree to which they remained invisible, and that for all intents and purposes each citizen could continue to believe that she was sovereign over her life; she would, of course, pay taxes, use the roads and schools, receive Medicare and Social Security, but only so long as these could be perceived not as radical dependencies, but simply as the conditions for leading an autonomous and self-sufficient life. Recent events have left that bargain in tatters.
[...]
Tea Party anger is, at bottom, metaphysical, not political: what has been undone by the economic crisis is the belief that each individual is metaphysically self-sufficient, that one’s very standing and being as a rational agentowes nothing to other individuals or institutions.
[....]
-- Andy