#357 / The Three Branches

http://wallawallateapartypatriots.blogspot.com/2012/04/three-branches.html

The image in today's blog posting is from the Walla Walla Tea Party Patriots. Looks like they think that the Executive Branch is the main problem. In fact, they have "personalized" their governmental analysis just a bit, too. In downloading the photo to reproduce here, I discovered that the Walla Walla Tea Party Patriots have given this image an official title: "Obama_and_the_three_branches." The picture doesn't show what the ground looks like under the Judicial Branch, and the Legislative Branch, but I sure know what it feels like, down here!

As someone who majored in American history, with a particular emphasis on the Revolutionary period, I have to say that the Walla Walla folks don't seem actually to understand the governmental system that was created by those original Tea Party Patriots. On their Facebook Page, the Walla Walla Patriots say this, by way of their Mission Statement: 

WE THE PEOPLE remain firmly committed to the founding principles of these United States of America set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. 

WE THE PEOPLE believe that all are created equal, are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and have the right to own the fruits of their individual labors, unfettered by the self serving heavy hand of a power hungry government.

Here is what The Declaration of Independence actually says:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...

One of the main purposes of the Revolution was not to escape government. In fact, the Revolution's main intention was to create a new government, and a powerful one, too, but a government that would be under the control of the ordinary people.

If the Walla Walla Tea Party Patriots were interested in putting our existing government under the control of the ordinary people, I think I could be supportive!