Astroturf!

This is my new favorite word. AstroTurf. Say it with me...

Alright, so why is this my new favorite word? Well, whilst Fox News and Friends were fomenting their so-called 'Tea Party Movement' they continually referred to this mental masturbation (apologies, but it fits) as a "grass roots" movement. Considering how much effort they put into it, the sheer ingenuousness is...well, staggering. In any case, this silliness did not escape the notice of a certain New York Times Op-Ed columnist and the man coined what I think is beyond a doubt the single most important new socio-political term of the decade. He referred to the antics of the 'teabaggers' (their own term, insanely enough) as an AstroTurf movement, meaning, obviously, fake grass roots.

Taking the importance of words into full consideration, this is a perfectly elegant and appropriate term to describe this sort of idiocy. Say it with me now, "AstroTurf!"

That taken into firm and full consideration, let us move on the content of this...I hesitate to call it a movement. 'Motion' seems infinitely more accurate. Specifically, lets examine the people involved and their erstwhile cause. Why 'erstwhile'? Perhaps I'm uncharitable but I rather doubt that the majority of the rabble involved actually understand what they've been roped into and I have my doubts about the faculties of at least two of them, but we'll come to that fetid little gem elsewhere.

To be completely fair and forthright, I understand completely the argument against large, powerful, intrusive, pervasive central authorities. On the one hand it is the tendency of power to corrupt and on the other, artificial mechanisms left to their own devices (pardon the pun) have a habit of failing spectacular. First, lets examine the matter of power.

Obviously we mean official, governmental power, as vested by the state in an individual. The Romans called it Imperium and it is the root of many of the most frightening words in the language. Central authorities have historically used their power to control, exploit and otherwise run roughshod over The People. Ultimately only one, imperfect method has been found for preventing this sort of thing and that my friends is what we call democracy.

It started with Greeks; the roots of the word we know are 'demos' (people) and 'kratie' (rule). The principle is simple and was adopted by the Romans later on; power must be divided and renewed with votes. As a matter of historical honesty, neither Rome nor Greece were what we'd call free, democratic societies. Women did not vote, slavery was commonplace and gaining access to the franchise was difficult or impossible if you weren't a native. Still, you have to start somewhere and this was the beginnings of the end to the absolute authority of tyrants, even if it took a few thousand years and repeated periods of imperial or feudal totalitarian despotism.

The other major gripe against central authority comes from the rather recent creation of vast, mechanistic bureaucracies. As always, I chose my words. When I say 'mechanistic', I am referring to the volumes upon volumes of regulations, directives, instructions, rules, guidelines and other behavior/action determining constructions that have little or no actual human decision making involved. They are to thoughts and deeds what holes are to a punch-card. In many ways these are good and useful things; they ensure a more-or-less unbiased and equitable execution of justice. Unfortunately, by taking the thinking out of action they can also reduce people to bits in a vast mechanistic process without regard to extenuating circumstances and subjecting them to all manner of cruelty simply because, "those are the rules."

A brilliant writer named Frank Herbert once said, through a character in his stories, "Man must never submit to machines." He was referring there to science fiction robots and artificial intelligences. The same can and must be held true of the mechanisms we craft to help manage our increasingly complicated societies.

So now we have addressed the two primary (and very much valid) arguments against the large, powerful, etc governments suggested above. So why would our national Founders create such an entity then? Because a diverse, widespread, interdependent society requires an underpinning of laws to give people a stable framework for dealing with each other, without resorting to constant, petty, interfamilial warfare. Sound ridiculous? Consider the Italian city-states of the Renaissance.

The fact is we did try it the other way. We started off with a weak central government that had little scope, less power and it proved completely ineffective. With most power in the hands of the states, the federal government couldn't get anything done, in part for want of money and in part because the states would frequently just refused to comply with its instructions. As a result, nothing useful got done and commerce was difficult between the states and all but impossible beyond them. So the Founders got back together again and started over. The second effort was what we call The Constitution and was a much greater success. It empowered the central government, without striping the states of all authority, balancing them against each other. Most importantly was the clause which stated, exclusively that those power not explicitly granted to the federal government were granted to the states, instead of simply being assumed. Important distinction here from the rest of the world at the time.

What so many of the people presently calling themselves 'teabaggers' seem to have trouble with is that, part and parcel to our Constitution, the whole shebang includes the ability to change the rules. Who has the power to do so? Our elected officials.

This is the crux of it; these people are 'protesting' a government that they voted for. Either A: you voted for the losers, or B: you voted for the winners who are now not doing what you want. In the first case, you were outvoted. It happens and is the basic principle of democracy. In the second, you need to remind your horse who's really in charge. Failing that, you might consider putting your money where your mouth is and run for office yourself.